Chancellor Lee Adams is graduating high school next weekend. Adams is the son of former Carolina Panthers player Rae Carruth, who infamously tried to have him killed before he was ever born.
The 21-year-old will walk the stage with Vance High School graduates on June 5 at Charlotte’s Bojangles’ Coliseum.
Way back in 1999, Cherica Adams was 10 weeks away from her due date when she was shot four times and killed by a hitman that Carruth hired. He was convicted and spent 17 years in prison before being released in 2018.
The 24-year-old Adams died that night, but not before fingering Carruth as the person responsible. Chancellor Lee arrived via emergency C-section and has cerebral palsy and brain damage after being oxygen-deprived from the shooting. Adams’ mother, Saundra Adams, has been taking care of him.
“He’s really worked hard,” Saundra said of Chancellor Lee, via Scott Fowler at the Charlotte Observer. “He’s been on the A/B honor roll a lot. I’m just so proud, so I may be a little loud [at graduation].”
Chancellor Lee spent six years at the high school. He will always need a live-in caretaker and only speaks a few words at a time, Fowler wrote, but knows certain necessary skills.
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Adams is unsure if Carruth even knows his son is graduating, but hopes someone will tell him and they can “have some communication” in the future.
“Saundra Adams was texting with one of Cherica’s best friends the other day. Recounted Saundra: “I said, ‘I know Cherica is in heaven, smiling.’ And she said, ‘Girl, you know that’s an understatement! She is doing more than smiling! She’s singing, dancing, cutting cartwheels — she’s got all the angels together rooting for him. She’s saying: ‘That’s my boy right there!’”
The Panthers, who drafted Carruth in the first round of the 1997 NFL draft, brought Adams and Chancellor Lee down to the field during a 2018 game they attended.
