A former Ohio University student who was in the car when OU senior Terris Ross was killed last year now says a botched drug deal might have led to the shooting and can describe a man he thinks was involved.
Nyerre Mays, who also was shot the night of March 9, 2003, said Ross parked at University Commons, 15 S. Shafer St., in the early morning hours to buy or sell drugs.
There's no point in tap dancing around whatever
Mays said in a telephone interview. It was drugs. And it is very fucking possible that (Ross) owed someone.
On the night of the murder, Mays was with Ross -who tests later showed had a .15 blood-alcohol content level and traces of THC, a substance found in marijuana, in his blood -in Ross' late-model Cadillac Sedan Deville in a Commons parking spot.
A sport utility vehicle parked two spots away, and a man joined Mays and Ross in the sedan. Mays said he then called a friend to avoid eyeing the man in the back seat because he did not want to know the details of the drug deal.
After just a few seconds, the man opened fire. Mays dropped the cell phone and turned to his left. The gun barrel was in his face, Mays said. He threw his arms over his head and crouched. Bullets grazed Mays' arm. Then the gunman left.
Athens County Prosecutor C. David Warren, who said last spring that Mays' description of the gunman narrows it down to the population of the planet said Mays probably knows more than he is telling police -a charge Mays denies.
Put a gun to his (Warren's)face and see what he remembers Mays said.
But more than a year later, Mays described for The Post in detail a man he believes was the shooter. Mays claims the gunman was an area insurance salesman and landlord. He said the man, while not a kingpin of drug trade, is a major cokehead.
He (the gunman) was probably so coked-out that night (March 9) that he thought he killed me
Mays said.
Other sources acquainted with the man Mays described, speaking on conditions of anonymity, said they believe he was involved in Ross' shooting. The Post is not naming the man because police have not charged him with any crime or identified him as a suspect.
When questioned about the man, both Athens detective Lt. John Withers and Warren said they were not familiar with him. Regarding Mays' recent information, Withers had no comment.
Athens police have had no contact with Mays for months, Withers said.
Mays also said that James Brad McLain, whose name has emerged in court in connection with the Ross case, was in constant communication with Ross the last day he was alive. McLain is not the possible suspect Mays described and has not been charged with any offense related to the shooting.
Mays said he spent most of March 9 with Ross at a cookout and Uptown bars. Ross and McLain made many cell phone calls to each other, Mays said, including a call made to Ross from a number belonging to McLain shortly after 2:20 a.m. Ross, a senior business student from Fremont, Ohio, was shot about 10 minutes later, according to police reports.
McLain's name became public when Withers identified him as someone involved in the case during a perjury trial in March involving McLain's former girlfriend Cynthia Lanning. In the trial, Withers confirmed that McLain spoke to Ross on the phone just before the shooting and that McLain was involved in the Athens drug trade.
But this week, Withers refused to comment about whether McLain is still under investigation.
A grand jury indicted Lanning for perjury in connection with her testimony about conversations she had with McLain by phone March 16, 2003, when McLain was placed in Southeast Ohio Regional Jail in Nelsonville on drug charges. Taped phone conversations between Lanning and McLain -played before the trial jury -focused on collecting money.
Information obtained through our investigation showed us right off that Mr. McLain was involved in drug-trafficking
Withers said during the trial. Information police had about McLain's involvement with drugs and his phone calls to Lanning could have given us information to charge Brad McLain with the homicide.
Angel Ross, Terris' fiancee, told The Athens News shortly after the shooting last year McLain might be involved. But in a late-February interview with The Post, she said McLain was definitely not the killer
but he may know. He might have been the one who called (Terris') phone last.
Athens attorney K. Robert Toy, McLain's lawyer and spokesman, had no comment about his client's involvement in the case. Repeated attempts to contact McLain -visiting his most recent address and calling his family's listed number -have been unsuccessful.
Warren said in April that Ross' involvement with drugs was an operating-hypothesis among investigators.
A former OU student, who has not spoken with police, claims
that Ross was a key player in a drug trade operating throughout Athens County.
Craig Shaver, who left OU last year, said Ross allegedly ferried several types of narcotics -including marijuana, cocaine and heroin -from Nelsonville and other areas in Ohio to Athens.
Ross was huge around here
said Shaver, who said he no longer uses drugs.
Ross supplied narcotics to a dealer known as Blair
Shaver said. Shaver met frequently with Blair
always at a different location, to buy drugs.
It's still unclear who Blair is -Shaver said no names were exchanged during handoffs in the city. But police confirmed that Blair is being investigated.
Angel, in an interview with The Post, did not say directly whether she had knowledge of Ross' possible drug activity.
T. Ross was the type of guy who liked to kick it
she said. Everybody kicks it. Some people drink. Some do some coke
ecstasy
