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HILLSBOROUGH -- Demario James Atwater pleaded guilty this afternoon to murdering, kidnapping and robbing Eve Carson, the admired 2008 UNC-Chapel Hill student body president. The 23-year-old Durham man, dressed in a blue shirt and khaki pants, entered his plea in an Orange County Superior Court courtroom as Carson's family watched quietly in the front row.

WINSTON- SALEM - Demario James Atwater, one of two men charged with murdering UNC-Chapel Hill's student body president, will spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty Monday to federal carjacking, kidnapping and weapons charges. What remains unclear is whether his death behind bars will be a natural one or whether the state will execute him. Atwater, whose plea agreement with federal prosecutors allows him to avoid the death penalty in federal court, still faces capital charges in state court of kidnapping and murdering Eve Carson. A hearing is tentatively scheduled for next week in Orange County...

RALEIGH, N.C.—The man accused of killing a University of North Carolina student body president found shot to death in the middle of a street two years ago pleaded guilty Monday to federal crimes, avoiding the death penalty. Demario Atwater, 23, pleaded guilty to several charges, including carjacking resulting in death and kidnapping. Prosecutors agreed to drop their plan to pursue the death penalty and Atwater agreed to a life sentence.

CHAPEL HILLA ceremony at UNC Chapel Hill will commemorate the one-year anniversary of the death of student body president Eve Carson. Chancellor Holden Thorp will speak and a male student a cappella group will perform at the ceremony, scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday at the Pit, on the Chapel Hill campus. The university also has plans for a memorial garden in Carson's name. The 22-year-old Carson was kidnapped from her home the morning of March 5, 2008, and shot to death in the middle of a residential Chapel Hill street. One man, 22-year-old Demario James Atwater, faces death on both...

GREENSBORO - A federal grand jury on Monday indicted one of two men accused in the slaying of the student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, adding on to state murder charges. Demario Atwater, 22, was indicted on one count of carjacking resulting in death, and carrying and using firearms during and in relation to carjacking, both of which could allow federal authorities to seek a death sentence. State prosecutors had already charged both Atwater and Laurence Lovette, 17, with murder in the March 5 death of Eve Carson, 22, of Athens, Ga. Her body...

A confidential witness told investigators that Demario Atwater said he and Laurence Lovette Jr. took Eve Carson from her home March 5 after entering through an open door, according to search warrants made public Friday. The documents offered the first detailed public accounts of the crime, in which Atwater and Lovette are accused of killing Carson, the student body president at UNC-Chapel Hill. According to the witness, Atwater told her he and Lovette forced Carson into the back seat of her Toyota Highlander and drove her to an ATM. Lovette shot Carson multiple times, and Atwater subsequently shot her with...

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student who was slain this year was kidnapped from her apartment and forced to provide her abductors with access to her bank account before she was shot to death, according to court documents released Friday. Student body President Eve Carson, 22, was found shot to death in the early hours of March 5 in a suburban neighborhood not far from campus. Two men, Demario James Atwater, 22, and Lawrence Alvin Lovette, 17, have been charged with killing her. Police initially theorized that Carson may have been carjacked, saying she was extremely busy...

The News & Observer filed a motion Monday opposing the Orange County district attorney's request to seal the results of the autopsy of murdered UNC student Eve Carson. Last week, Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour ordered that the results remain under seal to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation into the 22-year-old Athens, Ga., senior's death.

RALEIGH, N.C. — A probation officer assigned to a teenager now charged with killing the University of North Carolina's student body president was handling 127 cases without training, state corrections officials said Wednesday. A state investigation also found that 17-year-old Laurence Lovette never met with probation officer Chalita Thomas. The probation cases of the other suspect in the killing, Demario Atwater, were handled by 10 different officers. "This is a dark cloud over our agency," said Robert Lee Guy, director of the state Division of Community Corrections. Guy said no one has been fired but three senior probation and parole...

The probation officer in charge of keeping track of Laurence Alvin Lovette never met with the teenager, according to probation records. Officer Chalita N. Thomas, pulled off the case in early March because of a drunken-driving charge, went by Lovette's mother's home in Durham once in late February, according to the probation records, but he was not there. Then, on the day Lovette was charged with murder in the deaths of UNC-Chapel Hill student body president Eve Carson and Duke University graduate student Abhijit Mahato, Thomas added a backdated account of missed meetings and phone calls into computer records, according...

Raleigh, N.C. — One of the murder suspects in the shooting death of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's student body president was in a Wake County courtroom on a probation violation two days before her shooting death. A series of clerical errors, however, forestalled the possibility of Demario James Atwater going to jail, according to Clerk of Superior Court Lorrin Freeman and state Department of Correction officials. Atwater and his probation officer showed up in third-floor courtroom 2-D at 9:30 a.m. March 3, but his court file was sent to a fourth-floor courtroom, Freeman said. The judge...

DURHAM - A 17-year-old charged with killing a UNC-Chapel Hill student leader and a graduate student at Duke University appeared this morning before a Durham County judge who delivered a call for anti-gang legislation. Laurence Alvin Lovette appeared stone-faced before District Court Judge Craig Brown, who used the hearing to urge legislators to pass laws to fight gangs. "We absolutely positively need to have anti-gang legislation passed by the General Assembly," Brown said. "I respectfully and sincerely ask the governor to call a special session of the legislature." Authorities have not said whether Lovette was a member of a gang....

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Authorities have charged a suspect in the slaying of the University of North Carolina student president with the January killing of a Duke University graduate student. A warrant filed Thursday charges 17-year-old Lawrence Alvin Lovette Jr. with first-degree murder in the death of Abhijit Mahato. The 29-year-old computational mechanics doctoral student was found shot to death inside his apartment in January. Authorities have charged both Lovette and Demario James Atwater with first-degree murder in the death of Eve Carson. The 22-year-old was found last week lying on a street about a mile from campus.

Durham, N.C. — Heavily armed Durham police, surrounding a house before dawn Thursday, captured the second of two men charged with murder in the shooting of the student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lawrence Alvin Lovette Jr., 17, surrendered to officers from the department's Selective Enforcement Team outside a house on Cook Road at 4:16 a.m. Police had surrounded the house hours before after receiving an anonymous tip through the Durham County Sheriff's Office

2 Charged in UNC Student Leader Slaying Published: 3/12/08, 6:05 PM EDT By ERIN GARTNER and MIKE BAKER HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. (AP) - Two suspects were charged Wednesday with first-degree murder in the killing of the University of North Carolina's student body president. Demario James Atwater, 21, of Durham, was arrested and ordered held without bond. Police said they are still searching for the second suspect, 17-year-old Lawrence Alvin Lovett Jr. Chapel Hill Police Chief Brian Curran declined to say whether Lovett was the subject of an intense police standoff Wednesday afternoon in nearby Durham. City Councilman Eugene Brown said it...

Police in Durham, N.C., have arrested a man who may be a person of interest in the murder of a University of North Carolina student during an overnight raid and have handed him over to the Chapel Hill Police Department, according to ABC News affiliate WTVD. Possible Break in Murder CaseRaw video of the arrest shows a young black male who fits the description of the person police believe used Eve Carson's ATM card the night the UNC student body president was found fatally shot near campus. Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall said that police are now questioning a...

<p>ORANGE COUNTY: Sources confirmed to NC WANTED that Durham police have arrested a person of interest in the murder of UNC student body president Eve Carson.</p> <p>Durham officials turned the man over to police in Chapel Hill, where he is currently being held for questioning.</p>

Detectives investigating the slaying of the University of North Carolina's student body president focused Monday on a suspect pictured in several surveillance photos using her ATM card.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Police in Chapel Hill say they have found additional surveillance photos of the suspect in the slaying of University of North Carolina student body president Eve Carson. Chapel Hill Police Chief Brian Curran said Monday that detectives now have a photo of the suspect attempting to use Carson's ATM card at a convenience store. [snip]

Chapel Hill, N.C. — Chapel Hill police Monday evening released two new photographs of a man they want to talk to about the shooting death of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Student Body President Eve Carson. The photos show a black man attempting to use Carson’s debit card at an automated-teller machine in a local convenience store, Chapel Hill Police Chief Brian Curran said. He did not specify when or where the pictures were taken, in order to protect the investigation. "The photos depict a male going into an area convenience store," Curran said. That man was the...