The Story of Eve

This is Eve Marie Carson, a pretty college senior with an unflagging enthusiasm for her school (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and a passion for life. She grew up in Athens, Ga. a much loved member of her family and her community. She was the student body president at Chapel Hill and by all accounts she was special, loving, giving person. In her own words:

“I love UNC. I love the quad in the spring and the arboretum in the fall. I love the Pit on a sunny day and Graham Memorial Lounge on a rainy one. I love Roy [Williams] all the time. But what makes UNC truly special is not our beautiful campus, our distinguished reputation or even our basketball team. It’s us—the student body—who make UNC what it is.”

Eve Carson was an exceptional young woman who laughed and cried and dreamed of a future; a full and promising life that would be cut short on March 5, 2008 when she was kidnapped, humiliated, tortured, shot dead and then her dead body was unceremoniously dumped in the road like garbage.

To add further insult, the results of her autopsy and other gruesome details are just a google click away. I have never looked at any of it; I refuse to be a voyeur in this charming girl’s death.

Her killers were aged 22 and 17. Once they were arrested, the police were able to tie them to yet another murder of a foreign student at a different college in North Carolina the year before. How do two little boys grow up to become such monsters? I wish I knew. Her death has caused so much pain and grief for so many and her father probably grieves the hardest but this is what he had to say even in the first days of his loss:

“The irony of Eve’s murder is that she, along with these blessed friends and fellow students, are the ones who can solve the most pressing problems of this time. I believe that these kids, along with their peers around the globe, can reach reasoned solutions for mitigating violence and tackling many of the inequities of poverty, prejudice, inadequate health care and under-education. This is no pie-in-the-sky wish! These kids are smart! They’re so capable.”

I didn’t know Eve Carson or any of her family members. The closest tie I have to her is that my youngest son lived in Chapel Hill up until about two weeks before Eve’s murder. But Eve haunts my every waking moment and I’m not really sure why; perhaps her death is that proverbial straw breaking the back of the camel of senseless violence we live with every day here and all over the world.

Eve was shot with a shotgun, but no amount of gun laws would have helped since the gun was an unregistered weapon that had passed through many hands before being used to commit this last horrific act. Her killers had long juvenile records, but not enough was ever done to stem their criminal escalation in an overburdened judicial system that the criminal knows how to circumvent expertly.

I want to stand in the street and just scream at the top of my lungs ENOUGH! I’ve had enough of hatred and violence and death and destruction – of countries and communities and human beings like college students. We can’t continue to shuffle the problem back and forth. We must break the cycle of ghetto culture that has allowed this kind of violence to grow.

We must make tougher laws to deal with habitual juvenile offenders. These kids have no real fear of punishment because by and large, they know that the worst that can happen is that they will be locked up until age 21. Many states have enacted laws to charge juveniles as adults in certain crimes, but this is too little too late. Welfare recipients need to take on more personal responsibility. If they have children, those children should be able to meet minimal standards of conduct. If not, the parents need to be held accountable. We have a work for welfare program that doesn’t go far enough to push people out of the welfare nest. We should be giving a hand up; not a hand out. We need to ensure police depts. have enough staff and enough money for programs and wages to bust up gang activity and crime rings. We need to decriminalize drugs and thereby take all the intrigue and profit out of drug dealing at the same time freeing up jail space and giving police more time to pursue violent offenders.

The protection and nurturing of our children should be our greatest priority – not just our own children, but every child in our communities and in our country. Because that kid who isn’t “one of ours” might just grow up to be a monster. And every kid knows you can't protect yourself from a monster.

I’m sorry we let you down, Eve but I hope your story will serve to galvanize others to act so that what happened to you doesn’t happen to another beautiful young woman.