Chancellor Lee Adams, former football player Rae Carruth's son, is expected to graduate from high school on June 5. Adams was nearly killed after Carruth hired a hitman to carry out the shooting of the high school graduate's mom while she was pregnant. 

Undeterred from life’s challenges, Adams, 21, will walk across the stage with his peers and receive his diploma from Vance High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, The Charlotte Observer reported.

On Nov. 16, 1999, the 21-year-old's mother, Cherica Adams, was shot four times during a drive-by shooting in Charlotte while pregnant with Chancellor. Cherica, who was 24 at the time, died the night of the shooting, but it was her 911 call that wound up saving Chancellor's life.   

Although he sometimes uses a walker to stand up, Adams will be supported by his friends and a teacher during his graduation.

Chancellor, who requires a live-in caregiver, is slated to graduate from high school after a stretch of six years, four of which were in the exceptional children’s high school program.

Due to the tragic nature of his birth, Chancellor now battles with cerebral palsy and brain damage, Yahoo Finance reported. His maternal grandmother Saundra Adams, who raised him, said she knows her daughter Cherica is more than proud of her son for his accomplishment.

One of Cherica’s friends even imitated how she would be reacting in a text message conversation with Saundra.  

“She is doing more than smiling! She’s singing, dancing, cutting cartwheels,” the unnamed friend of Cherica said. “She’s got all the angels together rooting for him. She’s saying: ‘That’s my boy right there!’”

However, Saundra, who said she’s forgiven Carruth long ago for his plot to have her daughter killed, said she doesn’t think he is aware of his son’s graduation. 

“I’m hoping that someone will tell him about this great milestone that Chancellor [Lee] is reaching,” Saundra said. “And as always, I’m still open — maybe we can have some communication.”

Chancellor is a part of his high school's last graduating class before they change its name to Julius L. Chambers. As for life after graduation, Chancellor said he isn’t quite sure what he wants to do. He and Saundra, who he calls “G-Mom,” have considered opening a business called “Lee Lids” to provide caps and hats online. 

Still, Saundra knows that what Chancellor achieved is great beyond measure. 

“Our story has been a story of transformation from the very beginning,” she said of their relationship. “You can take something that seems to be so bad and to have so many negative connotations, and you can end up making good of it.”

Carruth, a former wide receiver for the Carolina Panthers, conspired to have Chancellor killed by hiring a hitman. 

Carruth would later be sentenced to prison for 19 years after the jury’s guilty verdict in 200. The father moved to Pennsylvania after serving time in prison and now owes the Adams family millions of dollars in damages, WBTV reported. The hitman, Van Brett Watkins, is still serving his sentence. 

The crime went on to become one of the most notorious in the city’s history.

In 2018, The Charlotte Observer produced a well-detailed podcast that followed along with how the story unfolded, accompanied with an in-depth column of the crime. 

The podcast is broken up into eight chapters, starting with how Cherica and Carruth met to the former NFL player's release from prison.

Chancellor Lee AdamsNorth-CarolinaRae Carruth