Serial killer Shawn Grate managed to fly under the radar in Ohio for more than a
decade. In September, 2016, he kidnapped his final victim,
a woman known only as Jane Doe. For two days,
he held her captive in an abandoned house in Ashland, Ohio.
She was tied to a mattress and raped and beaten repeatedly. When he fell asleep,
she managed to free herself,
but she couldn't leave the bedroom without waking him up.
So she took his phone and made a chilling call for help.
911. What is the address to your emergency
street? That is it. Where's the street. Laundromat
abducted you Shawn. Grate. Where's he at now?
She's sleeping in bedroom.
What bedroom? There's two houses right by the launder street.
What's your at the laundry mat? No, I'm I'm in the bedroom with him
please. Sorry. What's your phone number? You're calling me from, I don't know.
No, he broke into anybody actually lived there.
I think you've been abandoned. Does he have a weapon?
Is he still sleeping?
Is there any way you can get out of the building? I don't know.
Without waking him and I'm scared.
Is there a bathroom in the house
and he made it show it would make noise.
If he told me how to go to the bathroom, he would do something to you. Yeah.
Cause he had me tied up
tied up now. Yeah.
But I kind of freed myself.
He in the same room with you? Yes. Is it his phone? You have,
we have officers for sending
downstairs door and the side door,
the right.
And that's where we enter immediately. There's a kitchen right there.
And then the bedroom is right, right off.
I'm Chris with True Crime Recaps. Now,
before we listen to the rest of that call,
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Now let's listen to the rest of that 911 call.
Are you still there?
Still? There
are window around by where you can look out. Yeah.
Are you laying down by the bedroom door?
You can't open it.
Can you open it?
Can you see out any window that you're at
now? Curtain shut. Can you hear anybody right now?
You heard the side door open.
Is there a window there we'll come back. She said,
hurry.
Seconds later the police came back and rescued Jane Doe.
When they found her she was naked and so frightened she could barely speak,
but she was alive.
She barricaded herself in the bathroom while the police woke up Shawn,
who was miraculously still asleep in the bedroom.
Shawn Grate was good at fooling people into thinking he was harmless.
Even his surviving victim testified that she thought of Shawn as a big brother
type and said he was "kind of goofy,
but struck me as kind." She never thought he could do what he did to her.
They'd known each other for about a month and a half before he kidnapped her.
They met at the Salvation Army community center in Ashland.
She said they bonded over the Bible. September 11th, 2016,
started out like any other day together.
They met at the community center then went back to her apartment for lunch.
But Shawn wasn't actually allowed inside.
Instead she made sandwiches and they ate outside.
She didn't want him to get the wrong idea about her. As a devout Christian,
she was very clear - sex before marriage was out of the question.
She wouldn't even exchange phone numbers with him.
After they ate he asked her for an extra Bible.
He told her he had some clothes for her - he wanted her to donate them for him.
Together they took a walk to the abandoned house where he was squatting.
She testified she was reading Bible verses in the kitchen when he came into the
room and pulled the book out of her hand saying,
"you're not going anywhere." Before the attack,
she thought Shawn respected her boundaries, but he was only biding his time.
After his arrest, Shawn made a horrifying confession.
There were two more victims in the house.
What does that mean to you?
Ducted. Somebody leaves that you cared about him. You know,
you talked about you adopted her.
You've had sex with her against her will to yes or no. Yes.
What do you call that
upstairs
on the floor in the basement.
Elizabeth Griffith and Stacy Stanley Hicks.
A little more than a month before he kidnapped Jane Doe,
Elizabeth Griffith went missing in Ashland.
In an interview with Cleveland 19 news,
Shawn said he met her at the salvation army community center and they would hang
out and play games together, mostly Yahtzee.
He also said Elizabeth wanted to die. "The short time I talked to her,
she cried several times just about life and how she couldn't find anyone to love
her. All I wanted to do was show her that she wanted to live. And I'd say,
give me a hug. We're all in this together.
I'd choke her until she said she wanted to live.
And she just didn't." After strangling her to death,
he used her keys to let himself into her home.
He's stole shampoo and paper towels then took her body to the abandoned house.
They found her in an upstairs closet, behind a door that was duct taped shut.
Her arms and legs were tied with pieces of clothing. On September 8th,
Stacy Stanley Hicks went to Walmart, had her nails done, then got a flat tire.
A gas station attendant testified he saw her leave with Shawn and overheard him
say he could help her fix her car. Five days later,
she was found hidden under trash and clothing in the basement with a scarf tied
around her neck. She'd been strangled to death.
Then Shawn led police to a burned out house in Mansfield, Ohio,
about 20 minutes away. His former girlfriend,
Candice Cunningham was found in the woods behind the house.
She'd been missing since June. Over the course of almost 12 police interviews,
Shawn admitted he murdered two other women. On March 10th, 2007,
the police found the body of an unidentified woman in a field in Marion County,
Ohio. They released a sketch, but couldn't identify her until 2019.
Even though Shawn confessed in 2016. But he couldn't remember her name.
He thought it was either Dana or Diana. He did remember how he met her.
She knocked on his door selling magazines.
She has been identified as 23 year old mom of two Dana
Nicole Lowery. On February six, 2015,
Rebekah Leicy was reported missing in Mansfield, Ohio. A month later,
a utility worker discovered her body behind a tree.
And at first they thought she died of a drug overdose,
but when Shawn confessed to strangling her, the case was reopened.
Why murder these women?
Shawn answered that question in a series of letters to news five Cleveland
reporter, Megan Hickey. In fact,
he said he had a clear vision of why quote,
"they were already dead. Just their bodies flopping, wherever it can flop,
but their minds were already dead. The state took their minds.
Once they started receiving their monthly checks." He said he applied for
government assistance and received $197 on a food card that he used for a year
and a half. He found extra work making signs. In 2018,
Shawn was found guilty, but before he could be sentenced, he asked the court,
if he could say a few words.
"Today's a good day.
Namely for all of you guys and myself and the hope that we can just move on from
all this, you know, I don't know exactly, you know,
I can't say I'm normal, but I know right from wrong.
And uh,
mainland just the,
I caused any hay bitterness. And then all of, any of us
work on that. I asked you,
maybe forgive me finding your heart someday. I know not today.
Someday. Just move on from this life.
Meet justice. Be served today. That's most important.
Elizabeth, Stacy Moore." Thank you
for all your time in this mess.
I'm sorry for all human beings have to listen your list.
Okay. I'm sorry.
I can't get it. Change nothing. Female would
not be, but for you guys.
He was sentenced to death, but he's appealing. In December, 2020,
the Ohio Supreme court upheld the death penalty, but he just got a new lawyer,
so anything's possible. Thanks for letting me catch you up on this case.
Amy and I are here with new recaps every week.
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