Although I didn't know Eve Carson, those who did have made it clear that she was the type of capable leader, dedicated student and loyal friend we all hope to be. There is no doubt that had Eve's life not been cut short at 22, there would have been no limit to what she could have accomplished, and I join the rest of the Triangle in mourning her absence from our community.
Of course, Eve's untimely death would have been tragic under any circumstances.
But I trust that I am not alone in finding the way that she did die-shot in the head, her body unceremoniously dumped in the middle of an intersection-especially appalling.
And so it was with anger and more than a little disgust that I learned that a series of administrative mistakes-the sorts of sloppy, embarrassing blunders that seem endemic to public bureaucracies-were responsible for allowing suspected murderers Laurence Lovette and Demario Atwater to walk the streets the night authorities say they killed Eve Carson.
As we now know, the 22-year-old Atwater should have been jailed back in June 2007 after he pled guilty to possession of a firearm, a charge that violated his probation.
Atwater also could have been locked up on a second gun charge lodged in November 2007, but court records indicate he wasn't even served with that warrant until February 2008.
Worse yet, in an almost unbelievable twist of fate, Atwater was scheduled to be in court just two days before he allegedly killed Eve Carson. Due to a clerical error, however, his case was called in a different courtroom, and authorities extended his hearing until March 31.
The case of Atwater's alleged accomplice, 17-year-old Laurence Lovette, is no less outrageous. Although he was (incorrectly) on a type of probation that only required him to check in with a probation officer once every three months, Lovette had already been arrested on a violation at the time of Eve's death.
While he waited for that case to go to trial, authorities now say Lovette busied himself with participating in the brutal Jan. 18 killing of Duke graduate student Abhijit Mahato, where a group of men put a pillow over the defenseless engineering student's face and shot him at point-blank range between the eyes.
So although authorities rightly credit "good police work" with cracking the Eve Carson case just days after her body was identified, let's not lose sight of the massive systemic failure that led to her death. Indeed, this case has enough "if onlys" to torture Eve's friends and family for several lifetimes.
If only the Wake County courthouse's computer system had not failed to indicate that Demario Atwater was already on probation when he pled guilty to that first gun charge. If only authorities had served the warrant for his second gun charge in a more timely fashion. If only the probation officers assigned to monitor these two young men had done a more thorough job. If only investigators had found Abhijit Mahato's cell phone in Lovette's possession the day before the Carson murder.
If just one of those things had happened, Eve Carson might be alive today (and Abhijit Mahato too). If just one of those things had happened, we might not be grieving the loss of two outstanding young people now. And if just one of those things had happened, two very troubled young men might not be headed for life imprisonment (or worse) because they chose to commit this senseless crime.
So as glad as we may be that authorities think they've caught the right men, let's keep those paths not taken in the front of our minds when people like Durham District Court Judge Craig Brown beg legislators for tougher anti-gang laws, as he did last Friday.
No one expects police to fully shield citizens from the brutality and senselessness of the world, but we do have the right to demand their best efforts. Indeed, as Eve Carson's fate tragically demonstrates, our grip on life may well be as fragile as an errant keystroke or a misplaced court file.
Let's not wait so complacently for the next fatal error.
Kristin Butler is a Trinity senior. Her column runs every Tuesday.
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