This week, new and startling revelations have emerged in the ongoing trial of Issiah Mehki Ross, a 20-year-old facing charges for the first-degree murders of two teenagers in North Carolina. The tragic incident, which took place in September 2022, saw the lives of 14-year-old Lyric Woods and 18-year-old Devin Clark cut short. Their bodies were discovered near a power line easement shortly after their families reported them missing. The alarming details of the case have captivated the Tar Heel State as the court proceedings continue.

Ross is accused of carrying out the fatal shootings, and the prosecution has presented testimony suggesting that the defendant believed he had hidden the bodies well enough to delay their discovery. However, this assumption was proven wrong when two men stumbled upon the grim scene while checking trail cameras. The trial has brought to light the chilling confidence Ross allegedly had in his actions.

Christian Sykes, a key witness and former acquaintance of Ross, delivered crucial testimony this week. He recounted a chilling confession, claiming Ross had boasted about the crime, allegedly stating that the bodies were left in a location where “nobody’s gonna find them.” This testimony was reported by local media outlets, including Greensboro’s CBS affiliate WFMY and Raleigh’s NBC affiliate WRAL, adding layers of intrigue and horror to the unfolding case.

Sykes provided a detailed account of the night of the murders, sharing the sequence of events as purportedly described to him by Ross. His statements were further substantiated by a recording played in court, capturing the moment investigators interviewed Sykes about his knowledge of the crime.

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.

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.