Midwest
Ohio detective brings down ‘Ladykiller’ Shawn Grate with 33-hour interrogation: ‘A hunger to kill’
When Kim Mager sat across from Shawn Grate, she was expecting to interact with another sex offender, one of many from her decades-long career.
Mager, a 30-year veteran of the Ashland City Police Department in Ohio, had no idea she was face-to-face with a serial killer. She interrogated him for 33 hours over eight days.
“When I first started speaking to him, I didn’t find his personality to be that far off from other sex offenders, and I’ve interviewed many sex offenders,” the retired detective told Fox News Digital. “So, he was unremarkable to me. A lot of things he would say flowed like a typical conversation. His thought process seemed to be the same as anyone else.
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Shawn Grate addressing the court before his sentencing. (Jason J. Molyet/News Journal via Imagn)
“But there was a difference,” she added. “That all changed when he spoke of his desire, his hunger. Those were his words — ‘a hunger to kill.’”
Mager collaborated with author Lisa Pulitzer to write “A Hunger to Kill: A Serial Killer, a Determined Detective, and a Quest for a Confession That Changed a Small Town Forever.” It details how Mager closed in on — and broke — one of Ohio’s most infamous serial killers.
“I’ve been asked at least 30 times to speak out about the case, and I’ve declined every single time,” said Mager. “But then, I was approached by a family member of one of the victims. That family member came up to me in tears, saying the victim was being portrayed so negatively by some podcasts. This family member was very upset. She said, ‘Please do something.’”
Ashland Police Department Det. Kim Mager testifies during the trial of Shawn Grate in 2018 in Ashland County Common Pleas Court. (Tom E. Puskar/USA Today Network/Imagn)
“I knew I had to share this story — the right story,” said Mager. “And it’s important to let people know that what these victims experienced, this could happen to them. … It could have been me.”
On Sept. 13, 2016, Mager was in the shower when her phone started ringing. It was her captain. Emergency dispatchers had received a 911 call from a woman who claimed she was kidnapped by Grate.
Mager rushed to the station to interview the woman. By then, Grate had been tracked down by investigators. He was arrested and charged.
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Kim Mager’s memoir, “A Hunger to Kill,” is available in bookstores now. (St. Martins Press)
According to Mager’s book, Jane Doe had bruises all over her face, arms and legs. There were fresh scratches and others that had healed. Some injuries were bluish-purple, others swollen and red. Splashes of maroon took over her neck and upper torso. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her face was stained with tears.
The jury recommended the death penalty for Shawn Grate. The judge agreed. (Brian J. Smith/USA Today Network/Imagn)
“I felt the weight of what had happened to her,” Mager said. “It’s hard for victims to talk about what happened to them — harder than anyone could imagine. It’s something even more difficult than speaking with a suspect. But I needed to get everything I could to get him.”
As an experienced specialist in sex offenses, Mager was one of the officers assigned to Grate’s case.
Interviewing Jane Doe proved to be an emotional experience for Kim Mager. She was determined to get justice. (Jason J. Molyet/USA Today Network/Imagn)
“I didn’t recognize his name at all,” Mager admitted. “We were unfamiliar with him.”
Grate was known as a charmer and a drifter who was friendly to anyone he encountered. But that “nice guy” façade quickly faded in the interrogation room.
“My first impression was that he looked physically fit,” Mager explained. “He was muscular. Before you even made eye contact with him, the first thing you noticed was his physique. He also looked like he hadn’t showered.”
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Shawn Grate, a drifter, was described as “a nice guy” and a “charmer.” (Tom E. Puska/USA Today Network/Imagn)
“When we finally made eye contact, you instantly notice his blue eyes — these piercing blue eyes,” she said.
Like a real-life Clarice Starling from “The Silence of the Lambs,” she would sit alone in the interview room with the accused predator.
Mager soon learned there were other victims.
The last home of Shawn Grate at 132 W. Second St. is filled with woodworking tools, cigarette butts, stuffed animals and other personal effects. (Jason J. Molyet/USA Today Network/Imagn)
“He’s opportunistic,” she explained. “If an opportunity is there, he seizes it. … Looking at these victims, you might see two who look similar, and then you see someone who’s completely different.
“You have one who’s leading a life of faith, who has more faith in God than almost anyone I know,” she continued. “Someone who would never have a man’s phone number on her phone because she’s so sound in her beliefs. And then you had another who sold her body at times. These women all had different lifestyles. There is no one victim type other than the opportunity that was there, whether it came to him or he created that opportunity.”
Following Grate’s arrest, police discovered the remains of Stacey Stanley, 43, and Elizabeth Griffith, 29, in the vacant Ashland home where Grate had been living. Grate confessed to the murders.
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A bench in memory of Stacey Stanley and Elizabeth Griffith, victims of serial killer Shawn Grate, has been placed near the playground at New London’s Recreation Park. (Tom E. Puskar/USA Today Network/Imagn)
Stanley was described as someone who was down on her luck, Oxygen.com reported. According to the outlet, Grate made it seem like he was going to help her with a flat tire before he abducted and assaulted her.
Griffith was said to be struggling with her mental health and had gone missing.
According to the outlet, Grate confessed to the murder of 29-year-old Candice Cunningham, a woman he dated. He took authorities to a wooden area about 12 miles from Ashland where he dumped her body. He also confessed to killing 31-year-old Rebekah Leicy, who had issues with drugs. She was reported missing in February 2015.
Robert Leicy and Cindy Tilton look at photos of his daughter Rebekah Leicy. Serial killer Shawn Grate pleaded guilty to Rebekah’s murder. (Jason J. Molyet/News Journal/Imagn)
The outlet noted Grate also admitted to killing 23-year-old Dana Lowrey, who had disappeared in 2005. Her remains were found in 2007, less than a mile from Grate’s home. She was selling magazines at the time. According to reports, it is believed that Lowrey was Grate’s first victim.
Lisa Zener said Shawn Grate approached her daughter weeks before two bodies were discovered. (Brian J. Smith-USA Today Network)
Doe said she met Grate in the summer of 2016. They would talk about the Bible, go on long walks and play tennis, the Mansfield News Journal reported. While Grate hinted he wanted more than a friendship, Doe said she turned him down and explained she didn’t believe in premarital sex due to her beliefs. Grate told her he respected her decision.
It was a lie.
Grate held Doe captive and sexually assaulted her “in every way imaginable.” While he was asleep, Doe managed to escape and call police.
Grate told Mager he wanted to know what drove him to kill.
Dana Nicole Lowrey’s skeletal remains were found in 2007. She vanished in 2005. (Sarah Volpenhein/Marion Star/Imagn)
“He was asking why he did it because he didn’t know,” Mager explained. “As we explored his childhood, he would come up with all of these different things that happened in his life but couldn’t definitively say any of those things caused it. … He asked me over and over, ‘Why did I do this? Why do you think I did this?’
“He talked a lot about … his relationships with his family,” Mager continued. “He talked about what he claimed was the promiscuity of his mother, who he said abandoned him. He talked about an incident when he was 4 years old. … He said he was on the sofa, watching cartoons that he could put on himself. But he wanted cereal, and he needed his mom’s help. He knocked on the bedroom door, and she didn’t come out. He knocked again. No answer.
Shawn Grate is seen here sitting with his attorneys, Robert and Rolf Whitney, at the defendant’s table. (Tom E. Puskar/USA Today Network/Imagn)
“He said he knew that she was in the bedroom with someone. He wanted cereal, so then he began beating on the door. Finally, the door opened, and it was a stranger, a man he didn’t know. He said he ran back to his bedroom. But the man followed him and sat down on his bed. The guy said something to the effect of, ‘What’s wrong buddy?’ He said he began hitting the guy, attacking him, frustrated by the entire scenario.”
The Ashland County Sheriff’s Office investigated the south side of County Road in 2015, where Rebekah Leicy’s body was discovered. Her death was initially ruled a drug overdose, but police later connected her death to Shawn Grate. (Times-Gazette/USA Today Network/Imagn)
Grate claimed that growing up, he was close with his father, and the two bonded over baseball. However, an injury damaged his pitching arm, and he could no longer play with his father.
“He describes how his relationship with his father, the special thing they had shared, was gone,” said Mager. “He said he felt detached from his father from that moment on. … He spoke a lot about feeling abandoned.”
Mager admitted that Grate presented himself “as being remorseful,” but she still doesn’t know if it was genuine.
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Shawn Grate, who murdered at least five women in three Ohio counties, was convicted in 2018 of killing Stacey Stanley, 43, and Elizabeth Griffith, 29. (Tom E. Puskar-USA Today Network/Imagn)
Mager helped extract Grate’s confessions to five murders, kidnappings and multiple sex assaults across Ohio. He was dubbed “The Ladykiller” by the press due to his looks and charm. He is now on death row for the killings of two of the women in Ashland County. He’s also serving three life sentences.
Mager hopes the victims won’t be forgotten.
“These were daughters, mothers, sisters and friends,” she said. “Stacey Stanley loved cooking and her family. Candice Cunningham was always so happy and giggling. Rebekah Leicy was described by many as a loyal friend. Elizabeth Griffith was always determined to do the right thing and found joy in the little things. Dana Lowrey was a hard worker who also always tried to do the right thing.
Crews work to demolish the Covert Court house, where Shawn Grate murdered two women in August 2016. (Jason J. Molyet/USA Today Network/Imagn)
“None of these women deserved what happened to them.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Midwest
Gun rights expert says Minnesota Dems tried to block her testimony on firearm bills to ‘avoid’ policy debate
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A Second Amendment expert is accusing Minnesota Democrats of attempting to sideline policy advocates as they push for passage of a pair of gun control bills, arguing the lawmakers are leaning on emotional appeals instead of debating the measures’ real-world impact.
Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom who specializes in gun policy, told Fox News Digital in an interview that Democratic members of a Minnesota House panel appeared to arbitrarily reject her written testimony ahead of a key hearing on the bills and resisted allowing her to testify in person. Swearer was ultimately able to testify for about two minutes.
“I think really at the core of it, that’s what they wanted to avoid, to the extent that they could keep this focused on the Annunciation shooting, and to prevent people like myself from coming in and saying, well, first of all, these policies would not have prevented a single death,” Swearer said.
Displays of rifles at the gun show held Sunday at the Stillwater armory. (Jerry Holt/Star Tribune via Getty Images)
Democratic offices of the committee did not respond to multiple requests for comments since Friday.
The hearing included heavy moments during which parents of victims and victims themselves of last year’s shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis testified in support of the bills. The shooter, who later died by suicide, killed two young children and injured more than two dozen others.
“Parents in our community don’t sleep all the way through the night anymore,” Jackie Flavin, who lost her 10-year-old daughter Harper in the shooting, testified. “Because when we send our children out into the world, we know that there are weapons out there capable of turning an ordinary morning into something unthinkable in seconds.”
In reaction to the mass shooting in Minneapolis at Annunciation Church, students rally at the capitol demanding state and federal lawmakers pass bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. (Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The two bills, as they are currently written, are stalled in committee after receiving a 10-10 tie vote along party lines at the close of the contentious hearing.
Swearer said the committee rejected her written testimony, which included an analysis of multi-victim shootings in the state, because it contained hyperlinks, which was against committee rules. She accused Democrats on the committee of selectively enforcing that rule against her but not against others.
“I want to be clear, that was very emotional. It was difficult. These were grieving people, and understandably so, but that I think very clearly is what the Democrats wanted to focus on, the emotion of it,” Swearer said. “They did not want this to turn into a battle of actual experts on policy.”
The bills were part of a sweeping gun control package introduced by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz in response to the church shooting.
One of the bills would broadly ban future sales of many “semiautomatic military-style assault weapons” by redefining the firearms under state law and would impose new restrictions on current owners of such guns. The other would prohibit the manufacture, sale, transfer, and possession of large-capacity ammunition magazines, which the bill defines as those with more than ten rounds.
Swearer, who was invited to the hearing by the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, said the bills were unconstitutional.
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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a debate at the CBS Broadcast Center Oct. 1, 2024, in New York City. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“They’re problematic from start to finish,” she said, adding that the first bill was “one of the most restrictive gun bans I have ever seen in terms of the definition.”
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The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus’s director of governor relations, Anna Leamy, also testified against the bills during the hearing and noted that Swearer and other “national experts and everyday Minnesotans” were limited from participating, which Swearer said “goaded” Democrats into allowing her to speak for two minutes.
The National Foundation for Gun Rights said its executive director, Hannah Hill, was also told she could not testify. Committee chairs typically limit witness participation at hearings for time purposes, but those restrictions can spur accusations of selectively suppressing certain voices.
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The Detroit Lions are starting to take care of their own ahead of free agency, and it begins with one of the easier decisions to make. According to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, the Lions have tendered kicker Jake Bates an exclusive rights free agent offer. What that means is Bates now has a one-year contract offer at the minimum salary ($1,075,000 for Bates). He can choose to sign it or sit out the season.
The reason the Lions can offer this ERFA tender is because Bates’ contract is expiring after just two accrued seasons in the NFL. All players with fewer than three years of experience who are on expiring contracts could be offered these ERFA tenders. In fact, the Lions did so with three other ERFAs earlier this offseason, all of whom already signed the deals: OL Michael Niese, RB Jacob Saylors, and CB Nick Whiteside.
Bates is coming off a season where he took a step back after an outstanding 2024. After making 89.7% of his field goals in his first year with the Lions, Bates slid back to just 79.4% accuracy. That said, five of his seven misses all season were from 50+ yards, and he was a perfect 14-of-14 from 39 yards or shorter. Additionally, he increased his extra point accuracy from 95.5% to 96.4%. He also steadily improved at the new NFL kickoff, which requires a lot more precision from kickers to boot the ball as close to the goal line without going into the end zone.
It’s unclear if the Lions intend on bringing in competition for Bates this offseason, but special teams coordinator Dave Fipp made it abundantly clear all last season that they value Bates, despite some struggles in 2025.
“Clearly, we have a very, very good player,” Fipp said in December. “If you put him on the streets, there would be a bunch of teams claiming him right away. And the truth is, we’d have a really hard time finding a guy even near the same player as him.”
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MPD officer Gregory Carson Jr. was placed on a list of officers with credibility issues. That didn’t prevent his ability to testify in court.
Josue Ayala has resigned from the Milwaukee Police Department days after he was charged with a crime over his alleged misuse of license plate-reading Flock technology.
Ayala, 33, pleaded not guilty to one count of attempted misconduct in public office during his initial court appearance on March 4.
The charge is a misdemeanor that carries a potential maximum penalty of nine months in jail and $10,000 fine.
Milwaukee is one in a growing number of communities nationally that have started using Flock cameras to help locate stolen vehicles, identify vehicles used in violent crimes, and track vehicles associated with missing persons. The technology is controversial and been criticized by civil rights and privacy advocates.
Conducting searches for personal reasons is a violation of department policies.
Prosecutors say Ayala used the Flock camera system while on duty more than 120 times to look up the license plate of someone he was dating. They believe Flock technology also was used on a second license plate, one belonging to that person’s ex, 55 times, according to a criminal complaint, filed Feb. 24 in Milwaukee County Circuit Court.
Ayala joined the Milwaukee Police Department in 2017, and his total gross pay was about $120,000 in 2024, according to the most recent city salary data available.
Milwaukee police confirmed in a March 4 email to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Ayala has resigned from the department.
Ayala and his attorney Michael J. Steinle, of Milwaukee, would not speak to reporters as they left the courtroom.
Prosecutors say the department became aware of the allegations against Ayala after a driver saw that they were the subject of searches through the website, www.haveibeenflocked.com, which collects and publishes “audit logs” of searches of the Flock system by police agencies.
The driver saw that Ayala had searched the plate numerous times, which prompted the driver to file a complaint with the Milwaukee Police Department.
Detectives then audited Ayala’s searches in the Flock system from March 26, 2025, through May 26, 2025.
Ayala is at least the second Wisconsin officer to face criminal charges for misuse of the Flock system. A Menasha police officer was charged in January for tracking an ex-girlfriend’s car.
Milwaukee police began using Flock cameras in 2022. MPD has a $182,900 contract with Flock for the use of the technology. That contract is active through January 2027.
Court Commissioner Dewey B. Martin released Ayala on a $2,500 signature bond March 4.
Signature bonds, sometimes referred to as a personal recognizance bond, allow a defendant to leave custody without paying cash as long as they sign a promise to appear for their upcoming court dates.
Martin also ordered Ayala not to contact the two victims in the case.
Ayala also must report to the Milwaukee County Jail to be booked on March 9. If he doesn’t show up, a bench warrant will be issued for his arrest.
Ayala is scheduled to appear for a pre-trial conference on April 17.
David Clarey of the Journal Sentinel contributed to this story.
Chris Ramirez covers courts for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at caramirez@usatodayco.com.
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