Pink and red roses were strewn next to a candle and a doll on top of a lavender sign reading, "Remembering Cherica Adams." The memorial honored the pregnant woman mortally wounded in a Nov. 16, 1999, drive-by shooting that prosecutors claim was masterminded by Carruth.

Adams' mother, Saundra Adams, wore a pin bearing her slain daughter's photo and the words, "Stop the violence."

"This day is very bittersweet. We miss my daughter very, very dearly and very much. We do know that she's in heaven," said Saundra Adams in a rare media interview outside the courthouse. The family of the slain woman has declined to speak to the press since Carruth's capital murder trial began last month.

"I wanted people to really know her loving spirit. She was such a kind and loving, gentle person. She would never hurt anybody. We are just striken and appalled with the way she died so violently," Adams said.

Adams, who won custody of the grandson doctors delivered by Caesarian section hours after the shooting, said that Carruth's son Chancellor was doing well.

"Chancellor's a trooper, like his mom," she said.

Inside the courthouse, the focus was on the gunman who admitted firing the four bullets that killed Adams.

During a hearing that followed Thursday's testimony, Jean Lawson, an attorney for confessed triggerman Van Brett Watkins, asked Judge Charles Lamm for notification if either side plans on calling him to the witness stand. The move could indicate that Watkins will evoke the Fifth Amendment, protecting himself from self-incrimination.

Van Brett Watkins

Watkins was expected to testify against Carruth after cutting a deal with prosecutors, in which he claimed the former wide receiver commissioned him to kill Adams who was pregnant with his child. He pleaded guilty to murder to avoid a death sentence, on the condition that the deal could be withdrawn if his story changes.

Watkins, a career criminal with a history of mental illness, later told a sheriff's deputy that the shooting was the result of a drug-related dispute with Carruth and that it happened in a fit of rage when Adams made an offensive gesture at him.

In his opening statement, defense attorney David Rudolf told the jury that the shooting happened after Carruth refused to finance a drug deal for Watkins and was not a plot to avoid child support payments as the prosecution contends.

Prosecutors didn't call Watkins to testify. Instead, they relied on the word of another co-defendant, wheelman Michael Kennedy, who testified without immunity after previously rejecting two plea offers.

Although it is unknown whether Watkins will assert his right against self-incrimination or testify for the defense, Rudolf says he will seek to admit Watkins' statement to the deputy into evidence. Without Watkins' testimony, prosecutors will likely claim that the statement is hearsay, but the defense attorney contends that it falls under a "catch-all" exception given to statements deemed reliable. In this case, the statement is a sworn account given to a law enforcement officer.

Also testifying Thursday was defense investigator Ronald Guerette, who took the stand shortly before Lamm called a recess due to a juror's doctor's appointment.

In his brief time on the stand, Guerette outlined his experience as a police officer and private investigator, and told the jury that he analyzed 3,800 pages of phone records for the defense.

Rudolf then enlisted the help of co-counsel Chris Fialko to carry eight thick white binders containing the phone records, admitting them into evidence.

Guerette will resume testimony Friday morning.

Also called to the stand was Tanya Ferguson, the only witness called by the defense who already testified for the prosecution.

Ferguson, former girlfriend of Panther Hannibal Navies, saw Carruth on the night of the shooting, first with Adams at the movies, and later at Navies' house.

The majority of Ferguson's time on the stand Thursday was spent listening to an audio tape of an interview she gave police about the night of the shooting.

The tape revealed little that the jury hadn't heard before, but Rudolf seized the opportunity to bring out Ferguson's testimony that Carruth was crying as he awaited news about his baby's health in the hours following the shooting.