Lawrence Lovette
DURHAM -- Durham's city manager has released a new report about one of the suspects in the murders of two local college students.
In the report, Patrick Baker examined why 17-year-old Lawrence Lovette was charged with felony breaking and entering last November. Baker said Lovette should have been charged with a more serious crime. He already faces first-degree murder charges in the deaths of UNC-Chapel Hill senior Eve Carson, and Duke University graduate student Abhijit Mahato.
"The police department was the charging agency, and we charged him ultimately with felony breaking and entering," Baker explained in an exclusive interview with News 14 Carolina. "But upon further review of the investigator's notes, the more appropriate charge would have been felony burglary."
Baker said the burglary charge is "considered the more serious of the charges, and requires the breaking and entering to occur at night while the residence was occupied."
Baker said "there's really no answer" for why Lovette did not receive the burglary charge, "other than it appears that the investigator entered the wrong statute in terms of the violation of the criminal laws."
"In speaking with her it is clear that it was her intent to charge him with burglary," said Baker. "The evidence suggested that a burglary occurred as opposed to simply a breaking and entering. Both are felony charges, both are serious charges, but the investigator acknowledges that the more appropriate charge would have been burglary as opposed to felony breaking and entering."
Durham's city manager has released a new report about one of the suspects in the murders of two local college students.
Baker's report says court records show that eventually Lovette reached a plea bargain with the district attorney's office, and received probation.
"He pled guilty to a misdemeanor and was released," Baker said.
Baker said Durham's police chief has already spoken to the investigator who handled Lovette's case, and that person has not faced any disciplinary action. Regardless, Baker said there's no guarantee that Lovette would have been off the streets at the time of Carson's murder and Mahato's murder if he had been charged with the more serious burglary charge.
"It's hard to say here because the charge was a felony charge, regardless of whether it was breaking and entering, or burglary," Baker said. "I don't believe that burglary versus felony breaking and entering would have changed what Mr. Lovette is alleged to have done after the plea agreement."