The Hand in the Window: Piece by Piece

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. Now, here's the episode.

To Kim Major, there is nothing more normal than a Friday night football game. That's true now, and it was true back in September 2016.

On Friday night, my husband coaches football. He coached the football game.
I actually took my younger kids to the football game. Major has three kids.

At the time, her two youngest were under eight years old. Even they knew something was going on at their mom's job.
They noticed her working long hours, coming home after their bedtime.

They even saw her on the news. Major had spent three days interviewing Sean Great,

hearing his horrific confessions.

The weight of it all was seeping into her home life.

Major sensed that her family needed a night that felt normal. I sat there, which was also surreal.
Seeing all the things around me and the lights and the people are happy.

They're happy, they're cracking the helmets, the the band watching my husband hearing the whistles just the whole thing

Friday night lights Friday night lights that's that's small town America

but while the crowd roared and the band played Major couldn't stop thinking about Grade's case and something he kept mentioning in their interviews specifically the forts that he had built in the woods

You put her there. I just recently built a fort.
Did you build that fort there for a reason? Well, I knew the area.

Great kept bringing up one fort in particular.

There was something about this fort that nagged at Major, even when she was off the clock.

I came home early, a little bit earlier.

When the game was just ending, I brought my kids home, put them to bed. And then I was sitting in the living room, and my oldest son came in, Corbin.
Corbin Major was 19 at the time.

He was getting ready to enter the police academy. He walks in and he's like, what's going on, mom? I said,

Sean Gray keeps talking about this fort he built. And my son said, where is it?

And I said, well, if you come up out of Mifflin, And you take that first left, and my son cut me off and said, and then you take a hard right and there's a gas well up there.

And they found a girl there a while back. And this says a crow flies is, I don't know, a mile, two miles from my home.

Despite how close it was, Kim Major had never heard of the case her son was talking about. She worked in town, and this was out in the countryside.

So I said, what are you talking about? He said, yeah, there was a woman that died of an overdose and they dumped her body there.

Corbin grabbed a laptop and brought up news reports about the case. A body had been found in March of the previous year at the base of a tree on a remote county road.

Kim Major's son wondered, could Great's fort and this body be connected?

And he said, where was the fort? I said, right there, right by there. And he's like, get something to write with.

What's his target age? And I'm like, what are you doing? And we go through some things and we're talking. By the time we're done, my son said, Mom,

he did it.

The town of Ashland was still reeling from the shock and horror of the previous days. But before a semblance of normality could return, all of Sean Great's crimes would have to be uncovered.

Only then could the wheels of justice begin to turn.

Normal wouldn't come back to Ashland for a long time.

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

episode 6:

piece by piece.

In March 2015, a maintenance worker was checking gas wells in a wooded area of Ashland County. As the worker was leaving, he saw something through the trees.

He thought it might be a discarded Halloween decoration, but as he got closer, he realized it was a body, half naked, resting against a tree.

The worker called 911, and investigators soon realized that there were visible tattoos on the body that matched those of a person who had been reported missing, a local woman, 31-year-old Rebecca Lacey.

Her family, who called her Becky, had been searching for her for more than a month. Her father told a local journalist that Rebecca had a drug problem.

He said that to earn money, she'd been doing sex work.

When the Richland County Coroner's Office examined Rebecca Lacey's body, they produced a toxicology report showing cocaine and opioids in her system.

They ruled that the cause of death was a drug overdose.

That's why Detective Kim Major was hesitant about her son Corbin's suggestion. With a cause of death determined, the case of Rebecca Lacey was all but wrapped up.

But Corbin seemed sure that Great was somehow involved. So the next day, Major went down to the jail where Great was being held.

How are you doing, Sean?

Major sat Great in an interview room and told him she was looking for clarification.

There's a case from out in the county,

meaning that we found a a girl.

And we're trying to see if, you'll be honest, if that's something you have something to do with. We're asking for that.

Rebecca Lacey.

Great answered without hesitation.

He said, Rebecca Lacey, and I knew. We have another victim.
We have another victim.

With very little prompting, Great had revealed victim number six.

And sure enough, Corbin Major's hunch had been right. Rebecca Lacey had not died of an overdose.
Sean Great had murdered her.

Major asked Great how they'd met. Great said, $20.

He was implying that they'd met through her alleged sex work.

After that, he said, they had become friends. Gray told Major that one day he and Rebecca were hanging out in Mansfield, the town in the county over from Ashland.
They were at his place.

He said

she was there.

I went to the restroom and I looked out and she had stolen a few dollars from him, less than $5.

And he said

he had kneaded her and punched her and that her face was bleeding. He said she fought him like a man

and he said he had

strangled her.

He talks about borrowing a car

and

taking her body out and

dumping her in my county.

Great described Rebecca as number two on his list of victims. Number one was the woman he knew only as Dana, the magazine seller murdered a decade before.

Candace Cunningham was third in the summer of 2016.

Then he attacked Elizabeth Griffith, Stacey Stanley, and Jane Doe, all within a few weeks of each other in the early fall of 2016.

Great had confessed to brutally attacking six women and killing all but one of them. Major needed to make sure there were no more crimes that Great was hiding.

If I leave here and you think that there's another layer, I'm not going to hold it against you. Well, you know what I mean? Yeah, this onion is peeled all the way.

This onion is peeled all the way, Great said.

I feel better now. Okay.

I'm free.

Once again, Major left the interview room with a confession from Sean Grate

and a promise that there were no more crimes he needed to complain about.

But in the days that followed, Gray kept asking to see Detective Major. Before she could meet him again, she heard something...

troubling.

A month after he's arrested, a fellow inmate tells you that Sean Grate is targeting you, that he wants to kill you?

Yeah.

The inmate said he needed to talk to me, needed it to be

in secret. He didn't want anybody to see him talking to me.
So I made that arrangement and I sat down in front of him.

He said that Sean Grate told him he was trying to find my gun on my body, couldn't figure out where I was keeping it, and that he thought it would be the ultimate to kill me as the female detective that was handling his case.

Despite this allegation that Sean Grade was making a threat against her life, Major believed there was the chance that Grade wanted to see her because he had more to confess.

The information that Major received from the inmate didn't lead to any additional charges against Grade. When Major next interviewed him, they met at the jail, where no weapons were allowed.

Detective Major preparing to interview Sean Grate

here's request to be at West on the Sheriff's Office.

During this interview, Great's behavior was erratic. He was upset with the other inmates in the jail and at the staff.

I want to hurt him.

You want to hurt who?

I don't know. It won't matter.

You're playing games with me.

This is hard to handle. Okay.
How do you feel like they're presenting the answer?

Sitting in front of him again, Major thought about the alleged threat that Great had told an inmate he wanted to kill her.

I wanted to ask, did you say this and what did you mean by that? I didn't want to make it about me, so I said,

Are you still having that hunger that you talk about, the hunger to kill?

Can I ask you something?

Can we be honest?

Do you still

have thoughts

about

that desire? Yeah.

And he said,

Yeah, it's probably worse. And I said,

like you're having that right now?

And he said,

yeah.

I didn't go any farther than that.

Major questioned Great for an hour and a half that day, but Great gave her no more confessions. By now, Detective Major had spent around 33 hours with Sean Great across eight interviews.
But this one

would be their last.

Major's police captain had heard about Great's alleged threat. He told Major to stop visiting him.
The next time she saw Great in person

would be in court.

On the 22nd of September 2016, Great was formally indicted for his crimes in Ashland County. The indictment included everything that had happened to Stacey Stanley, Jane Doe, and Elizabeth Griffith.

The other murders he'd confessed to were being handled by police departments in neighboring counties, and those indictments would come later.

The case was officially out of Detective Major's hands. The details of Sean Grate's crimes, which he'd confessed to in the quiet interview room, were now going to be heard by everyone: a judge, jury,

and

the victims' families.

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A year and a half after his indictment, in April of 2018, Gray's trial began.

It was held in the Ashland County Court in the center of town, just a few blocks away from Covert Court. The courtroom was large and quiet.

A scattered audience sat in in wooden pews facing the judge's platform.

Great, then 41 years old, was sitting at his lawyer's table, wearing glasses and a white button-down shirt. In footage of the trial, his hair looks less dirty blonde and more gray.

Prosecutor Chris Tennell addressed the jury first. In his opening statement, he told them he was seeking the death penalty for for Sean Great.

This is not a whodunit case.

This is a he did it

case.

Great's defense disagreed. Despite Great's recorded confessions to Detective Major, his lawyers entered a plea of not guilty for all the charges against him.

I think the mood was very somber. It was quiet.

Bob Jones was a reporter covering the trial for local ABC News affiliate station WEWS.

He would watch the next eight days of testimony as it happened.

It was sad because we were hearing all these terrible details. The prosecution presented more than 50 witnesses, from medical experts to police officers.

Kim Major testified, and parts of her interviews with Great were played in the courtroom. Bob Jones says that one witness really stood out to him.

The moment when Jane Doe testified was a pivotal moment in the trial. It was probably the most crucial testimony in the case.

She was very brave sitting up there on the stand talking about the terror that she went through. She said she was tied up.
She said that she tried multiple times to get away.

She talked about how she was sexually assaulted in every imaginable way. And Sean even videotaped the sexual assault that took place on her.

She testified about all of those things and it was very scary to hear.

Bob wasn't just watching the witnesses testimony. He was also scrutinizing Sean Great.

He didn't have much of a reaction during during most of the testimony to my memory. He sat there quietly.
He didn't really seem to have much of a feel one way or the other.

Great was silent during the witness's testimony. So what was going on inside Grate's head was hard to know until the morning of the eighth day of the trial.
That morning, Great stood.

not on the witness stand, but at his lawyer's table. The jury wasn't in the room.
The judge wanted to ask Gray some questions about a very late and surprising change of strategy. Okay.

Was this a decision you came to on your own? Yes. And then you advised your attorneys that at this point you wanted to.

Gray had requested to change his plea from not guilty. to guilty for 15 of the 23 counts against him.

He hoped to now plead guilty to the rape charges as well as a slew of others, including burglary, gross abuse of a corpse, and tampering with evidence.

His lawyers told the court that Gray wanted to plead guilty in order to prevent the videos of him sexually assaulting his victims being shown in court.

The videos were of Stacey Stanley and Jane Doe, and by pleading guilty, that evidence would not need to be seen by the jury.

His lawyers claimed that Great was changing his plea out of consideration for Jane Doe and the families of the other victims.

The judge accepted Grate's request.

This didn't mean the trial was over. Great kept his not guilty plea for the murder charges he faced.
The jury would still give their verdict on those crimes.

After his change of plea, there were closing statements for each side. Then the jury was sent away for deliberation.
They returned less than four hours later with their verdict.

They found Great

guilty on all charges.

Given Great's confessions to Detective Major, the verdict was not a total surprise, but sentencing was still very much up in the air.

With 23 guilty counts, it looked likely that Great would face years in prison.

But he was also eligible for the death penalty. At an earlier hearing, Great's lawyers told the court that they knew their client wouldn't walk out of the courtroom a free man,

but would he walk out as a man condemned to death?

In deciding Great's punishment, the court would hear more evidence. Two more days of testimony.
This testimony wasn't for the jury, but for the judge, to help him decide if Great

deserved the death penalty.

The day of the sentencing, a few weeks later, was on June 1, 2018.

It was a warm and humid day with clouds overhead. Things looked different inside the courtroom than they had when the trial began.

Now, instead of a shirt and tie, Great was in a yellow prison jumpsuit. And the room was packed.
On one side, the pews were filled with people wearing purple, Stacy Stanley's favorite color.

Stacy's cousin had gotten special purple t-shirts made with slogans on them, Justice for Stacy and Stanley Strong. All of Stacy's loved ones were wearing them.

Great was given the opportunity to address the court, filled with with the loved ones of the women he'd murdered. Great turned to look at the crowd.

Well,

today is a good day, mainly for all of you guys and myself.

I hope we can just move on from all this. You know, I don't know exactly.
Great said he knew he wasn't normal, but that he knew right from wrong.

He asked for forgiveness from the victims' families and said that justice was the most important thing that could come from this day.

Great wasn't the only person invited to give a statement. Curtis Stanley had been there every day of the trial.
He wanted to make eye contact with the person who had killed his mother.

While he gave a statement, he stood facing Great across the courtroom. You ever bury your mother? I had to pick a casket out.

I didn't expect that this young. I had to go in there and pick a casket out, and he made it to where I couldn't even have the open casket to say goodbye to her.

Elizabeth Griffith's mom, uncle, and cousins spoke among a dozen people who stood to give their victim impact statement. Like Stacey's sister, Gina Stanley.

Thank you to everyone who has supported our families. Today, this monster will pay for what he has done, and I'm confident it will be with his life.

Despite his plea for forgiveness, almost all of the people who spoke that day said they couldn't forgive Great for what he had done.

Some of them seemed angry that he'd even asked them to try.

Most of them told the court, Great deserves to die.

But the final decision was up to the judge, Ronald P. Forstoffel.

Mr. Great, when imposing sentence, the court must comply with the purposes and principles of Ohio's sentencing statutes with regard to the non-capital charges in this case.

Forstoffel told Great he'd weighed up the evidence, the statements from the families, and Great's personal history. And he had made

a sentencing decision.

The court therefore finds that a sentence of death by legal injection shall be imposed upon Mr. Great for the aggravated murder of Elizabeth Griffith as stated in Count 1 of the indictment.

Great was given two death penalties, one for the murder of Stacey Stanley and one for the murder of Elizabeth Griffith.

For the other charges in Ashland County, he was given prison sentences that added up to 90 years behind bars.

The reaction from the courtroom was something that I had never quite seen in many years of covering trials in criminal cases.

Court further orders that each of the death penalties be carried out by appropriate authorities on September 13, 2018, which would be the two-year anniversary of Mr. Great's discovery.

When the judge said, I'm going to sentence Sean Grate to death, the crowd in the courtroom, the family, erupted in cheers and clapped. And I've never seen that.

Two other counties would also pursue murder charges against Great.

Marion County, where he killed the magazine seller he called Dana. Investigators would eventually identify her as Dana Lowry, a missing 23-year-old from out of state.

And then there was Richland County, where he killed Candace Cunningham and Rebecca Lacey.

In these cases, Great pleaded guilty to all of the charges and was given two more prison sentences, both life without parole.

Sean Great is currently being held on death row at a medium security prison in Ohio. His scheduled execution date has come and gone.
Two things have delayed it.

First, he appealed his death penalty at the state level in 2020 and at the federal level in 2025.

In his appeals, Great argued he had ineffective counsel and that his case was too public to have an unbiased jury. The first appeal was denied, but the 2025 appeal is still in progress.

The second reason Great remains on death row is that in 2020, the governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, declared a moratorium on state executions.

Stacey Stanley's sister, Gina, is still waiting for the case to end.

I just want to say that I feel like justice is him not breathing anymore. And

that's the only way I'm going to feel complete justice for my sister. Elizabeth Griffith's friend, Jessica Anderson, is also waiting for Great's execution date to arrive.

I mean, I know he's coming to a point where he's running out of appeals, and it's going to happen. And I can't wait for the day to happen.

I mean, I know he already has the death penalty, but him, it actually being carried out,

I would love to see it carried out.

Jessica met Elizabeth Griffith while working at a mental health support service called Life Works.

For Jessica and others in Ashland, the Yellow House on Culvert Court became an unwelcome reminder of what had happened in their town.

You could literally look out LifeWorks' window and see that house. Like, that's how close it was.
And

there, for a while, after

we found out that Elizabeth was one of the people in the house,

I went through a period where I would have nightmares about it,

and

I would see her in the window asking for help.

I wanted them to tear it down so bad, and I was so happy the day that they did.

The city of Ashland had taken ownership of the house, and 11 days after great sentencing, they authorized its demolition.

Once again, a crowd gathered outside the house on Culvert Court, This time

to see it destroyed. Piece by piece, an excavator ripped down the house of horror.

People were thrilled to see that house go away. Reporter Bob Jones says the house's destruction felt symbolic.
That was like a day of cleansing for the community.

It was not only demolishing the walls and the horror that happened inside, but it was demolishing the bad memories that affected this community for two years.

Detective Kim Major was also there on Covert Court for the demolition. The day afterward, a local newspaper ran a picture of her crying while she watched the house come down.

But her tears were not ones of relief or closure.

You were there there when you saw the house on Covert Court destroyed? Demolished? I was. What did that feel like?

I stood there feeling almost like my community were so innocent.

We're so innocent to actually think that tearing down that home

is going to take this away because it doesn't.

Major told me it would take a lot more than one demolition to repair this town.

Just because you can't see that house anymore doesn't mean.

Exactly.

It's leveled. It's flat there.
You go by and

it's flat.

But

the weight of the situation is still here.

In 2022, Kim Major released a book about her experience on the Great case. It's called A Hunger to Kill, and she dedicated it to the victims of Sean Great.

That same year, she retired from the Ashland Police Department. She's not a detective anymore, but this case

hasn't left her.

I don't want to forget this case. I don't want anyone to forget it.
As a matter of fact, I want more people to know.

The case has hurt the town of Ashland deeply. Kim Major wants her community to heal, but never lose sight of what this case taught them.

I think if we can't learn from this, if we can't get it better, the things we do right, where we miss the mark, If people can't realize that these women could have been anyone,

this could have been me. If we can't learn from that, then

what is our purpose?

The Hand in the Window is a production of ABC Audio and 2020. Hosted by me, John Quiñones, 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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Preces and participación pueden varía. Loces de la promosi canon prison que lo de las comidas.