CHARLOTTE (Court TV) — Tanya Ferguson was supposed to help the prosecution in the Rae Carruth capital murder trial, but by the time she stepped down from the witness stand Wednesday, the defense was smiling and the jury was mulling a new and overwhelmingly positive assessment of the former football player's character.

Ferguson, a close friend Carruth regarded as "a big sister," described him as "a very caring person, a very loving person" and said he was his normal, "happy-go-lucky" self on the night Cherica Adams was gunned down.

"Did he seem like someone who had just come from the scene of a contract murder?" defense lawyer David Rudolf asked during a long, friendly cross-examination.

"No," Ferguson replied.

Carruth, a former wide receiver with the Carolina Panthers, is accused of planning the drive-by shooting of Adams, a 24-year-old pregnant with his baby, in order to avoid paying child support. Doctors were able to save Adams' son, Chancellor, but she died a month later. Three others whom prosecutors describe as hitmen were also charged.

Jurors were sent home early Wednesday, the 10th day of the trial, so that the testimony of defense forensic expert Henry Lee could be videotaped in the courtroom. Lee's tight schedule precluded him from appearing next week, when the defense expects to open its case.

The state put Ferguson on the stand to suggest that Carruth called his co-defendants from her cell phone the night of the murder and later asked her not to talk to a defense investigator about the case.

Prosecutors scored those points, but fell behind as Ferguson offered a detailed description of Carruth's actions and state of mind on the night Adams was shot.

Ferguson's account "helped my case substantially," Rudolf told reporters in front of the courthouse. "I don't think anyone could listen to the testimony and not come away with a positive viewpoint of how my client acted on the night of November 15 to 16. And that's what this case is all about."

Ferguson testified that she and boyfriend Hannibal Navies, a teammate and college friend of Carruth, unexpectedly ran into him and Adams at a movie theater that night. She said Carruth, as usual, was jokey and relaxed, and seemed to be getting along well with Adams, who she had never met before.

The couples sat separately, but left the theater together. As they were walking to their vehicles, Carruth said he wanted to drop by Navies' home later to practice a video game. Ferguson, a trading assistant at a mutual fund, smiled as she described the players as video game "addicts" who even organized tournaments around the games.

She said Carruth arrived at Navies' home at about 12:30 a.m., several minutes after Adams had been shot. she would later find out. She recalled opening the front door and finding Carruth talking on his cell phone to a girlfriend in Atlanta, Alandia Cheney. The conversation seemed lighthearted, Ferguson said.

She said Carruth did not mention where Adams had gone, but they discussed her pregnancy and the baby. Carruth, she said, seemed excited and especially happy Adams was expecting a boy.

Ferguson said she and Navies eventually went to bed, leaving Carruth playing video games and her cell phone — a model identical to Carruth's — on a chair or table nearby.

According to phone records, three calls then were made from her phone — including one to the Villager Lodge, the motel where triggerman Van Brett Watkins lived, and another to "wheelman" Michael Kennedy. Ferguson said she did not make the calls.

She recalled waking later that night, hearing from Navies that Adams had been shot, and driving with him to the hospital. Carruth, who did not know the way, followed them. She said his demeanor had changed dramatically since earlier in the night.

"I'd never seen him that serious before," she said, adding that he appeared to be in shock.

The jury has already heard testimony from Adams' family about events at the hospital, but Ferguson offered a different perspective. She said Carruth and his friends — including Candace Smith, now a key state witness, who joined them — were outsiders among Adams' family members who were gathered in the waiting room.

"It was very awkward," she said. "[Carruth] didn't know them and they didn't know him."

She recalled Carruth commenting as they entered the hospital, "This is a hell of a way to meet someone's family for the first time."

Prosecutors pointed out that Carruth had actually met most of Adams' family, but Ferguson said that regardless, there was little interaction between the two groups. At one point, however, Adams' mother gave Carruth a picture, taken moments earlier, of his son Chancellor.

Ferguson said Carruth cradled the picture and bragged to Navies, "Look how long he is! He looks like I did when I was a baby."

When Ferguson mentioned a humorous waiting room discussion concerning what a spleen is, Carruth stared down at the defense table and smiled to himself.

Ferguson appeared to know him better than previous witnesses. She described him as a gentle jokester who never drank, smoked or did drugs. Women, she said, were a different story. She acknowledged that Carruth dated many women and was not serious about any of them.

"He was playing the field, he's young," she said.

The prosecution suggested, however, that at least one of those women was serious enough about Carruth to assist him in suppressing evidence. Ferguson testified that in January 2000, Carruth left a troubling voice mail message for her. In the message, which was played for the jury, Carruth told Ferguson not to grant an interview with his own defense private investigator until she talked to his friend Tenisha Huckleberry. Prosecutors identified Huckleberry as Carruth's fiancee, but his mother and attorney denied that.

Ferguson said that instead of waiting for Huckleberry's call, she played the voice mail for police investigators. When Huckleberry and Ferguson later spoke over the telephone, officers recorded the call. Judge Charles Lamm ruled that the tape cannot be played unless Huckleberry testifies, but Ferguson said they discussed the three phone calls made the night of the shooting.

Also testifying Wednesday about calls Carruth made to his co-defendants was Dwight Perry, the owner of a car service center frequented by Carruth.

Perry testified that Carruth came to the center to have his SUV cleaned on November 24, a day after he had been questioned by police. Perry said Carruth had a cell phone, but asked him to use the office line to make a few calls.

Phone records show two calls to Watkins' motel and one to Carruth's agent. Perry said he believes Carruth was using the phone at the time those calls were made.

On cross-examination, Perry described Carruth, a regular customer, as a "gentleman" who was "always upbeat." He said Carruth was a good tipper and his workers jockeyed for a chance to clean his vehicle.