Eve Carson murder case timeline of events

Eve Carson, a 22-year-old native of Athens, Ga., was shot and killed in the early hours of March 5, 2008, and left dead on a street near the UNC campus. Trace the case from the very beginning using the timeline below:

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All information is based on North Carolina Superior and U.S. District court documents, 911 calls, autopsy results, public statements court proceedings and WRAL News reports.

August 2004:
Eve Marie Carson enters the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a freshman and a Morehead-Cain scholar.

Feb. 20, 2007:
Carson is elected student body president. In a runoff election, Carson beats opponent Nick Neptune 3,639 to 2,961. Carson garnered 40 percent of the initial vote and entered the runoff as the front-runner.

April 3:
Carson takes office as student body president. “I’ve loved UNC since my first week here,” she says. “This year will be a year of growth and inclusion.”

March 3, 2008:
Demario James Atwater, 21, appears in Wake County court for a probation hearing stemming from a Feb. 20 arrest, but the case is continued until March 31 because of a clerical error.

March 5, 2008:

Early morning – Atwater and Laurence Alvin Lovette Jr., 17, are allegedly on foot in the areas of Rosemary Street and Friendly Lane in Chapel Hill. Confidential informants have Atwater stating he and Lovette were looking for people to rob.

1:30 a.m. – Carson’s roommates go out, leaving Carson behind to study at their home on Friendly Lane.

3:35 a.m. – An e-mail on Carson’s computer is opened, presumably by Carson.

3:35 a.m. to 4 a.m. – Atwater and Lovette allegedly see lights on and blinds raised in Carson’s house. Confidential informants attribute Atwater as stating he and Lovette abducted Carson from inside the house. Others statements attributed to him indicate they might have acted as if their car had broken down and abducted Carson from outside her home.

Shortly before 4 a.m. to 5:08 a.m. – Carson’s ATM card is used at a Chapel Hill branch of Bank of America and later at a Durham bank. (In all, $1,400 is withdrawn from her bank account over a two-day period.)

Carson is presumably driven to Hillcrest Road and Hillcrest Circle, about a half-mile from the UNC campus, where she is shot four times with an Excam GT-27 .25-caliber semi-automatic pistol and once with a sawed-off Harrington & Richardson Topper-model 12-gauge shotgun.

She is shot in the right shoulder, right upper arm, right buttocks and right cheek and once at close range in the right temple. She also sustains a wound to her right hand – likely because she used it to cover her face.

5:08 a.m. – A caller to 911 reports hearing three gunshots and what sounds like “a female scream” three times.

Approximately 5:09 a.m. – Chapel Hill police find Carson lying in the road at Hillcrest Road and Hillcrest Circle. She is on her left side with her right arm bent behind her head.

Her identity is not known, and police reach out to the public for help in identifying the body.

March 6:
Chapel Hill police identify Carson.

Police obtain a warrant to seize Carson’s cell phone, which has been found at Eastgate Shopping Center on East Franklin Street – about 1.5 miles from the scene of her death.

In the hours following the news, thousands gather at Polk Place on the UNC campus for a memorial service and a candlelight vigil in The Pit.

Chancellor James Moeser characterizes Carson as “truly a gift to Chapel Hill” who “personified the Carolina spirit. … She felt the very pulse and heartbeat of this university.”

Chapel Hill police find Carson’s blue 2005 Toyota Highlander near the intersection of North and Hillsborough streets.

March 7:
Police begin circulating a photo of a possible suspect to law enforcement officials.

March 8:
Carson is remembered at the final regular-season matchup between the UNC Tar Heels and Duke Blue Devils at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham with a moment of silence before the game. Fans of both teams wear light-blue and white ribbons, and UNC basketball players each wear a black uniform patch that says “Eve.”

UNC establishes the Eve Marie Carson Memorial Fund “to celebrate and remember her love for the university and its students.”

Chapel Hill police ask the public for help in identifying a man in surveillance photos from a Chapel Hill bank where Carson’s ATM card was used.

March 9:
Carson is buried at First United Methodist Church in her hometown of Athens, Ga.

“The senseless murder of my sweet, sweet Eve is sadness defined, unfathomable and bottomless, but so appreciatively interrupted by each friend or family member who shares our grief,” her father, Bob Carson, says in written remarks shared at a memorial service.

Chapel Hill Police Chief Brian Curran says investigators believe a second person is in the back seat of the vehicle in the surveillance photos released a day earlier.

March 10:
Police release two new surveillance photographs from a convenience store where an attempt was made to use Carson’s ATM card inside the store.

March 12:
During a raid at a house on Rosedale Avenue, Durham police arrest Atwater, 21, of 414-B Macon St., at about 5 a.m. He is charged with first-degree murder. Chapel Hill police also issue an arrest warrant for Lovette, 17.

Police say Lovette has been identified as the driver of the vehicle in the ATM bank photo. Atwater is identified as the man in the convenience store photos

March 13:
Lovette, of 1213 Shepherd St., surrenders at 4:16 a.m. to authorities in Durham and is charged with first-degree murder in Carson’s death.

He is subsequently charged in the Jan. 18 shooting death of Duke University graduate student Abhijit Mahato, 29, who was shot between the eyes at point-blank range during a robbery at his off-campus apartment.

March 14:
Robert L. Guy, director of the Department of Correction's Division of Community Corrections, launches an internal investigation to determine why the system overlooked Atwater, on probation at the time of Carson’s death.

"We did not provide adequate supervision,” Guy said. “We did not do things timely."

Federal investigators open an investigation, and federal sources say they are looking at carjacking charges, which can carry a death penalty if prosecutors can prove the carjacking was committed during a homicide.

March 17:
A judge seals six search warrants in the case.

March 18:
UNC holds a memorial service at the Dean E. Smith Center to celebrate Carson's life. An estimated 10,000 people, including Carson's family and hometown friends, attend the event.

"Let us, today, shed our last moments of silence for Eve. For though she led her life fully, she was not able to lead a full life," former UNC student body president Seth Dearmin says. "From this point forward, we must speak loudly and act boldly. Eve's mantle has been passed to us.”

March 31:
An Orange County grand jury indicts Lovette and Atwater on first-degree murder charges.

April 23:
In a letter to Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall, U.S. Attorney Anna Mills Wagoner says she supports his motion to keep search warrants in the case sealed, saying unsealing them would be “detrimental to the federal investigation, which is ongoing.”

April 28:
In response to a Durham Herald-Sun motion, Woodall asks Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour to keep six search warrants in the case under seal, saying that releasing them could put informants in physical danger and that investigators need time to conduct more interviews without jeopardizing the case.

April 29:
Baddour rules the warrants must remain under seal because they contain information that could identify informants.

May 6:
At Woodall’s request, Baddour orders Carson’s autopsy report sealed. Woodall says details about her death could cause speculation about the significance of those details.

May 12:
The News & Observer files a motion opposing the sealing of Carson's autopsy.

May 21:
A report by Durham City Manager Patrick Baker reveals that Lovette should have been in jail at the time of Carson's slaying but was not because police didn't file appropriate charges against him during a November break-in.

June 27:
Search warrants indicate a confidential informant told investigators that Atwater admitted to abducting Carson from her home and that both he and Lovette shot her multiple times.

June 30:
Carson's autopsy report is released.

July 7:
An Orange County grand jury indicts Atwater on additional charges of first-degree kidnapping, robbery with a dangerous weapon, felonious larceny, possession of a firearm by a felon, felonious possession of stolen goods and possession of a weapon of mass death and destruction.

Lovette is indicted on additional charges of first-degree kidnapping, robbery with a dangerous weapon, felonious larceny and felonious possession of stolen goods.

Aug. 11:
Woodall announces he will seek the death penalty against Atwater.

A 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibits the execution of any defendant who was under 18 at the time of a crime, barring the death penalty for Lovette if he were convicted. The harshest punishment he could face would be life in prison without parole.

Oct. 27:
A federal grand jury indicts Atwater on a charge of carjacking resulting in death, which could allow federal authorities to seek a death penalty.

Jan. 16, 2009:
Federal prosecutors announce they will seek the death penalty against Atwater.
Since 1977, there have been three cases in which federal prisoners have been executed, including Timothy McVeigh for his role in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Jan. 30:
Atwater is indicted on federal charges of kidnapping and using firearms during and in relation to carjacking.

Feb. 13:
Federal prosecutors lay out their reasoning for seeking the death penalty. Among them: Eve Marie Carson was "particularly vulnerable" when Atwater "fired a single shotgun round from close range through the victim's hand and into her brain.”

November:
Atwater is scheduled to be tried in U.S. District Court on the federal charges. No trial date has been set for either suspect on the state charges.