It's hard to think of the Panthers as representative of the city in the way the Packers are of Green Bay. Crane, who arrived in Charlotte at the height of the Bakker saga, said the evangelist's trial also fed a cultural and religious stereotype the nation had of Charlotte and the South. Carruth is just another troubled athlete in another city. Court TV's Dann says Charlotte is part of her network's Carruth story, as any city would be with a big trial in its courthouse. It's the topic everybody's talking about in the local diner or coffee shop.
Bender wonders if that's as true as it once was.
In his office, he still has interview requests from the BBC and an Australian radio station from the 1989 trial. The attention, he says, was a novelty for Charlotte. People talked not only about Bakker, but about everyone who had come to watch. High-profile trials everywhere have since become more accessible, Crane says, thanks to Court TV and other electronic media. In Charlotte, such events are simply more common, with George Shinn's trial, Bobby Phills' death and the slaying of Fred Lane leading some national news reports.