ASHLAND - Michael Crain admits he had trouble recommending the death penalty for convicted killer Shawn Grate.
Crain was one of the jurors in the case. Sporting a U.S. Marine Corps cap, he spoke to the News Journal about the experience over a cup of black coffee.
"That really bothered me," Crain said of recommending that Grate deserved to die. "In some ways in my mind and in my heart, I didn't want to vote death from a Christian standpoint."
On Friday, a six-man, six-woman jury recommended the death penalty for Grate, 41, for the aggravated murders of Elizabeth Griffith and Stacey Stanley. He will be officially sentenced June 1 by Ashland County Common Pleas Judge Ron Forsthoefel.
Crain, 65, is retired from the Marines and the postal service. The 1971 Ashland High School graduate said he didn't really pay much attention to media coverage of the murders.
"It was fairly simple. I didn't see anything on TV," Crain said. "I saw the headlines (in newspapers), but I didn't see the stories."
Crain said he had heard people say Grate was guilty, but he knew he could listen to the evidence objectively.
Still, he was surprised to be selected.
"I'd been scheduled for jury duty three other times, but I never had the experience of sitting in the jury box before," Crain said.
Because he is retired, Crain said he had time to serve.
"It really didn't bother me," he said of the sacrifice. "I don't have any requirements during the day. My wife and I babysit a couple of our grandbabies once a week."
He said he had to reschedule a couple of appointments at the VA but otherwise had no commitments that would interfere with jury service.
During the trial, Crain said he set his alarm clock at 6:30 a.m. to make sure he made it to court by 8:30.
Jurors convicted Grate of eight counts. He also pleaded guilty to 15 other counts midway through the trial.
Crain said he was "overwhelmed" by the amount of evidence.
"The case was pretty much a slam dunk," he said.
But that doesn't mean it was easy.
Crain put his hand over his mouth and became emotional as he recalled Griffith.
"We had to look at a photo of her in the closet," he said.
Ashland police found Griffith's body naked and bound, underneath a pile of clothes.
Crain said he found the testimony of Jane Doe "sincere." She was raped repeatedly by Grate but managed to get to a phone and call police while he was asleep, leading to the end of his crime spree.
Grate had told her he would let her go.
Crain wasn't buying it.
"My gut feeling is if she hadn't been able to get to the phone, we'd have had this trial, but there would have been three (murder) victims," he said.
When jurors deliberated about the death penalty, they reached a verdict in about two hours.
Crain said they unanimously voted to recommend death for Stanley's murder on the first vote.
"The other (Griffith), we had a couple of sticking points," Crain said. "The part about her being in the house ... she had called him and said she couldn't sleep and wanted to come over."
Crain said the jury needed four votes to come to a unanimous decision.
"Nothing outweighed the aggravating circumstances," he said, adding jurors followed the judge's instructions.
Crain added there was little emotion in the jury room despite the weighty decision.
"If there was any of them that felt as bad or worse than I did, I couldn't tell it," he said.
He described the panel as a "nice and good group," but he didn't know anyone's name. Court personnel addressed jurors by their numbers.
Through Facebook, Crain discovered after the trial that he went to school with the jury foreman's father-in-law.
Noting several of the jurors were retirees, Crain predicted a number of them would be gone by the time Grate is executed.
Crain offered his impressions of the suspected serial killer.
"I watched Mr. Grate quite a bit. To me, he seemed very calm, very nonchalant, almost like he was an observer himself," the juror said. "He watched each one of us as we were questioned by the judge. I tried to stare him down.
"Anybody that does what he did, they've got a problem."
Still, Crain has some doubts about recommending the death penalty.
"I think I did the right thing," he said.
He also knows the experience will stay with him.
"I'll never forget this," Crain said. "Anytime I think of the pictures of those ladies and the pictures we saw, it's going to bother me."
mcaudill@gannett.com