Eve Carson

Name: Eve Marie Carson

UNC student asked to pray before murder, says witness - Pictures ...

Prosecutors paint chilling picture of Eve Carson's last moments ...

Murderers’ ages: 17 & 21

Death: Chapel Hill, March 5, 2008

Biography

Eve was born in Athens, Georgia, on November 19, 1985, to Bob Carson and Teresa Bethke. She graduated from Clarke Central High School where she was class valedictorian and was elected president of the high school’s student body. During her high school years, Eve also served as: a vice president of the National Honor Society; a member of the high school’s Academic Team; a peer educator at the Athens Area Attention Home, a safe house for runaway and abused youth; a page in the U.S. House of Representatives; and a lab assistant in a stem-cell research laboratory at the University of Georgia.

Eve attended college at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During her college years, she participated in and led many organizations and service projects.

She was a member of: the Academic Advising Program; the Athletic Council; the Carolina Leadership Development Board; the Chancellor’s Committee for University Teaching Awards; the Chancellor Search Committee; the Committee on Scholarships, Awards and Student Aide; Phi Beta Kappa; and UNC-Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees.
She was an orientation counselor at Freshman Camp.
She was a North Carolina Fellow, taking part in a four-year leadership development program.
She was an assistant coach for the Girls on the Run program.
She tutored middle school students.
She taught science to elementary school students as part of UNC’s Inspire Program.
She was a reflections leader for UNC’s A.P.P.L.E.S. (Assisting People in Planning Learning Experiences in Service) program.
She was co-president of the Honors Program Student Executive Board.
She was co-chairwoman of UNC’s chapter of Nourish International, a hunger relief organization.

In addition to all this, Eve was president of UNC’s student body from April 2007 until her death in 2008.

UNC Student Eve Carson Begged Captors to Pray With Her Before They ...

Along with being president of UNC’s student body, and participating in and leading many organizations and projects, Eve traveled often.

In 2004 she traveled to Wyoming where she participated in a wilderness leadership course through the National Outdoor Leadership School.
In the summer of 2005, she traveled to Ecuador and volunteered in the rural countryside as a medical assistant, taught computer skills to Indigenous people in the Amazon Rainforest, and worked on a coffee farm.
In the spring of 2006, she traveled to Havana, Cuba, where she spent a semester studying at the Universidad de la Habana.
In the summer of 2006, she worked with a U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit in Egypt.

Eve majored in political science and biology. Prior to being kidnapped, robbed, and murdered, Eve had accepted a job at McKinsey & Co as a management consultant. Her interests lay mainly in scientific policy and she aspired to pursue higher education after college, perhaps by attending law school or by studying public health and/or public policy in graduate school. She was just two months away from graduating with a 3.9 GPA. Eve had a very bright future. However, two men, one of them a juvenile, decided to rob her of that future on March 5, 2008.

Eve had a very bright future. Had she lived she would have made many great contributions to our country and our world. But society was robbed of those contributions by two evil men.

Eve Carson Memorial Garden. Photo courtesy of Adam Domby. — Eve Carson Memorial Garden

Legacy

Despite the loss of her life at such a young age, Eve’s legacy continues to live on. Every year, Eve Carson Awards are presented by the Foundation for Excellence in Public Education to students and teachers in Clarke County, Georgia. Chase Street Elementary School and Barrow Elementary School in Eve’s home town of Athens, GA created service-learning awards in Eve’s memory.

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Eve was posthumously awarded the prestigious Chancellor’s Award for most outstanding woman in the senior class and the General Alumni Association’s Distinguished Young Alumnus award. Two merit scholarships have been created at UNC in her honor. The Eve Marie Carson Memorial Junior-Year Merit Scholarship is for juniors at UNC while the Eve Marie Carson “Carolina Way” Scholarship, established by the Morehead-Cain Foundation, helps UNC recruit and support successful students like Eve. The Eve Carson Memorial 5K attracts thousands of participants annually and raises money for these scholarships. Eve has also been remembered by UNC in the form of the Eve Marie Carson Servant Leader Award, which was established by the University of North Carolina Association of Student Government, and is given to students who “exemplify the characteristics of a servant leader.” UNC also honored Eve by re-naming the Distinguished Speakers Series, which Eve had established during her term as student body president, the Eve Marie Carson Lecture Series.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is getimage.exe — The Eve Carson Memorial Butterfly Bench is located near the Eve Marie Carson Garden

Eve can also be remembered by physical memorials at UNC, such as a tree that turns bright red each fall. UNC dedicated the Eve Marie Carson Garden in honor of Eve and all students who die before graduation. The garden is located near the Campus YMCA. It includes a wall of Georgia marble inscribed with a quote from Eve: “Learn from every single being, experience, and moment. What joy it is to search for lessons and goodness and enthusiasm in others.”

Written by an NOVJM volunteer.

Read about Eve’s case here.