DEL.ICIO.USSlain students mourned in Athens, Marietta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/09/08
The world was a better place because of Eve Carson.
That's how friends and loved ones remembered the slain University of North Carolina senior at her funeral Sunday afternoon in her home town of Athens.
 Chapel Hill police/AP |
| This composite photo released by the Chapel Hill police detectives are searching for this man, photographed using the ATM card of Eve Carson. Carson, 22, of Athens, Ga., was found shot dead Wednesday morning lying on a street about a mile from campus. |
 Gerry Broome/AP |
| North Carolina basketball players observe a moment of silence for UNC Student Body President Eve Carson before their game against Duke in Durham, N.C., Saturday. |
 UNC |
| As part of her platform for student body president, the Athens native campaigned to locate a local frozen yogurt place in the student union. |
A standing-room-only crowd packed into the 800-seat sanctuary of First United Methodist Church to pay final respects to a young lady many said could have changed the world.
Lifelong friend Amble Johnson said Carson was on a clear path to success.
"She had great potential, but she also used all of her potential," said Johnson, who had known Carson since they were 5 years old. "She could've succeeded at whatever she wanted to."
In a statement delivered through the Rev. Bill Britt during the funeral, Carson's father Bob Carson lamented his daughter's death.
"The senseless murder of my sweet, sweet Eve saddens our family," the statement read. "The irony of Eve's murder is that she and her peers can solve the most pressing problems of our day, they are so bright."
Carson, 22, was found shot to death early Wednesday morning less than a mile from her home in Chapel Hill, N.C. Athens police found her SUV later that day, more than a mile away from where her body was discovered.
Authorities now are looking for a suspect whose photo was taken at an ATM in what is believed to be Carson's vehicle.
Britt, whose daughter Sarah was one of Carson's childhood friends, began his eulogy by expressing his and others' hurt.
"Oh, Lord, our hearts are broken," he said. "We should not be here this afternoon. It is too soon to be remembering Eve."
Carson was, by all accounts, a wunderkind too modest to acknowledge her own brilliance. Her priority lay in helping those around her.
"Her intellectual capacity was breathtaking," said Travis Starkey, a friend from UNC who traveled from Clarksdale, Miss., to attend the funeral. Starkey had worked with Carson at Freshman Camp for incoming UNC students.
"She was interested in what we could do for one another to best help the freshmen," he said.
Carson graduated from Clarke Central High in Athens as valedictorian of the 2004 senior class and was offered full scholarships to several private colleges and universities. She excelled in science and social studies in high school, and double-majored in pre-medicine biology and political science.
She went to UNC as a Morehead Foundation scholar, was a member of Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society and was the seated student body president.
But her genuine interest in others underscored her phenomenal intelligence and beauty, friend Neil Burrow said.
"If you were in a room with her and there were 100 people, you could feel like you were her only friend," said Burrow, a UNC grad who flew from the Dominican Republic for the funeral.
Maxine Easom, Carson's high school principal, said it's hard not to think about what the murdered student could have accomplished.
"It's a tremendous loss, even for those who did not know her," Easom said. "We have to find a way for her spirit to live on through us."
Meanwhile, in Marietta, a rabbi at Temple Kol Emeth asked more than 500 people who gathered Sunday evening for the funeral of Auburn University freshman Lauren Burk to turn their anger at her senseless slaying into something positive and let the justice system handle her killer.
Burk, 18, a freshman at Auburn and graduate of Marietta's Walton High School, was found suffering from a gunshot wound Tuesday night on the side of a road about five miles from campus. She died later at a hospital.
Her 2001 Honda Civic was found that night burning in a campus parking lot. On Friday, Phenix City, Ala., police arrested 23-year-old Courtney Lockhart, who has been charged with capital murder, along with kidnapping, robbery and attempted rape.
Auburn will hold a campuswide memorial service in Burk's honor Monday, to include school President Jay Gogue and Alison Penuel, president of her sorority, Delta Gamma.
— Rebecca McCarthy and the Associated Press contributed to this story.
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