State loses appeal in Mark Carver murder case of UNC Charlotte student
A Superior Court judge was within his rights to grant a Gaston County man a new trial in the 2008 death of a UNC Charlotte student, according to a ruling Tuesday by the state Court of Appeals.
The unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel could mean that District Attorney Locke Bell will be forced to decide as early as next month whether to try Mark Bradley Carver again for the killing of Irina Yarmolenko or dismiss the first-degree murder charge against him.
Carver, 52, spent more than eight years in prison after a Gaston County jury convicted him in 2011 of first-degree murder in the death of Yarmolenko, a 20-year-old college student.