Double rape and murder trial under way

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A Charlotte jury is set to begin deciding the fate of a man accused in a double rape and murder that stunned the Queen City 15 years ago.

Antwan Sanders is now 33 years old. He is one of three men who were eventually charged in the deaths of 15-year-old Raylynn Chelton and 17-year-old Tasha Lopes, both of Charlotte.

The girls were last seen by someone who later told police he had seen them forced into a car at gunpoint at the Emerald Bay Apartments in South Charlotte on June 3, 1993.

Police searched for five days before the bodies were found on the other side of town at an industrial warehouse area of north Charlotte. The girls were found stripped of their clothes. Both had been sexually assaulted and shot in the head

A decade later in 2004, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police charged Sanders. The unsolved case was one of the first turned over to the department’s new cold case squad that was set up to reopen old murders.

Sanders’ family and the families of the victims sat in the same courtroom Thursday listening to closing arguments from the prosecution and defense.

Sanders’ mother, Dorothy Dillard, said her son was no killer.

"My son just got mixed up with the wrong two people," she said. "He is not a murderer."

His aunt, Sandra Sadler added, "We just pray that our nephew gets justice because we do believe he is innocent."

Family members of the two dead teens declined to speak about the case until after a verdict is reached.

The jury went home around 5 p.m. and will return at 9:30 a.m. Friday to begin deliberations after getting instructions on the law from the judge. If the verdict is guilty, Sanders faces the prospect of life in prison.