'Nobody's gonna find them': Man was 'laughing' about killing high school teens and dumping their bodies 'a few hours after their parents said goodnight,' prosecutors say

Inset left to right: Issiah Ross, Lyric Woods and Devin Clark (Orange County Sheriff's Office). Background: A field where Woods and Clark were found shot to death just outside Efland, N.C. (Google Maps).

Shocking and closely guarded details about a double murder of teenagers in North Carolina have been revealed as the alleged killer's trial moves forward in the Tar Heel State this week.

Issiah Mehki Ross, 20, stands accused of two counts of murder in the first degree over the September 2022 shooting deaths of 14-year-old Lyric Woods and 18-year-old Devin Clark, whose bodies were found near a power line easement by two men checking trail cameras within hours of the high school students' families reporting them missing.

The defendant, however, expected a bit more of a search, according to testimony solicited by the prosecution on Tuesday.

Star witness Christian Sykes, who said he hung out with Ross in 2022, detailed a confession and a boast that the bodies had been dumped where "nobody's gonna find them," according to a courtroom report by Greensboro-based CBS affiliate WFMY and Raleigh-based NBC affiliate WRAL.

Sykes relayed the order of events on the night in question, as allegedly told to him by the defendant after the fact.

First, jurors heard Sykes on a recording made by investigators.

On the night of Friday Sept. 16, 2022, the trio was in a car together, Sykes told investigators in the audio. During the trip, Clark repeatedly trained a handgun's laser sight beam on Ross and Ross repeatedly told Clark to stop pointing the gun at him, according to the witness.

Eventually, the defendant had enough of the needling and tried to grab the gun from Clark, causing Clark to squeeze off two shots near Ross, Sykes said. After that, Ross successfully pried the gun away from Clark and shot him. Then, he shot Woods because "she saw everything that happened," the witness added, quoting the defendant.

Later, Sykes himself took the stand.

"When they got there they were hanging out and stuff and somehow or another, the other boy had a gun and he was like playing with it, pointing it on him," Sykes told the Orange County jury. "He told him to stop and he did it again. He did it again. He told him to stop. He said the third time he went for the gun, they wrestled for the gun and I don't remember exactly if he said the gun went off. But I do know he said that he shot them and dumped the bodies."

In the end, the victims were shot at around 2 a.m. the next morning, investigators determined. Their bodies would be found some 36 hours later in a field along Buckhorn Road just outside of Efland – a tiny town located some 40 miles due east of Greensboro.

Clark was shot three times while Woods was shot seven times, according to autopsies obtained by The News & Observer.

Orange County District Attorney Anna Orr put a fine point on the violence during her opening statement last week, saying the pair were killed "just a few hours after their parents said goodnight to them."

The alleged confession came before the bodies were found.

During his testimony, Sykes said Ross told him he kept the gun. Law enforcement have never recovered the murder weapon. The defendant was arrested several days after the killings in Delaware.

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On Tuesday, Sykes said he initially did not believe Ross, adding that the two had barely known each other for roughly six months at the time and would occasionally hang out and smoke.

That disbelief was present in the aftermath of the murders.

"It was crazy because there was no remorse," Sykes previously said. "I've never looked at him as a person as that's like…in my eyes, that's just evil. If you could murder two people like that and show no emotion, that's why I thought it was just something he came up with."

During his testimony, Sykes added a new detail – saying Ross had laughed about what happened to Woods and Clark in the end.

"It made me sick," Sykes said when addressing the jury. "You have to be a real sick individual to be laughing."

Ross, for his part, has claimed self-defense for the homicide of Clark. He also maintains that Clark was the one who killed Woods.

Trial is expected to continue through at least the end of the week.