ASHLAND – A status conference for accused serial killer Shawn Grate has been rescheduled from today to next Monday, March 6.
The hearing in Ashland County Common Pleas Court was set to share the results of the not guilty by reason of insanity evaluation report completed by the Forensic Diagnostic Center in Mansfield. However, Judge Ronald P. Forsthoefel filed a judgment entry indicating the center needed more time to complete the report.
Grate’s attorneys, Robert and Rolf Whitney requested the evaluation during a Jan. 6 hearing. Grate was found competent to stand trial in his case after an evaluation by the center in November.
The status conference will be held via Skype and will be open to the public at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, March 6.
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, 40, has been indicted on 23 felony counts and could face the death penalty if found guilty. He is being held in Ashland County Jail on $1 million bond.
Grate pleaded not guilty to all 23 counts but also admitted to the killings in several interviews with Cleveland news stations before a gag order was imposed on all parties involved in the case.
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 identified the body in November as 29-year-old Candace Cunningham of Canton, who reportedly was in a relationship with Grate.
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 in October in a renewed effort to identify her.
