CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Court TV) — When prosecutor Gentry Caudill whispered in his opening statement that jurors would hear the voice of a dead woman, it became clear that Cherica Adams would be the linchpin of the case against former NFL player Rae Carruth.

Caudill surprised many that first day, when he barely mentioned Van Brett Watkins, the confessed shooter who pled guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for his testimony against Carruth. Most people had presumed that the deal that saved the career criminal from the death penalty meant he would be the state's star witness.

Instead, prosecutors were silent about Watkins. They sat still as defense attorney David Rudolf shaped his opening statement around the man he believes could clear his client, on trial for capital murder in the death of Cherica Adams, a girlfriend who was carrying his baby. Rudolf suggested Watkins had his own reason for killing Adams in a drive-by shooting on Nov. 16, 1999 — rage over a drug deal gone awry.

That was the last jurors would hear about Watkins during the 11 days of the state's case-in-chief.

"In their opening statement they didn't limit themselves to calling Watkins or any witness other than Cherica Adams as she testified through other people," says Charlotte attorney James Wyatt.

Indeed, prosecutors relied on the one eyewitness who wasn't supposed to testify. Despite four gunshot wounds, Adams called 911. And so, a year after her death, she began her testimony.

"Her message — Rae Carruth did this," Caudill said in his opening statement. "Sure as he pulled the trigger himself, Rae Carruth did this."

Jurors heard Adams' cries on the 911 tape, saw her words on crude notes she scribbled from her hospital bed and heard her story through a police officer, who said she gave him details as she was wheeled into surgery. (The baby was delivered by Caesarean section and survived.)

Through those surrogate witnesses, the 24-year-old testified that as she followed Carruth down a narrow stretch of a two-lane road he slowed to a crawl and then blocked her path as a third car drove up beside her and someone inside it opened fire.

"And then when the shooting stopped," Caudill said, "football hero Rae Carruth drove away and left Cherica Adams and his own son for dead."

After what some lawyers called the most dramatic opening statement of his career, Caudill faded into the background. Veteran prosecutor David Graham, known as the methodical paragon, handled most of the witnesses.

Former Mecklenburg County District Attorney Tom Moore, who hired Caudill, says he's not surprised. "Gentry is laying back but will handle the cross-examination of defense witnesses. That's his forte," Moore says.

As Graham questioned witnesses, Caudill spent hours at the counsel table writing page after page of what some speculated is his closing argument — another of his talents, according to Moore.

The prosecution's case lasted 11 days. On day one, Adams was alive — begging for help to a 911 operator.

But by day 11 her death was realized, as trauma surgeon Michael Thomason and Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner James Sullivan detailed four bullet paths that spared her unborn child by an inch but left many of her vital organs in shreds. The holes in her small intestine were too many to count, the doctors testified, and she lost more blood than the body can hold.

Former prosecutor Ann Gleason says book-ending the case with testimony about the victim is quintessential David Graham. "I can tell he orchestrated this case," Gleason says. "The victim and her family at the beginning and her horrible death at the end kept the jury focused on Adams."

Sandwiched between Adams' life and death was a tight, meaty case, showcased by a man whose unexpected presence changed the course of the trial.

Michael Kennedy, the wheelman in the drive-by shooting, walked into the courtroom shackled at the ankles and made his way to the witness box in the glare of confused stares — no one had heard anything about a deal with prosecutors.

Kennedy's attorney, James Exum, told Judge Charles Lamm he had warned Kennedy of the risks involved in testifying without a prearranged plea bargain. But Kennedy, facing his own upcoming death penalty case, said he was ready to waive his constitutional rights, implicate himself under oath and let the chips fall where they may.

He told jurors he was there to tell the truth — that Carruth planned the shooting, gave him $100 for a gun and threatened his life if he refused to carry out the plan.

David Rudolf spent two days cross-examining Kennedy about all the times he lied to police and about details absent from previous statements. Kennedy remained steadfast in his insistence that this time he was telling the truth.

To back up Kennedy's claims, prosecutors presented records of a flurry of phone calls between Carruth and his co-defendants during the hours leading up to and following the shooting.

After Kennedy fingered Carruth as the mastermind, Candace Smith, Carruth's former girlfriend, provided a motive. She said Carruth told her he didn't want the burden of child support. Smith, a one-time stripper, also told jurors that Carruth confessed to her at the hospital.

Smith, too, was forced to admit she had lied. She waited months before telling police of the alleged confession. She admitted to waiting for an immunity deal before completely fleshing out her tale. The defense tried to smear her as a woman scorned, who hated Adams and coveted her soon-to-be-born son of Carruth.

But former Charlotte Hornets center Charles Shackleford backed up her claim. He told jurors Smith confided in him about the confession that same morning.

However, Shackleford was haunted by his own demons. The married-with-children basketball star broke into a sweat as Rudolf grilled him about his year-and-half-long affair with Smith. He admitted that he had paid her rent, cell phone bills and car payments so that she could quit stripping. He admitted that he had no idea she was seeing Carruth on the side.

If Michael Kennedy was a pleasant surprise for prosecutors, Carruth's old friend, Tanya Ferguson, must have been a horrible shock. The prosecution called her to detail calls Carruth allegedly made from her cell phone to Kennedy and Watkins just an hour or so after the shooting.

She also testified about a voice-mail message she got from Carruth last January, directing her not to talk to a defense investigator without first getting instructions from Carruth's girlfriend.

But prosecutors apparently did not anticipate the damage Ferguson, whom Carruth affectionately referred to as his big sister, would do on cross. Under friendly questioning by Rudolf, Ferguson tearfully described the "very caring, very loving" Carruth, who didn't have the requisite personality of a murderer.

"The benefit of those calls is it shows some hint of an effort to hide evidence. But it was a draw in terms of her effectiveness," says former prosecutor Gleason.

What's more, Ferguson, whose background and credibility were left unscathed, disputed Smith's testimony regarding Carruth's demeanor at the hospital. Ferguson said that Carruth worried about Adams and her baby's condition and that he cried as he waited for word from the doctors.

Ferguson also saw Carruth just moments after the shooting, before he received the call that Adams had been shot. She said Carruth seemed his normal, happy-go-lucky self.

"If [Ferguson's] testimony about the cell phone calls was not outweighed, it was counterbalanced by the evidence she gave the defense in terms of his demeanor and discrediting Smith," Gleason says. "Smith was on the edge anyway and having someone discredit her again was not good."

But prosecutors obscured Ferguson's image of Carruth, when FBI Special Agent Mark Post described finding him the day after Adams died, curled up in the trunk of a friend's car 500 miles from Charlotte. With him were two bottles of urine and a bag containing $3,900 in cash.

The testimony made Carruth fidget in his seat. His mother, Theodry Carruth, left the courtroom in tears. Outside court she cried as she recalled the day she thought FBI agents — hot on Carruth's trail and abuzz with the belief that he was guilty — would shoot her son in a frenzy.

All told after 27 witnesses, the state presented "a crisp case with a clear message to the jury," says Gleason. "The big challenge for the defense is to explain away the circumstantial evidence and at the same time convince the jury the direct testimony of Michael Kennedy is a lie."

Former district attorney Moore agrees. "It's quite an uphill task for Mr. Rudolf," he says. "I'd be interested to see how he pulls that off."