Highway curve often a crash site

It’s not a good sign when there’s a late-night knock on Cindy and Greg Lee’s door.

The knocks have come periodically since they moved four years ago to the home Cindy Lee’s grandfather built, tucked in a curve in Old N.C. 86 between Carrboro and Hillsborough.

Once it was a lost woman who didn’t speak English, Lee said. Another time it was the driver of the Heelraiser car, broken down.

Last Monday, a knock came from a limping, panicked 23-year-old. He had been with two others in a stolen car that crashed into a tree across the street, killing Ricky Ricardo Deangelo Snides, 22, of Mebane.

“Who is it?” Greg Lee asked. He guessed it was his father-in-law, Bill Turner, who had just visited.

Lee says the man on the other side of the door said his name — Ressan McMillan.

McMillan said he needed help, that his leg was broken, Greg Lee said. Lee called 911 — they call often when people approach, Cindy Lee said — and kept the door closed. The knocks continued.

Lee couldn’t see him. It was dark outside and his wife was on her way home from the School of Government, where she teaches, he said.

Across the street and down the road a bit, a stolen red 2005 Honda Civic was crushed against a tree after it traveled south on N.C. 86 and went off the road into a muddy ditch.

Cars from the N.C. Highway Patrol, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and Orange County Emergency Medical Services responded, and by that time McMillan was sitting on the porch chair. In the Lees’ driveway, he told the highway patrol he didn’t drive the car, and they still haven’t determined who did.

Charges are pending for McMillan and the other survivor, Trevor Jarod Moore, 26, who was found walking to Carrboro the next day, said Dawn Berry with the Highway Patrol. McMillan had a broken wrist, a sore leg and cuts on his head, Berry said.

The Lees gave witness statements and joked that an episode of “Cops” was playing out on their porch.

“It’s sad that you have to be sort of nervous about people that knock on your door,” Greg Lee said.

But it wasn’t someone running out of gas or needing a phone. It was the kind of thing that made it harder for the Lees to sleep.



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