Charges against Lovette sent to grand jury
More than a dozen charges against a 17-year-old accused in the deaths of two North Carolina college students will go before a Durham County grand jury next week.
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Laurence Allen Lovette Jr. is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and other charges in the March 5 shooting death of Eve Carson, 22, who was student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall said Monday he would seek the death penalty against the other man charged with Carson's death, Demario James Atwater.
Lovette, who also is charged in the Jan. 18 shooting death of Duke University graduate student Abhijit Mahato, is not eligible for the death penalty. A 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibits the execution of anyone who was under age 18 at the time of a crime. He was 16 then.
If convicted in Carson's death, the maximum sentence Lovette could face is life in prison without parole.
The charges going to the grand jury stem from other crimes Lovette is accused of committing. The charges are two counts of larceny after breaking and entering and one count each of first-degree burglary, breaking and entering, common-law robbery, breaking and entering of a motor vehicle, larceny of a motor vehicle, possession of a stolen motor vehicle, larceny, communicating threats, resisting a public officer, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and probation violation.
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