Ashland County Jury Convicts Shawn Grate of the Murders of Elizabeth Griffith and Stacey Stanley
A woman who escaped him made the 911 call that led to his arrest. The verdict left the Ohio man facing a possible death sentence.
Published
The woman who escaped made the call that ended it. Kidnapped and sexually assaulted, she got free and called 911, and the call led police to Shawn Grate and to the bodies of two women in an abandoned house in Ashland, Ohio. On Monday, May 7, 2018, after deliberating for more than three hours, an Ashland County jury found Grate, 41, guilty of the aggravated murders of Elizabeth Griffith, 29, and Stacey Stanley, 43, and of kidnapping and sexually assaulting the woman who got away.
He had stopped contesting most of the case before the jury ever retired. The week before, in the middle of the trial, Grate pleaded guilty to 15 of the 23 counts against him, including robbery and kidnapping, and left the remaining eight, among them the two murder counts, for the jury. The verdict left him facing death or life in prison without parole, with the jury due back on May 18 for the sentencing phase.
The jury heard the case in his own voice. In his closing argument the prosecutor, Chris Tunnell, replayed recordings of Grate's interviews with investigators, in which he said he would "use" his victims and make it so they "won't have to cry anymore," and showed the jury photographs of the bodies. Both women had been strangled, according to their autopsies. "This is not a spur-of-the-moment killing," Tunnell told them. The defense, which had earlier entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity that psychiatric evaluations did not support, asked the jurors to weigh whether the killings were premeditated, while conceding that Grate would never walk free.
Grate showed little emotion as the verdicts were read, now and then lowering his head. He was also under investigation, though not charged, in the deaths of at least three other women in neighboring counties: an unidentified woman killed around 2005, Rebekah Leicy, killed in 2015, and Candice Cunningham, killed in 2016.
What this story covers. It draws on NBC News's report of the verdict on May 7, 2018. The Supreme Court of Ohio's 2020 opinion in the case, which covers the sentence that followed, was not opened for this story. The woman who survived is not named here. Grate had not been charged in the three other deaths when this verdict came in.