Murder hit close to home in 2008—1.6 miles from West Campus, to be exact. Engineering graduate student Abhijit Mahato, 29, was found shot dead in his
Anderson Street apartment Jan. 18 that year. Several miles down the road, Eve Carson, 22 years old and student body president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds March 5, 2008. Police have charged Durham residents Stephen Oates and Laurence Lovette with the murder of Mahato. Lovette, along with Durham resident Demario Atwater, was charged in Carson's death. All three suspects had previous criminal records.
Carson's death received national media attention, while Mahato's death was only covered locally before its possible connection with Carson's murder was reported. Community response was also markedly greater in reaction to Carson's death than Mahato's. Local media, Duke students and faculty discussed the disparity, many suspecting it to be in part a result of the victims' race and sex. But more than discussion, the murders prompted statewide probation reform. Gov. Bev Perdue signed the reform into law July 30, 2009, allowing probation officers access to offenders' juvenile records and
providing for warrantless searches of probationers.
Atwater, Lovette and Oates are awaiting trial. If found guilty, Atwater, who recently requested his trial be moved out of North Carolina, could face the death penalty. Lovette could face life in prison if convicted.
The 2009 Clery Report shows some crimes, like burglaries and robberies, decreased on campus in 2008. But since July 2009, 10 students have been robbed at gunpoint. The robberies occurred on East Campus, near East on Watts Street and Markham Avenue, on Campus Drive and at a local restaurant. Another student reported being robbed and sexually assaulted on West.
The murders of Abhijit Mahato and Eve Carson were number 8 on our stories of the decade list. These are the issues and events that made headlines for weeks at a time over the last ten years, those that sparked the most debate on campus and beyond, and the ones that we believe will continue to shape our coverage in the years to come.
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