Demario Atwater has pleaded guilty in the murder of UNC student Eve Carson. Atwater has been spared the death penalty, but he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The case against Atwater’s accomplice, Laurence Alvin Lovette, is still pending.
The N&O story reveals more details about this senseless crime.
It is not clear to investigators whether Carson was inside the home on Friendly Lane that she shared with several other students or just outside. Atwater told Love, his girlfriend, that he and his co-defendant had walked through the unlocked door of what they thought was a sorority house and found her working on her computer.
“Her computer had been used well after three o’clock,” Woodall said.
Laurence Alvin Lovette, 19, of Durham, also is accused of murder, kidnapping and robbery in the case. His case is pending, but Atwater could play a large role in the outcome.
In the hearing Monday, Woodall said Lovette’s DNA had been found in Carson’s Toyota Highlander.
..Investigators say Atwater and his co-defendant kidnapped Carson and forced her into her Highlander. They drove through Orange and Durham counties and forced Carson to withdraw $1,400 from automated teller machines before they shot her numerous times with a .25-caliber handgun and the sawed-off shotgun, investigators say.
Woodall said the medical examiner’s autopsy report showed that Carson was shot five times, with the first four shots from a small caliber handgun.
“The medical examiner believed she would have survived for some time after the first four shots,” Woodall said, “and she would have been able to talk.”
The fifth shot, from a sawed-off shotgun, was immediately fatal, according to Woodall. Atwater told Love that Carson was still alive after the first four shots. He also told his girlfriend that he fired the shotgun, Woodall added.
