Staff report
news@wbcowqel.com
The man being held on a kidnapping charge in Ashland County has at least one connection to Crawford County.
According to a court official and records, Shawn M. Grate was convicted of domestic violence in 2010 in Crawford County and served 180 days in jail. He was also fined $150.
Grate’s interactions with Crawford County authorities extends back as far as 2007.
He appeared in Crawford County Municipal Court on misdemeanor 1 identity theft and falsification charges, and a misdemeanor 2 obstruction of justice charge stemming from an incident on January 18, 2007. Grate, who had a Bucyrus address at the time, was given $561 in fines across all three charges and a total of 130 days in jail suspended.
Grate also appeared in court on a misdemeanor 1 driving under suspension, and misdemeanor 4 fictitious registration charges stemming from another January 18, 2007 incident. Grate served two days of a 30-day jail sentence with the rest suspended and was ordered to pay a $100 fine. On the fictitious registration charge Grate received a 10 day jail sentence with 8 days suspended, and a $50 fine.
In 2009, Grate received a $50 fine for marijuana possession.
Grate’s latest run-in with authorities occurred Tuesday morning when police were alerted after a female escaped from her abductor and called 9-1-1. Investigators discovered two dead bodies in the home at 323 Covert Court in Ashland. Forty-year-old Shawn Grate was arrested at the scene and later led authorities to a third body in the woods behind a burned-out vacant home in Madison Township in Richland County.
Only one victim was identified by Wednesday evening, that of 43-year-old Stacy Stanley of Huron County, who had been missing since Sept. 8 when she was last seen with a male helping her change a flat tire at a BP/Duke & Duchess in Ashland. Her body was one of two recovered from the Covert Court home.
All of the victims were female, though the other two had not been identified as of Wednesday evening.
Investigators have already begun demolishing the vacant home in Madison Township. According to Richland County Prosecutor Bambi Couch Page, the home was destroyed by a fire on June 20. It is believed that the fire was linked to one of the deaths after Grate admitted he killed a woman at the home.