MARION — Authorities say Shawn Grate provided a sketch artist from Delaware County with details Monday morning that could help the Marion County Sheriff’s Department crack a nine-year-old cold case.
Grate reportedly confessed to killing a woman in Marion County in 2005 after his arrest in Ashland two-and-a-half weeks ago. The woman’s remains were found March 10, 2007, according to Marion County Sheriff Tim Bailey.
The woman has been unidentified since then.
Bailey said his top priority is to identify the woman, notifying the family and pressing charges. The reason the investigation has taken nine years, he said, is because up until two weeks ago, there was no evidence.
“We have no purse, no ID, no clothing — absolutely nothing except the remains. So we’re just relying on what he (Grate) tells us,” Bailey said.
He added that Grate remembered her name as Diane or Dana and that he is leaning more toward Dana.
“The sketch released today is how he (Grate) remembered our victim,” Bailey said.
According to the Marion County Sheriff, the department interviewed Grate Sept. 17 to see if he recognized the woman drawn from a sketch originally created in March 2007, when authorities found the unidentifiable body.
“We showed him, but he said it didn’t look like her,” Bailey said.
No favorable tips were derived from a Sept. 19 news conference when the sheriff’s department reported that Grate confessed to killing a woman in Marion County. However, his department has been following leads from missing persons reports from around the country in recent weeks.
“Many of those have already been returned back home but the name hasn’t been updated in the missing persons database,” he said.
This week, there is one missing woman officials are following up with out of Salt Lake City. Like the woman found in Marion County in 2007, she has no existing dental record and no DNA record. She was reported missing when she was 15 or 16, Bailey said.
“We have a list of 1,600 names that we’re combing through,” he said. “We don’t get a hit every day, but frequently. And it’s going to take us contacting local police, family, we’ll do a DNA swab, send it to the lab and do a comparison with our unknown (DNA from unidentified woman).
“That could take weeks or months. We’v done this frequently over the last 10 years.”
Grate, who is being held in Ashland County Jail, pleaded not guilty to all 23 felony counts of an indictment that was handed down Sept. 22.
Those with information that might help the Marion County sheriff’s department identify the woman are encouraged to call 740-382-8244.
