ASHLAND — Testimony on day six of Shawn Grate’s capital murder trial in Ashland County Common Pleas court centered around Grate’s motivations and mindset before and after his alleged crimes.
The prosecution picked up where it left off at the end of last week, with Ashland Police Detective Kim Mager on the witness stand.
Mager testified she conducted several interviews with Grate in September and October 2016, Each of these interviews took place after Grate repeatedly asked jail staff to talk to Mager and after she read him his rights.
In the interviews, which were played for the jury, Grate confessed that each of the two murders he had already confessed to was premeditated.
Grate said he was thinking about killing Elizabeth Griffith before he took her upstairs and that the pair were upstairs about 15 minutes before he choked her to death. He said his heart was pumping as he climbed the stairs and that he was thinking “it’s coming.”
Grate also told Mager he was thinking of killing Stacey Stanley as soon as she came into the house at 363 Covert Court — before he forced her to give him oral sex and before she maced him. Grate said he felt no remorse afterward. Instead, he said as he dragged Stanley’s body downstairs, he felt angry with Stanley for “making” him kill her.
Grate faces 23 felony charges, including four counts of aggravated murder, four counts of kidnapping, two counts of gross abuse of a corpse, four counts of burglary, tampering with evidence, four counts of rape, aggravated robbery, unauthorized use of a vehicle and tampering with evidence.
Grate has reportedly told authorities he murdered two other women in Richland County and a fifth in Marion County, but only the two alleged murders in Ashland County are part of this case.
Grate told Mager in police interviews he wrote the dates of both murders in a “Loved Beyond Measure” daily reader. Police located the reader in the bedroom of the Covert Court house and found the dates Aug. 17 and and Sept. 9 marked in the devotional book.
Mager testified that Grate sometimes changed his story over the course of the interviews, causing her to question the veracity of some of his stories.
At one point, Grate changed his description of how he choked Stanley. In the new story, he used a white cloth around her neck.
Grate told Mager he sometimes acts polite and says “thank you” in order to get his way. At various points in the interview, Grate called himself “a premeditator” and “an opportunist.”
At another point, Grate told Mager, “I’m guilty” and said he did not need an attorney. “It’s taxpayer money,” he said.
Grate said that after the murders, he planned to burn the house down to destroy the evidence. He never carried out that plan.
He did admit to tampering with other evidence. He said he went into Griffth’s apartment and tore up a Yatzee scorecard with his name on it from when he and Griffith played Yatzee earlier on the day she disappeared. He also said he broke one of her two phones and threw it into a creek. Police found the other phone and discovered the last number dialed from it was Grate’s.
At one point in one of the interviews, Grate’s voice broke as he told Mager he wanted to write a letter to his teenage son. Grate said he wanted to tell him “that it’s not in his genes. That he’s not a killer.”
Grate told Mager he prayed often and felt led to “safe places like that house.” He said no one from Pump House Ministries, which owned the house at the time, check on the residence during the more then 40 days he stayed there.
He also said he stole bags of clothing from Pump House donation boxes and regularly took water from the Fourth Street Laundromat. The Covert Court house had electricity but no running water when Grate stayed there. Grate told Mager he tried not to use the lights so neighbors would not know he was there.
With the jury out of the courtroom, judge Ron Forsthoefel discussed the case with defense and prosecuting attorneys.
Prosecutor Chris Tunnell said he expects to wrap up his case sometime Wednesday.
Forsthoefel asked defense attorney Bob Whitney whether he had enough material planned to take up all of Thursday and Friday, and he said he did not.
Forsthoefel suggested both sides plan for a hearing Friday to determine the validity of the science behind some additional brain scan analysis and testing the defense is requesting.
The defense previously asked for $14,500 to hire a consultant from New Mexico, and now they are asking for another $9,500 for a total of $24,000. Defense attorneys Rolf and Bob Whitney said the additional expense would be for doing new scans at Cleveland Clinic as they will not be able to do them at The Ohio State University, where Grate’s initial MRI was done.
The judge said it was his understanding that Mindset Consulting would be able to provide a preliminary report without any further testing and that he believed that preliminary report should have been complete by now.
“I kind of feel like there’s a bit of a bait and switch going on,” Forsthoefel said.
Tunnell also expressed frustration, saying without a report from the defense, he is unsure how to prepare for Friday’s hearing.
“I would at this point consider the whole Mindset thing a fishing expedition,” Tunnell said, adding that it’s his belief “there’s nothing wrong with this guy.”
Forsthoefel said the jury will not be given their charges and instructed to deliberate this week because of “sequestration issues.” He said hotel rooms are not available until next week because of Ashland University’s May 5 graduation.
