The Hand in the Window: 'The Other Me'

This is Deborah Roberts. I'm here with another weekly episode of our latest series from 2020 and ABC Audio, The Hand in the Window.

Remember, you can get new episodes early if you follow The Hand in the Window for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.

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A few days after Sean Grate was arrested for kidnapping, rape, and murder, murder, Ashland County prosecutor Chris Tunnell gave a press conference covered by local ABC News affiliate, WEWS.

I want to say something very important.

Ashland County is a safe place to live. We've not seen crimes of this magnitude in a very long time.

There's no reason for people in this county to live in fear.

Grade was behind bars in the Ashland County County Jail. This man who had been living in Ashland for less than two months had shattered the town's sense of safety.

Investigators had begun learning the rough outlines of Grade's life before his killing spree.

He said his mother had abandoned him when he was a kid. He'd started getting in trouble with the law at the age of 20.

He'd racked up convictions for burglary, abduction, and brandishing a knife at his ex-girlfriend. He had a son and two daughters with three different women.

Throughout his adult life, Great had moved from town to town in rural Ohio.

Detective Kim Major had learned that Great was good at charming people. His appearance helped with that.

Sean's own mother is quoted as saying, yes, he's good looking, but the devil's good looking too.

She said that about her her son. She did.
Ted Bundy was good looking and charming, and he was able to seduce women because of that. Yes, he was.
Is there a comparison, a similarity to Sean Great?

In the manipulation piece of this, the

calculating yet opportunistic ways,

absolute parallels in that.

and the fact

that they were both charming or they're both handsome And to think that he

used those things to land himself in these situations is just incredible.

There was the charming Sean Great, who looked good on the outside, and the violent Sean Great, who lurked just beneath the surface.

From ABC Audio in 2020, I'm John Quinonis, and this is The Hand in the Window,

episode 5

the other me

to learn more about these different sides of Sean Great we spoke with two people who knew him well not as the murderer Sean Great but simply as Sean

Christina Hildreth met Sean Great about a decade before he showed up in Ashland. Christina had just moved from Texas to a small town in Ohio.

And I met him then and he was just, he was just very friendly and he just had a way that,

you know, it made you feel like you were important.

Like many people, Christina was charmed by Great's piercing eyes. Just such a blue and they just Just the way they looked at you.
You know, it made you feel like you were the only one.

He wasn't, you know, paying attention to nobody else. It was all about you.
It was just blue eyes. You know, they're very,

very attractive, very magnifying, very, just,

he had great eyes.

Christina said Gray never asked her out on a date or made plans to meet up. He just sort of showed up at her house when he wanted to, which was fine with her back then.

Sean was very charming and and good looking and it was just, oh, he's here. Okay, great.
You know, let's figure out something to do.

Eventually, they started a romantic relationship. And at first, that relationship was fun.
They hiked, fished, and made the best of the rural area they lived in.

Grade continued to be charming and he seemed happy. But things started to change when he moved into Christina's house.
I never put Sean on the lease. Sean never had a house key.

He just moved himself in.

Once they lived together, Christina started to see a different side of Great. His charm started slipping away.

He'd be very friendly, very nice, and one little thing would just send him over the edge and he was mad. He just had a way of really, really making you feel horrible.

I spent a lot of time in in tears over things he said.

Christina said she and Sean Great were in a relationship for five years, but she said that in that time, she never learned much about his past beyond that he wasn't close to his family and that he really did not like his mom.

He said, anytime I ever ask my mom for anything, all she tells me is pray or go to church, that God will fix it.

Christina said that as they continued living together, things got worse and worse. She said Gray didn't like her two kids and he didn't have a job.

Instead, she said he spent the day making wooden signs, which he engraved with sayings and the names of people in schools. The signs were scattered all over her house.

Christina said he rarely did chores and was often mean and moody.

She wanted to split up, but said that Great refused to leave the house. She didn't know what to do.

One night after they got into a fight, he exploded. He started hitting and choking her in the bedroom.
He hit her hand so hard, it felt like it broke one of her fingers.

I managed to get up and I'm sitting at the end of the bed and I'm like look what you did to me

and he's still he's very very angry and he walks over and he grabs me and he's got me by the back of the pants and like the back of my hair and he's trying to drag me off to the bathroom.

And as he's trying to drag me through the door, I'm trying to fight to stay in the bedroom. And I'm like

sitting there thinking to myself, what, you know, what is he going to do with me in the bathroom?

Christina said she started pleading with Great.

If her hand was broken, she couldn't cook, clean, work,

and support them.

How am I going to do this and pay our bills with my hand like this?

And I had to, you know, I had changed the whole thing from this is what you, you know, look what you did to me, you know, on and on to how am I going to take care of us.

Her plea worked

they went to the er and once great left the room christina said she told the nurse to shut the door and i said he did this she's like well we thought so

the police were called in to take christina's statement and authorities said sean great ran out of the er

When Christina left the hospital, she went to stay at her mom's place. Great still didn't have a key to her house, but she was worried he'd find a way in.

Once in a while, she'd go back to the house to pick up some of her things. The house seemed empty, but it felt off, like someone had been there.

Christina reported to the police that Sean started to call her and describe everything she had done while she was in the house, as if he was somehow watching her every move.

Eventually, Christina said, Gray told her how he was doing this.

He says, I've been living in the couch.

He said, when you came in, you were sitting on me.

So then I kind of pulled the couch away from the wall and he had cut a slit. into the back of the couch and he was crawling in and out of the couch through the back of the couch.

and he would stay in the couch in the daytime

and he would come out at night.

Christina said Sean Great admitted to living inside her couch.

The next time Christina had to go to the house, she called the police beforehand. She wanted officers to search the place before she went in.

And they go into the apartment.

And

next thing you know, they're bringing Sean out in handcuffs. And the policeman's like, we found him in your closet.

In 2010, Sean Grade was found guilty of domestic violence for the attack that fractured Christina's finger and sent her to the ER. He was sentenced to six months in prison.

I do believe that if if I wouldn't have changed my attitude and the way I talked to him,

I truly believe Sean would have killed me in that bathroom.

Their years together still haunt her.

My kids were like, Mom, you need to get out. You need to do something.
You need to date. You can't stay in this house day after day by yourself

with no one.

And that's where I'm at.

I don't

trust anybody

other than my kids.

To this day, Christina doesn't understand Sean Gray's frightening and violent turn.

Why did it come to this? Why did you let it be like this?

You know, why did you turn into this?

He started out absolutely charming, wonderful,

and then little by little he just turned more evil.

There's nothing honestly nice about Sean.

He can portray that. He can make you believe 100% he's the nicest person you'll ever meet.

And all in all, there's nothing nice there.

He's completely evil.

After serving his time for domestic violence, Sean Great moved to Mansfield, another small town about 20 minutes from Ashland. He got married there and he and his wife had a daughter.

But less than a year later, they got divorced and she was given full custody of their child. In 2013, his ex-wife filed for an order of protection against Great.

She claimed he was threatening her and her family. The order was granted.

Great stayed in Mansfield, which is where he became friends with a man named Tim Dennis.

He seems like a really nice guy, and I thought,

I like this guy. The two met at a local market where Great was selling his wooden signs, the ones that once filled Christina's house.
Tim was drawn to Sean's easy-going personality.

They played pool, cooked together, and relaxed in Tim's hot tub.

Just good, fun, friend things to do, you know.

Great seemed to see Tim as a confidant. Great would text him about his family and emotions.

But things in their friendship took a drastic turn when Tim said Great asked to borrow money. Great's only income was from selling his...
wooden signs.

And I told him, Sean, I said, I'm sorry. I said, i've just made it a policy not to loan out money i've had so many bad dealings in the past

tim said great snapped he sent a barrage of angry texts

You just rot and die with your money and your bed bugs are, I'm putting curses on you, bed bugs are coming to your house, roaches are coming,

all this stuff. He just went on and on and and on.
And then he makes this statement. He says, meet the other me.

Honestly, I just froze when that statement hit.

It's like,

okay,

all of a sudden, the first thing hit my mind is a monster.

Tim saw Great one more time after those texts, but said he seemed different,

angry, dark, and even a little scary. After being good friends for a couple of years, they lost touch in early 2016.

When Tim Dennis heard that Sean Great was accused of kidnapping, rape, and murder, he had a hard time understanding how his charming friend had become so violent.

There's two persons living inside of him, and that's the only way that I'm ever able, and that may or may not even be his situation, but it's like my only way of being able to reconcile the two.

In summer 2016, Sean Grate was on the run. He was wanted in Mansfield on a child support warrant.

Authorities said that when a police officer stopped him, Great fled into the woods and that officers chased him on foot, but lost him. Even a canine unit wasn't able to track him down.

Soon after Gray turned up in Ashland, he continued his pattern of charming people and then rapidly turning on them.

Detective Kim Major had gotten Sean Gray to confess to his deadly violence. But still, she had this nagging feeling that she was somehow missing something,

that there was more to learn about who Sean Great

was

and what

he had done.

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Two days after Sean Grate was arrested, Detective Kim Major and Detective Brian Evans went to meet with Great at the Ashland Jail.

Major and Evans had both been been working the case, but this was the first time that the two longtime colleagues and friends would be talking to Sean Great

together.

September 15, 2016, at 1443, you can make your speaker.

The detectives were there to show Sean Great the complaint against him, which listed all the charges he faced. But before they did that, Detective Major wanted another chance to interview Great.

I told him there was a solid chance I wouldn't get to talk to him anymore because he's going to be represented by an attorney.

While they settled into the interview room, Detective Evans introduced himself to Sean Great.

Hi, how are you? I never got to meet you. Great.

And then Detective Major asked Great if there was anything else he wanted to get off his chest.

He said

there was.

What's that?

Great paused for a few seconds, then softly he said he had been thinking about it.

Great said he wasn't sure of the exact year, but he wanted to talk about a cold case from around 2005 or 2006, a full decade earlier.

He said a murder victim was found in nearby Marion County, but the body was never identified. I'm thinking her name was Dana.
I totally forget her name after a while, Dana.

Great said Dana traveled door-to-door selling magazines and had sold a a subscription to his mom. But he said his mother never got those magazines.

And then all I heard is my mom just complaining and craping.

Grade said he felt he had to do something about his mom's complaints. At that time, Grade was living in his grandparents' house.
He said a woman came by to sell magazines.

Grade assumed she was Dana, the salesperson who spoke with his mom. He invited her in.

On the bar stools, and just sit there for a minute. And I was just feeling raged.
Okay.

So I said, hey, come on in back here.

Show you my ball cards.

Like baseball cards collection? Yeah, all sports. Oh, okay.

Yeah.

And there she comes.

So that's when I frightened her.

So you want to rip me off like you did my mom?

And what did she say?

She said, Who's your mom? I said, Oh, so you do it a lot to people.

Yeah, I mean.

According to Grayd, he pulled Dana into the living room and strangled her until she passed out.

Then he dragged her to the basement, but she she woke up. I panicked.
I ran upstairs.

He went upstairs, grabbed a knife, and stabbed her in the neck.

Great said he had people over for a bonfire at the house that evening and left her dead body in the basement all night.

He put a couch in front of the basement door so no one would accidentally find her.

The next morning, he said he dumped her body in the woods.

How do I know that you're not just saying you did something that you didn't do? How do I know that? Tell me something that nobody would know.

I did go back after a few months

and I burned a fire. I caught her on fire.

Grate said he poured some gasoline and watched as flames engulfed Dana's remains.

I could have sworn someone on the highway who had seen me, but I was out of there.

Detective Major had gotten yet another confession from Sean Grate. Great said Dana was his first victim, the first time he had killed.

Just like in her first interview with Great, Detective Major didn't stop when she got this new confession. She wanted to understand what made Sean Great

decide to kill.

When your mind's going there and you think, I'm gonna do that, I'd like to do that.

What does she look like? What age? What are her features? What does she look like?

I keep my mind open.

Whoever comes first.

Whoever comes first. Okay.
So it's opportunistic. A lot of times

we get along good and everybody goes home happy. Everybody goes home safe and everything.
Don't even...

What goes wrong?

What happens that makes that switch for you?

What is it?

Great mumbled. I don't know.
I really can't explain a lot of it.

He begged me through the interview process to help him come up with what his motive was. He said, Why did I do this? Tell me why you think I did this.

When Detective Brian Evans asked Great about why he murdered, Great offered another possible explanation. It's almost like Ashlyn was too relaxed for a moment.
All the people,

they were all content with their

jobs and just no lead deal. Everybody got the guard down.

But

I wasn't thinking that way. But now, looking back on it, maybe.
Looking back, I'm not trying to justify it either. I'm totally wrong.

The detective spoke with Sean Gray for almost three hours that day.

Though a lot of the interview focused on the details of Dana's murder and Great's other violent crimes, at times the back and forth turned lighthearted, even funny.

Like when Gray described walking between Ashland and Mansfield so he could get marijuana.

Want to tell us where you got that? Are you going to protect someone?

Who do you get it from?

I don't know who he was.

He's holding that back.

That's funny. Won't give up the weed.
No one gives up the weak guy. Come on,

no one gives up the weak guy.

The detectives leaned into their rapport with Great to get more information from him. At one point, they asked Great to demonstrate how he strangled his victims.

Was it the carotid artery or was it the hyoid? Which way did you strangle someone? Because those things all show up in an autopsy.

At first, Great talked through how he said he typically strangled someone. Let's look at their face and see if I'm getting anywhere.

But the detectives wanted a full demonstration on video, which Sean Gray said he'd be willing to do. Later in the interview, Major brought it up again.

You want to do our little

thing?

You still comfortable with us? Would you be easier for you to kind of show it or to have like a

stuffed animal doll teddy bear thing to however you had that?

I can go grab one from these guys or something. I was thinking I'd demonstrate it on you.

That's what you want to do.

Look at that big smile.

Great wanted to demonstrate his strangulation technique on Detective Evans.

Not on a doll or stuffed animal. Not on Kim Major.
Only on Brian Evans.

This is a pretty violent man, and you said okay?

Yes, well, honestly, at the time of it, you're in there trying to get the best evidence you can. And when he agreed to do it and said that he would just do it on me, and yes, it just...

It's kind of what you do, I guess. You weren't armed, neither you nor Detective Major.

No, no, we were not armed.

We did knock on the door and tell the jail staff that this was going to be happening so they didn't see him putting me in a chokehold and come in there and tase us or anything happening.

I also let them know in case something did go bad. You could have lost consciousness in seconds.
He could have killed you.

I didn't put a whole lot of thought into that. Again, it just went to getting the evidence.

Gray said he strangled people while they were standing up. He got up, and so did Detective Evans.
The first thing Great said was, you're taller than the others.

Which was a little eerie at that stamp point, but we went kind of to the back of the wall, and Detective Major had my cell phone, because that's all we had at the time. Okay, this is Detective Major.

We have Detective Evans in the room, Sean Grate in the room. It's September 15, 2016, time 1704.

Sean's going to demonstrate the way he uses

strangulation in cases that we have been discussing.

Great started by demonstrating how he said he had strangled Elizabeth Griffith.

And he had to like reach up and kind of got me in a chokehold here and then

put the back of my head and then would push forward on the head which would put your anybody's throat or Adam's apple in like the crease of their arm and then he just did like a quick flex and then I would just do that and at that point obviously I felt it I kind of have a bigger Adam's apple and even so that quick little tense moment that he tensed up you could feel that on my Adam's apple and I just would lean forward and just press

I'm videoing it. I'm trying to keep the camera from shaking.
And I look at Brian's eyes and I'm thinking, this is not good. Brian, then he lets go of Brian.
He keeps describing things.

And Brian mouths to me,

I'll never do this again.

And you knew from seeing him do this demonstration that

he had killed before this break. It was so fluid.
My son's wrestle, my husband's a wrestling coach. His motions were so fluid in what he was doing, how he described that.

And I was really taken by

him demonstrating how their breath would leave their body.

He's there

when someone's last breath is leaving their body.

And

it's notable to him.

I was taken by it.

After Sean Grate released Detective Evans, he explained in detail how he strangled each of his victims. And the detectives, they got the evidence they needed.

Sean,

thank you.

That's a lot to ask somebody, and it's not something people would

agree to do, so I appreciate that.

Before the interview ended, ended, Detective Major checked again if Sean Grade was holding anything back.

Is there anybody else that we're missing that you haven't told me? Because the other day you said Candace was your first, and that doesn't mean that

you're a liar. It meant

sometimes there's a reason why somebody doesn't want to say something. The reason why I hesitated about the years ago when

the first one is because

I'm sure everyone will think that there's could be thousands.

Great said if he talked about Dana, everyone would think there could be thousands of victims. He said, I'm not that cold.

So you felt like, well, if I give her that other one,

I'm going to get accused of million, you know, a thousand things that I didn't do. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, pretty much.

Great claimed he had gotten everything, all his secrets, out of his system.

He said, I have four bodies.

He promised me there were no more,

but there would be some little clue or some little tip in the interview

that indicated there might be more. At this point, you realize he's been killing for years.

Do you ask yourself, how deep does this go?

I ask myself that every time, every interview, every day,

throughout

the duration of working the case.

Nearly three hours into the interview, Detective Major read Sean Grate the charges against him and wrapped things up.

Sean, what questions do you have for Detective Evans or myself?

I'm not too sure about any questions at this moment. Come on, Abbott.

But then, just a few days later, Detective Major would be back to press Sean Great once again.

Because,

as it turned out, Great

had not told the entire truth.

You, for some reason, held some back, and I'm going to ask you for your honesty. Do you know what I'm talking about?

The Hand in the Window is a production of ABC Audio and 2020. Hosted by me, John Quinones.
Produced by Madeline Wood, Camille Peterson, Kiara Powell, edited by Gianna Palmer.

Our supervising producer is Susie Liu. Music and mixing by Evan Viola.

Special thanks to Katie Dendos, Janice Johnston, Michelle Margulis, Caitlin Schiffer, Rachel Walker, Annalisa Linder, Joseph Diaz, Jonathan Balfaser, Gail Deutsch, Gary Wynn, Stephanie McBee, Natalie Cardenas, and Samantha Wanderer.

Josh Cohan is our Director of Podcast Programming.

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