campus security: [april 2008]
Published: 03/15/08
- Suspects in Murders of Two College Students in North Carolina Fell Through Legal Cracks
From "NC Slaying Suspects Fell Through Cracks" by: Mike Bauer, Associated Press - Numerous cracks in the North Carolina legal system appear to have allowed two people said to be involved in the murders of two college students to be free on the streets when the crimes occurred. Laurence Lovette, 17, is accused in the killing of Duke University grad student Abhijit Mahato, while he and Demario Atwater, 21, are charged in the death of Eve Carson, the University of North Carolina student body president. "We've got a lot of kids out there who have a sense of helplessness, with a propensity for violence," says Durham Police Chief Jose Lopez. "We need to look at the reasons our youth are doing this." Lovette was given a two-year suspended sentence for crimes committed in November and placed on probation on Jan. 16, two days before Mahato was killed. In the six weeks after Mahato's death, Lovette was arrested several times and charged with nine different crimes, but he was released after all those arrests. Atwater, who was convicted of breaking and entering in 2005, violated his probation in late June when he was convicted on a gun violation; his court appearance for the probation violation was set for March 3, two days before Carson was killed, but the case was assigned to the wrong courtroom and rescheduled. He was also supposed to be under a stricter type of probation that would have required weekly meetings with a probation officer.
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