HILLSBOROUGH - Orange-Chatham District Attorney Jim Woodall plans to announce Oct. 28 whether he'll pursue the death penalty against six young men accused of murdering 20-year-old Josh Bailey.

Authorities say Matt Johnson, 21, shot Bailey in the head with a 9 mm pistol after the group had begun to dig a shallow grave. In addition to Johnson, Brian Minton, 18, Jacob Maxwell, 18, Jack Johnson II, 19, Ryan Ladar, Davis Lee, 20, and Brandon Greene, 26, are being held without bail on charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping.

Woodall also plans to announce Oct. 28 whether he'll pursue the death penalty against Kenneth White, 40, who is accused of shooting 20-year-old Ebony Robinson, who was eight months pregnant with his child, and Randall Standifer, 50, charged with killing his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend on Christmas Day.

In Chatham County, Barbara Clark, 42, avoided a capital trial this week by pleading guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and submitting to two consecutive life sentences for the beating deaths of two elderly women.

Already Woodall's office is pursuing capital cases against Demario Atwater, accused of shooting Eve Carson, UNC-Chapel Hill student body president; Bobby Person, accused of stabbing his mother to death in Chatham County; and Louis Wilson, accused of raping and killing Tracy Baldwin after she confronted him about stolen money.

Atwater's alleged accomplice, Laurence Lovette, cannot receive the death penalty because he was younger than 18 when Carson was killed.

The Orange-Chatham judicial district has not sent anyone to death row since 1973, and no crime in those counties has been punished by death since 1948.

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