NEW YORK (Court TV) — Rae Carruth was going to be an NFL star. Or so he and others thought. After all the college All-American was named a "Player to Watch" in a Sports Illustrated preview of last year's Panthers team.

At the start of the 1999 season Carruth was looking to regain the stellar playing form that made him a stand-out player during his rookie season two years earlier.

The talented wide receiver didn't have the chance to show his team or the rest of the NFL how he fully recouped from a season-ending broken right foot in the first game of 1998. After playing in only five games last year, Carruth sprained an ankle. While waiting for it to heal, his football career came to a screeching halt when the NFL suspended him for fleeing police.

Now perhaps the most significant statistical category that bears Carruth's name is "only NFL player to be charged with capital murder," which ranks him number one.

From the Streets of Sacramento

Carruth began his football career on the field of Valley High School in Sacramento. As is the case with most stand-out athletes, the gridiron was not the only setting for Carruth's athletic prowess. He lettered in track and basketball, helping his mile-relay team to sectional honors as a junior. But it was football in which he made his biggest mark. It's a mark that sticks today.

In the Sacramento Bee's latest ranking of the top 100 high school football players in city history, Carruth stands at number 23. An All-American while at Valley, Carruth was named to the All-City team in 1990-91. Throughout his four-year high school career, Carruth amassed 3,000 yards of total offense.

The sport helped him avoid the gangs, prostitutes and drugs that plagued the tough neighborhood where his mother Theodry raised him—and helped him leave it behind with a football scholarship to the University of Colorado.

Carruth's college football photo

Carruth started at Colorado in 1992 with great expectations and was named to The Sporting News' pre-season All-Big Eight team. A powerhouse on the field, off the turf Carruth was soft-spoken and introverted, and, unlike many student-athletes, he actually hit the books.

"He had a plan of what he wanted to accomplish academically and athletically. He wrote poetry," said Jon Embree, a Colorado assistant coach told the Associated Press after Carruth was charged with murder. Embree said that the murder accusations against Carruth didn't match the person he knew.

During the 1995 season Carruth's 53 catches for 1,008 yards and nine touchdowns were good enough to make him a unanimous selection to the All-Big Eight team.

Despite the fanfare that accompanied his football success, the English-eduction double major clung desperately to his privacy. According to Sports Illustrated, Carruth allegedly told a friend that he would never want the kind of attention that Colorado teammate Rashaan Salaam garnered for winning the Heisman Trophy in 1995. For reasons that remain unclear to this day, Carruth refused all media requests in his senior year at Colorado. He wouldn't even grant interviews to friends that worked for the student-produced Campus Press.

On the field for Colorado

Carruth's final season at Colorado was marked with continued success on the field. He earned Colorado's Most Valuable Player award and a place in the state record book, where he ranks second all-time with receiving yards (2,540) and third all-time with career receptions (135).

Carolina Bound

Carruth's hard work at Colorado paid off. He was selected as a first round NFL draft pick in 1997, chosen 27th overall by Carolina, and subsequently signed a four-year, $3.7 million contract.

Carruth's first season in the pros was taken straight out of a Hollywood movie script. He led all first-year NFL players with 44 catches and 545 receiving yards.

But if his first season was a feel-good hit, Carruth's second season seemed more like a war epic. His dynamic play was hampered by injuries from the start. In the first game of the season versus Atlanta on September 6, Carruth caught a 47-yard pass, breaking his right foot in the process. He had surgery and missed the next seven games.

Carruth returned to the field on November 8, but played that game without an entire reception. The Panthers placed him on their injured reserve list on November 28, 1998.

Carruth would not play for the remainder of the 1998 season, but he showed up to training camp the following year ready to contribute. In 1999 he caught 14 passes in five games in which he played, but was again sidelined when he suffered a sprained right ankle in an October 17 Panthers victory.

Carruth was never able to return to play at Ericsson Stadium. The Panthers suspended Carruth without pay immediately following his arrest in connection with Cherica Adams' shooting on November 16, 1999. But it was only after his flight from police that his NFL career officially ended. Carruth was waived by Carolina and suspended indefinitely from the NFL by Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

Panthers executives said they had no choice and pointed to paragraph 11 of the standard NFL player contract which reads "if a player has engaged in conduct reasonably judged by club to adversely affect or reflect on club, then club may terminate this contract."

"It's something we wrestled with. Basically, it was a court order that was broken. It's almost (like) our hands are tied," Carolina head coach George Seifert told the Charlotte Observer.

Carruth ended his Panthers career as the team's seventh-leading receiver in team history, compiling 62 catches for 804 yards and four touchdowns. The outcome of his murder trial could determine whether he'll add to those stats catching a football in an stadium or in a prison recreation yard.