Four years after two teenagers were found shot to death near Efland, the man convicted in one of their killings is heading back to court over the other. Issiah Ross, already sentenced to decades in prison for the second-degree murder of 18-year-old Devin Clark, is set to face a jury in Orange County on June 7, 2027, as prosecutors prepare to retry him for the death of 14-year-old Lyric Woods.
Ross was charged with killing both teenagers, whose bodies were discovered with gunshot wounds in Orange County near Efland on Sept. 18, 2022, according to newsobserver.com. He was 17 at the time of the killings but was tried as an adult, as reported by ABC11 News. Ross was arrested for the murders in Delaware roughly three weeks after the killings, according to a report from cbs17.com.
A Split Verdict After Years of Waiting
In January 2026, a jury convicted Ross of second-degree murder in Clark's death but deadlocked on the charge tied to Woods' killing. The jury told the judge it was divided 8-4 on the Woods count and could not reach a verdict, per alamancenews.com's account of the proceedings. Because of that deadlock, prosecutors and defense attorneys jointly moved for a mistrial on the Woods murder charge, and the judge granted it, the same outlet reported.
Judge Stephanie Reese then sentenced Ross for Clark's murder. WRAL reported the sentence as a minimum of 240 months and a maximum of 300 months, along with an order for a psychological evaluation, while ABC11 reported the minimum as 241 months with the same 300-month maximum — accounts that conflict on the exact minimum term. Either way, Ross is facing decades behind bars for Clark's death alone, with the Woods case still unresolved.
Competing Accounts of What Happened That Night
At trial, Ross testified that Clark shot Woods and that he then wrestled the gun away and shot Clark in self-defense, according to ABC11's coverage of the verdict. Prosecutors rejected that account, arguing the shootings were not self-defense because the victims had gunshot wounds in their backs, per WRAL's reporting. The case has repeatedly produced these sharply divergent narratives, with the defense maintaining Ross acted to protect himself and the state disputing that version.
Now Ross is set to return to an Orange County courtroom, with the Woods case scheduled to go before a jury again on June 7, 2027, depending on how court proceedings unfold. That date was confirmed in a report from cbs17.com. Other outlets have confirmed the broad contours of the split outcome: WXII reported that both sides agreed to move the first-degree murder charge involving Woods to a mistrial, leaving open the possibility of a future trial.
For now, the case remains in a kind of limbo — one victim's family has a conviction to point to, while the other awaits a second attempt at a verdict. The June 2027 retrial will mark another step in a legal process that has already stretched across four years since Clark and Woods were killed.
