CHARLOTTE N.C. (Court TV)—The man who executed Cherica Adams concluded his angry, bizarre testimony Thursday, describing the killing in chilling detail and bitterly blaming football player Rae Carruth for plotting it.

"Are you happy now?" Van Brett Watkins shouted at Carruth as jurors filed out of the court for a morning recess.

David Rudolf

On his second day on the stand, Watkins was a witness out of control, flinging profanities at the defendant at one point, sobbing at another and all the while sparring with defense attorney David Rudolf, the man who called him to the stand in the first place.

"That's neither here nor there," he said after the attorney pointed out yet another inconsistency in his account of the crime. "That's not going to save your little case. You're through."

Watkins' mocking aside, it remains unclear what impact the dramatic testimony of the mentally ill career criminal may have had on jurors. Carruth is facing the death penalty for the Nov. 16, 1999, shooting of Adams, a 24-year-old pregnant with his child. The district attorney claims he had her killed to avoid paying child support.

The prosecution cut a deal with Watkins to avoid the death penalty by testifying against Carruth, but the state never called him, perhaps anticipating his troubling behavior on the stand. He offered what is so far the most graphic, and most horrifying, account of the shooting in the trial. But the defense made points as well, highlighting numerous contradictions in his testimony and brought his questionable character center stage.

"Do you know Thorazine controls hallucinations?" Rudolf said, suggesting Watkins' antipsychotic medication led him to imagine Carruth's role.

"You got to be hallucinating to take this case to trial," Watkins replied, grinning.

The burly man, wearing a paisley tie and dark blazer, ranted on, saying one of his co-defendants, Michael Kennedy, was "psychotic" and another, Stanley Abraham, "thinks this whole thing is a joke" and plans to write a book. He told jurors to "feel the truth" and predicted doom for the city of Charlotte if they did not. He blustered about his own criminal prowess, telling Rudolf, "I could kill you with my bare hands...I'm 286 pounds, I'll rip you up like a rag doll."

Early on in the day, as prosecutor David Graham led Watkins through his version of the crime, Rudolf tried to keep the witness in line, lodging repeated objections to his meandering answers. But as the afternoon stretched on, Rudolf kept quiet and let Watkins ramble, perhaps hoping the jury would see Watkins as a crazy, volatile monster who would never be, as he claimed, "petrified" of Carruth and forced into a murder-for-hire.

Rudolf, in a dramatically incredulous tone, listed Watkins' most sensational run-ins with the law, saying "You had done hard time in a maximum security prison...you stabbed your own brother... you set a man on fire...you assaulted two police officers."

But Watkins stuck to his story that the football player threatened him and his family when he tried to renege on a deal to hurt Adams.

"If he were to kill his own baby and girl, what would he do to me and my family?" Watkins said.

He claimed Carruth approached him in June 1999, when Adams was one month pregnant, and asked him to beat her and cause a miscarriage. Watkins said Carruth promised him $3,000 for the assault and gave him $300 as a down payment.

Watkins said he accepted $1,800 the next month, but never intended to carry out the crime. He said his plan was to use the money to pay for an abortion and summer clothes for his girlfriend, and simply ignore his deal with Carruth.

According to Watkins, Carruth hounded him to go through with the hit. He said Carruth used the expression "the dog is going to get out of the fence" as a code for the assault. Watkins testified that five days before the November 1999 shooting, Carruth said he wanted Adams killed as she arrived at a restaurant with him. Watkins said he again begged off, saying he did not have access to a car.

On November 15, however, Carruth called Watkins and with "urgency" in his voice, ordered him over to his house, he said. Watkins said he went, but in an effort to avoid going through with the hit, didn't take his gun.

He told jurors that Carruth had already decided on a drive-by shooting and enlisted Kennedy and Abraham. Carruth explained to the men that he would lure Adams in her vehicle to a darkened road and stop suddenly, allowing the hit men a clean shot at her, Watkins said. When he told Carruth he did not have a gun, Carruth said Kennedy would buy one and gave him money, Watkins testified.

"Michael Kennedy said he was going to get a .38 or a .357 and I said, 'Well, that's going to kill her,' and Rae said, 'Well, kill her then,'" Watkins said.

He said he felt he had no choice, but comply.

"I fired one shot and then four more shots — Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!" he said. "She screamed. She was drowning in her own blood. You could hear the gurgling sound."

Watkins claimed that he was "disgusted" after the crime. He put his head in his hands and wept as he recalled getting drunk alone after the shooting.

On redirect, Rudolf lit into the witness, suggesting Watkins had changed his story and added new details with every retelling. The defense attorney noted that Watkins had access to all the state's discovery materials and even had a private investigator working for him. Didn't he tailor his account to match phone and bank records dug up by the investigator, Rudolf asked.

Watkins denied it. He admitted giving several different versions of the crime to police, but said he initially was reluctant to cooperate and thought, "Rae Carruth was going to take care of everything."

Rudolf pressed on, asking Watkins why phone records did not show more calls between Carruth and him if, as Watkins testified, Carruth had badgered him to carry out the hit for six months. Watkins shrugged off the questions, repeatedly saying, "That's neither here nor there."

In a final rambling speech directed at the jury, Watkins begged them to believe him, saying "I'm still human even though I have a long criminal history."