Chancellor Lee Adams, the son of Rae Carruth, to graduate high school

Carruth got 18-to-24 years in prison for the killing of Cherica Adams, Chancellor's then-pregnant mom, to stop his arrival.

The 21-year-old son of disgraced former NFL star and convicted murderer Rae Carruth will graduate from Vance High School in Charlotte, North Carolina next month. The young man’s pending commencement is being celebrated in part due to the dark fact that his biological father helped murder his mother to prevent his birth.

Headlines like “Chancellor Lee Adams, the Son Rae Carruth Tried To Kill, is Now a Man Graduating High School” have trended for days since the noteworthy announcement. He is the now-adult surviving child of Cherica Adams, who was Carruth’s occasional girlfriend in 1999, when he conspired to kill her.

In 1999, former college and NFL wide receiver Rae Carruth (left) hired a hitman to kill Cherica Adams, who was pregnant with his son, Chancellor Lee Adams (right), at the time. Chancellor Lee Adams graduates from high school on June 5. (Photos by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images and Jamie Squire/Allsport)

Chancellor Adams suffers from permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy as a result of oxygen loss in the wake his mother’s Nov. 1999 drive-by shooting and eventual death. Cherica Adams, 24, saved her newborn son’s life by calling 911 from her vehicle immediately after she was shot, a haunting 12-minute dialogue published by The Charlotte Observer in 2018.

Chancellor, who was delivered by emergency C-section, has been raised by his grandmother, Saundra Adams.

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Carruth, a once-noted wide receiver from Sacramento who played for the University of Colorado Boulder Buffaloes on a football scholarship, was drafted first-round to the Carolina Panthers in 1997. Convicted by a North Carolina jury four years later of conspiring to murder his on-and-off love interest, the 47-year-old was released from prison in 2018.

As previously reported by TheGrio, “The third-year wide receiver was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, shooting into an occupied vehicle and using an instrument to destroy an unborn child. Adams died a month after she was shot and Carruth faced a first-degree murder charge, but he was found not guilty of that particular charge.”

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Carruth was sentenced to 18 to 24 years in 2001 and served his time in the Sampson Correctional Institution in Clinton, North Carolina. The infamous formerly-star player has expressed remorse for the killing and has since expressed a desire to form a relationship with his son.

Saundra Adams told The Charlotte Observer “I’m hoping that someone will tell him about this great milestone that Chancellor is reaching.” She said she has forgiven Carruth and his three co-conspirators in her daughter’s murder-for-hire plot. “And as always, I’m still open — maybe we can have some communication.”

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