Rae Carruth’s Mom Still Fighting for Her Son’s Reputation

Morgan Fogarty,

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Theodry Swift slept well for the first time in a long time, she tells WCCB News @ Ten anchor Morgan Fogarty, over the phone from her home in California. Her son, Rae Carruth, got out of a North Carolina prison Monday. A government text message says his supervision has been transferred to Pennsylvania.

Swift says, “He is no longer in the Carolinas. Nobody in Carolina has to worry about Rae Carruth. That was the first thing we said: ‘get the hell outta there.'”

Swift talked with Fogarty, she says, to help people better understand who her family and her son really are. Swift calls the support for her family “phenomenal,” says Carruth is happy to be free and wants to get on with his life. WCCB asked what his plans are. Swift says, “I’ll just say that the plans that he has are really giving back to society and giving back to community.”

Carruth spent 17 years behind bars, after a Mecklenburg County jury convicted him in 2001 of hiring a hitman to kill his pregnant girlfriend, Cherica Adams. She was shot four times in her car on Rea Road in Ballantyne in 1999.

Swift says her son maintains his innocence. She says, “He takes responsibility for knowing the people and that this situation happened. He takes responsibility for that. He feels bad for what happened to Cherica and then his son, getting the deal he got. Rae is truly, truly, truly remorseful.”

Swift, 19 years into this, is still fighting for her son’s, and her family’s, reputation, telling WCCB she has taken in foster children over the years. She says, “That’s our family, that’s our hearts. So for them to say that Rae tried to kill an unborn child is just insulting to our integrity.”

Carruth’s son, Chancellor Lee Adams, is 18 years old. Swift says there has been no talk of the two meeting. She says, “He (Carruth) just is owed the opportunity to talk to his son and tell him his side.”

We’re told Carruth’s post-prison plans were approved months ago. He has to report to a probation officer for nine months.