Former Panthers WR Rae Carruth won't seek custody of son after prison release

Former Carolina Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth has elected against pursuing a relationship with his son after being released from prison later this year.

Carruth wrote in a letter to the Charlotte Observer that he will not pursue custody of Chancellor Lee Adams, who lives in Charlotte (N.C.) under the care of his maternal grandmother, Saundra Adams.

"For all involved or invested in this ordeal, please calm down," Carruth wrote as part of a letter he addressed to the newspaper. "I will no longer be pursuing a relationship with Chancellor and Ms. Adams. I promise to leave them be, which I now see is in everyone's best interest."

Carruth's letter comes a few weeks after he wrote WBTV in Charlotte, saying he planned to pursue custody of his 18-year-old son.

Scheduled to be released on Oct. 22, Carruth has spent the past 17 years in Sampson Correctional Institution in Clinton, N.C. He was found guilty in 2001 for conspiracy to murder his pregnant girlfriend in 1999.

Cherica Adams died in the hospital after being shot multiple times by Van Brett Watkins, who was hired by Carruth. She was seven months pregnant with Chancellor, who as a result of the shooting was born prematurely. He has cerebral palsy.

"I now understand that any notions of me one day being welcome to Sunday dinner is totally out of the question," Carruth wrote in the more recent letter. "And lastly, I didn't foresee the media and general public being unanimous in its belief that I shouldn't be allowed to ever have anything to do with Chancellor."

Adams told the Charlotte Observer last month that Carruth would never get custody but said she was satisfied that he admitted responsibility for the murder of her daughter.

"I've forgiven Rae already, but to have any type of relationship with him, there does have to be some repentance," Adams told the newspaper. "And I think this opens the door. But I can say definitively he's not ever going to have custody of Chancellor. Chancellor will be raised either by me or, after I'm gone, by someone else who loves him and who knows him. He will never be raised by a stranger -- someone he doesn't know and who tried to kill him."