ASHLAND – The judge in the case of accused serial killer Shawn Grate has issued a gag order on all parties involved in the case.
Ashland County Common Pleas Court Judge Ronald P. Forsthoefel issued the order Thursday morning.
The order comes one day after the Ashland County Prosecutor’s Office and defense attorneys Robert and Rolf Whitney filed a joint motion for a gag order.
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 and could face the death penalty.
The gag order was issued 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.
In the gag order, the judge said that Grate may not speak to the media in person, by phone or by mail, and instructed the Ashland County Sheriff and his deputies to screen Grate’s mail and phone calls other than letters and calls to and from his attorneys. The order also prohibits members of the media from visiting Grate at the jail.
Attorneys are prohibited from making any public statements unless the same are made on the Court record.
The judge clarified in the order that nothing in the order restricts the release of public records.
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 linked 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.
