ASHLAND – Attorneys on both sides of the Shawn Grate murder trial want the accused serial killer to stop talking to the media.
Defense attorneys Rolf and Robert Whitney along with the Ashland County Prosecutor’s Office filed a joint motion for a gag order Wednesday morning in Ashland County Common Pleas Court.
The motion requests that Judge Ronald P. Forsthoefel impose a gag order “on the parties and their counsel in this case.” In addition, the motion includes a request to “command the Ashland County Sheriff to prohibit defendant from communicating, in any fashion, with any member of the public or news media regarding the pending case.”
Grate, 40, was indicted last month in Ashland County on 23 felony counts, including four aggravated murder counts, in the deaths of Elizabeth Griffith and Stacey Stanley. He is being held in the Ashland County Jail on $1 million bond.
The request comes in the wake of Grate communicating with two Cleveland TV news reporters. Grate sent two letters to News 5 Cleveland confessing to the murder of five women. He also spoke with a reporter from Cleveland 19 in a jailhouse interview on Oct. 7, where he again admitted to killing five women.
According to the motion, “(He is) discussing the alleged crimes and providing information and viewpoints that may potentially affect the jury pool and may potentially discuss or disclose inadmissible evidence.”
The attorneys argue in the filing that a gag order would help protect Grate’s right to a fair trial and ensure due process.
“While news media outlets may oppose the imposition of a gag order, citing the First Amendment, such rights must not be allowed to divert the trial from the very purpose of a court system to adjudicate controversies, both criminal and civil, in the calmness and solemnity of the courtroom according to legal procedures.”
Judge Forsthoefel has not yet ruled on the request for a gag order.
In addition to the four aggravated murder charges, Grate is charged with four counts of kidnapping, two counts of gross abuse of a corpse, four counts of rape, four counts of burglary, and one count each of tampering with evidence, aggravate robbery, unauthorized use of a vehicle, robbery and breaking and entering.
Grate was arrested Sept. 13 after a woman called 911 and said she was being held against her will in a home near East Fourth Street in Ashland. Upon their arrival, police found the woman and Grate. The woman is not being identified because she is a sexual assault victim and the Ashland County Prosecutor does not identify victims of sexual assault.
Grate was taken into custody and police and BCI investigators searched the two homes on Covert Court, near the Fourth Street Laundromat. Two bodies were discovered in one of the homes. The victims were identified as 43-year-old Stanley of Greenwich and 29-year old Griffith of Ashland.
Grate has also been tied to three other victims. After his arrest, Grate led investigators to a body in a wooded area near a burned-out home on Park Avenue East in Madison Township. Authorities have not yet identified the victim.
Mansfield Police also have re-opened the investigation into the death of Mansfield resident Rebekah Leicy. Leicy was reported missing in February of 2015 and her body was found in rural Ashland County in March 2015. Her death was ruled as a probable drug overdose by the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office as there were no signs of physical trauma.
Grate has also been tied to a 2005 murder in Marion County. He reportedly admitted to authorities that he killed a woman there in 2005. On March 10, 2007, Marion County authorities discovered the remains of a woman who has never been identified. The Marion County Sheriff’s Office released a new sketch of the woman last week in a renewed effort to identify her.
