CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Court TV) — After dozens of witnesses spoke on his behalf and one hurled profanities at him, Rae Carruth maintained his right to remain silent.

Defense attorney David Rudolf rested his case Wednesday after 12 days and 38 witnesses, saying he was satisfied he had established reasonable doubt and didn't need his client's testimony.

"Rae wasn't there at the scene," Rudolf said. "Only [confessed killer] Van Brett Watkins was."

Did Rudolf make the right decision? The jury will be the final arbiter. But some trial watchers are skeptical.

"As a juror, I'd want to hear this cherubic young man — who's never been in trouble, who likes children, God, motherhood, and Apple pie — to stand up and say 'I didn't do it, ladies and gentlemen,'" said former Mecklenburg County District Attorney Tom Moore.

Rudolf apparently is banking that Watkins, the man who opened fire on Cherica Adams, had done enough damage to the prosecution's case to warrant Carruth's resounding silence.

And with the former wide receiver sidelined, the killer became much more memorable than even the NFL stars who preceded him.

After striking a sweet deal with prosecutors to avoid the death penalty, Watkins was once expected to be the state's star witness. But ultimately Rudolf was the only one who would risk putting the career criminal on the stand.

And for anyone who held his breath in vain during the prosecution's case-in-chief, it was worth the wait.

With his well-known proclamation "That's the bitch I was talking about — Rae Carruth," Watkins became the most electrifying witness in the recent memories of even the most veteran court watchers. For two days he kept a packed courtroom of spectators and reporters on the edges of their seats and forced Carruth's mother and Adams' stepmother to leave the courtroom in tears.

Histrionics aside, the question for Rudolf is whether he misfired when he called the triggerman, who would finger Carruth as the mastermind behind the shooting of the mother of his unborn child.

Some observers and legal experts said Rudolf must have had his eyes half shut when he put on a witness who would put his client at the crime scene, repeat gruesome details of the shooting and insist Carruth hired him to do it.

"The risk is nailing his damn client. That's the paramount risk," said former prosecutor Moore. "You have direct testimony from the perpetrator of the crime that Rae Carruth paid him to kill Cherica Adams."

But Rudolf says he went into the situation fully aware of what he would encounter with Watkins — a violent and psychotic felon — in the hot seat. In fact Rudolf seemed to relish it.

"I think what they saw when he lost his temper and started threatening me was exactly the kind of person who would shoot somebody in a rage," he said.

Still Rudolf admits he couldn't anticipate Watkins' reaction when he played a portion of the 911 tape of Cherica Adams moaning in pain.

Rudolf asked Watkins, "Did you say I hope the bitch dies'?"

Leaning over the witness box, Watkins pointed at the former NFL first-round pick.

"That's the bitch I'm talking about," he said. "Rae Carruth."

"I wasn't expecting him to say that," Rudolf now says, "but neither was it terribly credible. The only person who was dying was Cherica Adams."

Rudolf said he had no choice but to call Watkins, whose own words make up the lynchpin of the defense. Judge Charles Lamm ruled it was the only way Rudolf could introduce a jail guard's claim that Watkins told her he shot Adams out of rage after Adams flipped him off — not because Carruth hired him to do so. And so Rudolf, aware of the risks, rolled the dice.

"It was a calculated risk the defense had to take," said defense attorney James Wyatt. "Otherwise there was no evidence of a drug deal gone bad. Watkins provided the legal basis for that evidence."

In court, Watkins denied making the statement attributed to him by Mecklenburg Sheriff's Sergeant Shirley Riddle, who testified that Watkins told her he pulled alongside Adams' car so he could ask where Carruth was going, but that Adams flipped him off and he "just lost it."

According to Riddle, Watkins said, "I lost control. I just started shooting," and "It was Rae's fault. If he had just given us the money, none of this would have happened."

According to the defense, that money was to finance a drug deal but when Carruth backed out Watkins went into a rage.

But Watkins likened Riddle to the National Enquirer, an attention seeker who cozied up to high-profile inmates and lied for fifteen minutes of fame.

For two days Watkins ranted about his life as a criminal in "the jungle" of New York City, lobbed death threats at Rudolf and with much bravado admitted stabbing his own brother, setting a fellow inmate on fire and chasing his wife with a meat cleaver. He menaced Rudolf, warning he could kill the lawyer with his own hands.

In the shadow of the burly convict, Riddle appeared nervous and frail. But she stuck by her account and added that she later overheard Watkins on the phone the day Adams died. Riddle said she heard Watkins say he was trying to get in touch with "Candace." Rudolf interpreted him to mean Candace Smith, Carruth's ex-girlfriend who earlier testified that Carruth confessed to her.

Rudolf hoped that linking Smith with Watkins would convince the jury that two key accusers were in cahoots against Carruth.

Riddle claimed authorities in the Sheriff's Office buried her account of that conversation. She said her superiors discouraged her from filing a report, obliquely threatening her chances of promotion.

Rudolf claimed that alleged cover-up was only part of a pattern of foul play by police and prosecutors.

Called to the stand by the defense, police investigator William Ward admitted prosecutor David Graham barred him from pursuing allegations about wheelman Michael Kennedy's drug dealing.

Rudolf had been requesting such information for more than a month in an attempt to prove up his theory that Cherica Adams was the victim of a drug deal gone awry.

But with no way to argue the victim was in on a conspiracy, Rudolf gingerly chipped away at the accuracy of her memory with a renowned expert in the field. In her 911 call and in notes she wrote in the hospital, Adams claimed Carruth was stopped in the car in front of her when she was shot and then left the scene.

Elizabeth Loftus testified that Adams' memory may have been impaired by the trauma she suffered and the drugs that doctors gave her at the hospital.

A parade of witnesses testified Carruth's character was completely inconsistent with that of a murderer. High school coach Melvin Fontes said he loved him like a son.

And although the Carolina Panthers cut Carruth when he jumped bail, many of his former teammates came forward to cast doubt on the State's motive evidence — that Carruth had Adams killed to avoid the embarrassment and expense of another illegitimate child.

Linebacker Hannibal Navies, running back William Floyd, defensive back Leonard Wheeler and wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad contradicted the state's contention that Carruth's teammates teased him about getting a stripper pregnant.

The players added that Carruth was acting normal hours before the shooting. And Navies said his friend's demeanor changed after he got word Adams had been shot.

"He was not responsive," Navies said. "He was silent."

That silence reverberated as the defense case ended without a word from the accused.

Court TV's Bryan Lavietes and Laurie Gindin contributed to this report.