17-year-old charged with first-degree murder of Orange County teens
A 17-year-old charged in connection with the September deaths of friends Lyric Woods and Devin Clark will be tried as an adult, the Orange County Sheriff's Office announced Monday.
Issiah Mehki Ross, 17, of Mebane, went to school with Clark. Ross is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Woods, 14, and Clark, 18, whose bodies were found on Sept. 18 off a remote ATV path.
Ross is being held without bond in a juvenile detention facility. His first appearance in Superior Court will be Nov. 15 or 16.
Ross, who has been in custody since Oct. 5, will be tried as an adult.
"We decided to transfer this case and that’s a decision we take very seriously," said Jeff Nieman, assistant district attorney of Orange County. "And we do that in cases like this based upon three primary factors, and that’s the seriousness of the offense, the age of the suspect and the overall strength of the evidence."
Sheriff releases timeline of case during press conference
The Orange County Sheriff's Office held a press conference at 2:30 p.m. to provide long-awaited answers on the identity of the suspect and his connection with the victims.
Gathering evidence and tracking down the suspect took weeks and crossed state lines.
The victims' bodies were found on Sunday, Sept. 18. Ross fled the state early Sunday evening, according to Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood.
Officials believed he was going to Delaware – and they were right.
"Authorities in Delaware have charged two people with harboring a fugitive for their role in assisting Mr. Ross after he fled from North Carolina. Those cases will be adjudicated in the court system in Delaware," said Nieman.
A spokesperson from the Sheriff's Office says Ross had not been living in North Carolina for long. School records show Ross went to Eastern Alamance High School with one of the victims – but only for six days, at the beginning of the school year. WRAL learned from school records that Ross attended the same school as Clark. Ross was enrolled from Aug. 29 to Sept. 3.
WRAL News went by Ross' Mebane address, where a woman at the apartment asked our reporter to leave.
Ross's attorney also declined to provide a statement or interview, saying "we are still gathering evidence."
The two victims were friends. Woods was a student at Cedar Ridge High School in Hillsborough, and Clark was a football player at Eastern Alamance High School in Mebane.
The motive is still unknown
Nieman said even though Ross will be tried as an adult, anyone under 18 is not eligible to receive the death penalty. The most serious punishment option is life in prison without possibility of parole.
Nieman told WRAL News the most experienced prosecutors are working the case.
"Just know that there is no case we take more seriously than a case where two young people have tragically lost their lives," he said.
Nieman was not able to comment on the motive or other facts about the case. The search warrants, which likely contain a lot of information about evidence and perhaps a motive, are sealed. For now, those answers will have to wait.
"The proper place for the evidence to come out is in court," Neiman said. "And the proper place and time for that to be evaluated is by juries and by judges. We do recognize the importance of providing information to the public but what we don’t want to do is do anything to jeopardize the proper adjudication of this case."
