A beating outside a Mansfield bar in late December 2022 set off a chain of events that federal prosecutors say ended with a paid assassin gunning down 26-year-old Devonte Jacocks inside a convenience store, and left a getaway driver's accomplice dead by suicide weeks later. Cy Michael Ison, a 26-year-old suspected drug dealer, now faces federal charges accusing him of using interstate communications in the commission of a murder for hire, a case that could carry the death penalty or life in prison if he is convicted.
A Beating Outside the Bucket Bar Sparks a Bounty
According to court filings described by Cleveland.com, Ison was beaten outside the Bucket Bar on Lexington Street on December 30, 2022, by six men, including Jacocks. An FBI agent wrote that the killing followed that beating, with the filings made public the week before the story published. Ison later told associates that two people involved in the fight had jumped him by hitting him when he turned around, and on New Year's Day he began sending messages about retaliating against members of the group.
Court records say Ison offered thousands of dollars to kill the people who had attacked him. He eventually settled on paying $10,000 for Jacocks to be killed, according to the filings, and during a FaceTime call he sent a photo of Jacocks to a man he was recruiting for the job, per the FBI. That man asked for half of the $10,000 up front and half after Jacocks was dead, but Ison said he needed to talk to his brother before agreeing to those terms, and he noted that someone had previously taken $5,000 from him without delivering results. He ultimately changed his mind, telling the man he would pay only after the killing was carried out, and offered $5,000 for a shot to the body or $10,000 for a shot to the head.
Inside the M&S Drive-Thru
The job fell to Nakeial Carter, who later told prison cellmates — according to an FBI agents' court filing — that he took Ison's money, hired Jamir Hess to pull the trigger, and kept most of the cash for himself, giving Hess little in return. On the night of March 2, 2023, a masked shooter opened fire inside the M&S Drive-Thru at 753 Springmill Street, according to the Mansfield News Journal, which reported that a male suspect wearing all black and a mask entered the business and shot three people.
Jacocks was shot in the head, chest and right thigh and later died; another 26-year-old man was shot in the calf and a 24-year-old woman was shot in the foot, according to a report from News 5 Cleveland. The Richland County Coroner's Office identified the victim as Devonte Jacocks of Mansfield, a 2015 graduate of Mansfield Senior High School who was on probation after a heroin-trafficking conviction and was the father of two children, with a third son on the way when he died, the Richland Source reported. As of 3:40 p.m. the day after the shooting, no shooter was in custody, and a week later police said no arrests had been made and no charges had been filed.
The Getaway, the Cash and a Death by Suicide
Federal filings say the shooter fled the store and went to Carter's home, where Hess arrived sweating. Carter later told police that Hess called someone after the shooting and that Carter helped dispose of evidence, including helping Hess hide his clothes in a neighbor's trash can and burying the gun used in the killing. Carter texted Ison to tell his girlfriend to give her 15 when she showed up, according to court records cited in the filings.
Ison himself allegedly texted his ex-girlfriend that Jacocks was dead and that he had put $10,000 on his head, then texted his girlfriend the next day that Jacocks was dead; when she asked what he was doing, he said he would hole up for the night. Carter was already out on bond at the time for a 2022 shooting incident outside another Mansfield drive-through. He was ultimately charged with tampering with evidence and gang-related offenses, pleaded guilty to the tampering charge, and was sentenced to 17 to 25 years in prison for that case and the 2022 shooting.
Jamir Hess never faced that reckoning in court. The Richland County Coroner's Office determined that Hess died by suicide from a gunshot wound inside his Emerald Avenue home on March 29, 2023, less than a month after the killing.
A Retaliation Shooting and a Stalled Investigation
Three days after the drive-thru shooting, on March 5, 2023, someone shot Ison in the leg on Lexington Springmill Road. Police had already seized his phone after that shooting, and a witness later told investigators the attack was retaliation for Jacocks's killing and that Ison had put out the hit, according to the court filings. Investigators raided Carter's home on March 16, 2023 while looking into a separate shooting. Ison was arrested on a gun charge in 2023, though that case was later dropped.
The case went cold for a stretch. FBI agents obtained cellphone records from Ison's phone in March of this year and formally joined the murder-for-hire investigation in December 2025, long after Mansfield police had publicly appealed for the public's help identifying the killer, per the Richland Source's 2023 reporting. The delay fits a broader pattern in the city: Mansfield recorded 12 homicides in 2023, more than double the five recorded the year before, and most of those cases remained unsolved, according to the Mansfield News Journal's year-end review.
Drug Raids, Airport Seizures and a Fentanyl Indictment
Ison's name resurfaced in other investigations in the years since. In 2024, DEA agents stopped Ison and another man at John Glenn International Airport in Columbus and seized $20,670 in suspected drug money hidden in his luggage. FBI agents later said that seizure suggested Ison could fund large cash bounties. This September, officers with METRICH — a task force made up of officers from 10 counties in north-central Ohio — raided Ison's home on Glenbeck Lane and found a shotgun, a rifle and $84,510 in cash.
METRICH announced Wednesday that Ison, his brother and eight others were indicted in Richland County Common Pleas Court in connection with a fentanyl-dealing ring. Ison is now jailed in Richland County on $1 million bond tied to that fentanyl-trafficking investigation, separate from the federal murder-for-hire charge. James Mayer III, Ison's attorney in the drug case, did not return a message seeking comment, and a court had not yet set an initial court date for Ison in the federal case as of publication.
A Grim Echo in the Jacocks Family
The killing carries a painful family echo. Jacocks's grandfather, Clarence Jacocks Jr., 49, was shot and killed while working at Papa Johnny's Drive-Thru in Mansfield on March 12, 1999, the Mansfield News Journal noted in its original coverage of the 2023 shooting. Mansfield, a city of about 47,000 residents located roughly halfway between Cleveland and Columbus, has grappled with a string of violent, often unsolved cases tied to its small commercial storefronts.
Federal prosecutors have charged Ison under a statute covering the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, court records show. The case was reported by Adam Ferrise, who covers federal courts for Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer and has worked at both outlets since 2013.
