Che Dushon Lark (at left) speaks to his attorney during a pre-trial hearing related to a homicide-by-vehicle charge and other charges in Kanawha County Circuit Court Judge Carrie Webster's courtroom on Monday, Aug. 17, 2026.
Che Dushon Lark (at left) speaks to his attorney during a pre-trial hearing related to a homicide-by-vehicle charge and other charges in Kanawha County Circuit Court Judge Carrie Webster's courtroom on Monday, Aug. 17, 2026.
CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE | Gazette-Mail
In proceedings before Kanawha County Circuit Judge Carrie Webster on Monday, Che Dushon Lark of ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä entered a Kennedy plea to a charge of causing death while fleeing police in a motor vehicle, bringing to a conclusion a criminal case that began more than six years ago, when 35-year-old Heather Ross was struck and fatally injured by a hit-and-run driver while walking her four children to their school bus stop on Grant Street.
Webster sentenced Lark, 50, to 1 to 3 years in prison, to be served concurrently with a 20-year federal drug sentence Lark was handed down in 2024, “which would essentially discharge this sentence,†Webster said. Except for a brief period of home confinement, Lark has been incarcerated since his arrest in June 2020, three months after Ross was fatally injured.
Under a Kennedy plea, a defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges that the prosecution has sufficient evidence to present that would likely result in a conviction.
Lark’s plea was a result of an agreement negotiated by defense and prosecution attorneys, in which several criminal charges related to Lark’s flight from police were dropped in exchange for the plea acknowledging his role in Ross’s death while attempting to elude police.
According to a ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Police incident report, officers found Lark found slumped over in the driver’s seat in a car parked without permission in a private driveway on Seventh Avenue on ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä’s West Side shortly before 7 a.m. on March 6, 2020, with a package in his lap of what was later determined to be 4.4 grams of methamphetamine and 11.2 grams of a mixture of heroin and methamphetamine on his lap.
Officers removed the package from the vehicle and as they began to remove Lark from the car, the suspect sped off, with police in pursuit. After Lark’s car struck Ross, Lark fled the scene on foot and was later arrested in Chillicothe, Ohio. Ross died five days after the incident.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of Ross’s children against Lark, the City of ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä and a ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Police officer involved in the pursuit was settled by the city for $1.15 million in January of 2021, according to WCHS-TV. The suit maintained that ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Police should not have initiated a high-speed chase without being authorized by an on-duty supervisor.
Federal drug charges
Lark’s federal drug sentence, now being appealed, involved both drugs confiscated from Lark’s car on March 6, 2020, and quantities of methamphetamine and fentanyl allegedly bought and sold at Lark’s direction by third parties in 2021, after his arrest in connection with the death of Ross.
CLICK HERE to follow the ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Gazette-Mail and receive
