QUESTION: When is the defendant, Issiah Mehki Ross, who has been charged with murdering two teens in Mebane in September 2022 scheduled to go to trial?
ANSWER: Ross, 20, black, male, who at the time resided at 1206 Deerfield Trace in Mebane, is currently scheduled to go to trial in Orange County superior court on October 27, 2025, according to his court file.
Ross is charged with first-degree murders in the shooting deaths of Devin Clark, 18, black, male, of Mebane, and Lyric Woods, 14, white, female, of Efland, is currently scheduled to go to trial in Orange County superior court on October 27, 2025, according to his court file.
The victims’ bodies had been discovered on Sunday, September 18, 2022 off a power-line easement near Buckhorn Flea Market in Mebane.
Ross and Clark had been students at Eastern High School; while Woods had just started her freshman year at Cedar Ridge High School in Hillsborough, multiple news outlets reported at the time.
Woods had left home late Friday night on September 16, 2022 and was reported missing by her family the following morning, based on a timeline of the events leading to the discovery of the two teens that Orange County sheriff Charles Blackwood outlined during a November 2022 press conference.
Clark’s family reported him missing to the authorities in Alamance County the morning of Sunday, September 18, 2022, Blackwood said during the press conference. Two men who had been riding four-wheelers through the woods came upon the victims along a power-line access off Buckhorn Road, the sheriff said.
Several people in the area later reported hearing gunshots in the area early that Saturday morning, Blackwood elaborated. “That’s when we believe the murders occurred,” he said.
Investigators later learned that Ross had fled the area on September 18, en route to Delaware, where he was ultimately apprehended by the Delaware violent Crime Safe Streets Task Force, according to Blackwood.
On October 3, 2022, Ross was indicted on two counts of first-degree murder, based on a copy of the bill of indictment that was filed in Orange County superior court.
A T.V. news station in Raleigh reported in late 2022 that two women who had been suspected of harboring Ross in Delaware – Nakaysha Ross, then 22, and McKenzie Mitchell, then 21 – had been arrested in Dover, Delaware and charged with felony hindering prosecution. There have been no subsequent reports about the disposition of their charges; criminal court files do not appear to be publicly-accessible through Delaware’s online filing system.
Orange County district attorney Jeff Nieman announced in November 2022 that Ross, who was 17 when he allegedly murdered Clark and Woods, would be tried as an adult. The defendant made his first appearance in Orange County superior court on November 15, 2022.
Since then, a new state law passed by the General Assembly and signed by then-Gov. Roy Cooper in August 2023 now allows law enforcement agencies to release the names and photos of juveniles who are being sought for serious crimes.
The section of the law titled “Lyric and Devin’s Law” authorizes the release of identifying information about juvenile suspects charged with serious crimes, such as murder and other Class A to F felonies, providing a judge authorizes the release. Cooper signed the law on August 24.
Previously, state law only allowed law enforcement officials to release the names, photos, and charges involving alleged juvenile offenders to be released once a case had been transferred from juvenile court to superior court.
However, the new law only allows the information to be released about juveniles after the filing of a juvenile petition, which is similar to an arrest warrant issued for adult suspects. The photos and names of juvenile suspects must also be removed from law enforcement social media accounts and websites once a juvenile suspect in a serious crime has been apprehended, according to the legislation.
Ross, who turns 21 on December 8 of this year, is being held without bond in the Orange County jail, according to the in-custody report on file with the Orange County sheriff’s department.
