2nd Suspect In Slaying Of UNC Student?
CBS/AP) A North Carolina newspaper reports that police now think a second person may have been in the vehicle driven by a man they say was trying to use Eve Carson’s ATM card.Chapel Hill Police Chief Brian Curran says authorities now believe a second person may have been in the car, The News & Observer of Raleigh reports.
The 22-year-old Carson was the student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a senior and a premed student. She was found Wednesday morning lying on a street about a mile from the campus.
She had been shot several times, including once in the right temple. Her sport utility vehicle was discovered Thursday, a few hours after police positively identified her as the victim. Police say she likely was the victim of a random crime.
Black and white photographs distributed at a Saturday news conference show what looks to be a large, shadowed figure behind the driver’s side head rest. What looks like someone’s shoulder can be seen between the driver’s seat and head rest.
Police have said the SUV in the surveillance photo could be Carson’s blue 2005 Toyota Highlander. If there was a second person in the back seat, it could explain how the killer or killers got away and the SUV was found parked around the corner from Carson’s downtown Chapel Hill home.
Funeral services were held Sunday for Carson in her hometown of Athens, Ga. For the hundreds gathered at Athens First United Methodist Church, Eve Carson should still be at school, studying political science and biology, teaching science to grade schoolers and planning her next trip abroad.
“We should not be here this afternoon,” senior minister Bill Britt said, angry that the 22-year-old was not instead celebrating spring break or getting ready for the Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament.
“It is too soon to be remembering the life of Eve Marie Carson,” he told the mourners who gathered here in her hometown or came down from the university in Chapel Hill, N.C. Many wore Carolina blue ribbons in her honor.
“Eve Carson was truly a gift to Chapel Hill,” UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser said.
Carson was in a four-year leadership development program for undergraduates, taught science at Chapel Hill elementary schools and spent summers volunteering in such places as Ecuador, Egypt and Ghana.