Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series looking at the three-year anniversary of Terris Ross' death
As a boy, Terris Ross told his mother he wanted to be president.
As a teen, all he wanted was to be the first in his family to go to college.
As a senior at Ohio University, he wanted to open his own business in Cleveland after graduation.
Instead, Ross, known to friends as T. Ross
was shot and killed while sitting in the driver's seat of a late-model Cadillac Sedan DeVille in a University Commons parking lot three years ago today.
He was 23 years old.
It's been three years since Ross was killed, but no one has been arrested or charged in connection with the crime, said Athens Police Department Lt. John Withers.
The police are still kind of looking into the case, Withers said. The investigation is progressing slowly because of a lack of eyewitnesses to the shooting and because people won't talk with us.
Withers said, however, police have known of an individual who might be a suspect, although further information could not be released.
Ross was engaged at the time of his death. His fiancee, Angel Ross, took Ross' last name in May 2003. She was three months pregnant when he was killed.
I miss his fun personality he was just a really laid back go-with-the-flow type of guy. He was just real fun and silly
Angel said. I hate to say this now
but I wish he was here to play his video games. I used to get on him all the time about them
but now I wish he was here to play them.
When the couple's daughter, two-and-a-half-year-old Teaira, looks at photos of her father, she says she wants to go to heaven to see the daddy she's never met, Angel said.
Angel, who now lives in Mansfield and works as a news clerk and reporter for The Mansfield News-Journal, used to call APD almost every day to ask about the officers' progress on the case. Now, she's given up hope that Ross' murder will ever be solved, she said.
It's three years later. Nothing's changed
and it's the same thing
she said. It will take an act of God to make something happen (with the case).
Ross' mother, Dorothy Gamble, shares Angel's sentiments about the police department.
I got so frustrated with calling and calling and calling that I don't even call anymore
said Gamble, who lives outside Sandusky.
Ross' murder may have been drug related, Nyerre Mays, the only eyewitness to the case, told The Post in a June 2, 2004, article. Mays, a former OU student, was sitting in the passenger seat of the Cadillac and was shot in the arm.
While Withers would not comment on whether drugs played a role in Ross' shooting, he did say that in cases when drugs are mentioned, possible informants just clam up or are reluctant to talk to police.
In the article, Mays said Ross might have been shot because he might have owed someone money, but both Angel and Gamble said they don't believe that explanation.
I know for a fact he didn't owe anyone
Angel said, although she didn't specify how she knew.
Gamble said Ross was close with his family and never mentioned being in trouble or owing anyone money.
According to his autopsy report, Ross tested positive for THC, the main ingredient in marijuana. His blood alcohol level was 0.15 - 0.07 above Ohio's legal limit of 0.08 for driving.
Gamble and Angel both said they knew Ross used marijuana recreationally, but both women said that while drugs may have played a role in the shooting, his drug use shouldn't be used as an excuse for the murder to remain unsolved.
My focus is not on all that other crap
my focus is on that somebody killed my son
