Chapter 104: Stalked and Silenced-The Murder of Shana Grice

0:01 Every story has a beginning, but not everyone has an ending. In the shadows of headlines and buried police reports lay the voices of the missing, the murdered, and the forgotten, waiting to be heard and have their stories told. This is the Book of the Dead, a true crime podcast where we remember forgotten victims of heinous crimes, reopen cold cases, re visit haunting disappearances, and uncover the truths buried beneath the years of silence. I'm your host, Courtney Liso, and every week we turn to another chapter, one victim, one mystery, one step closer to justice. Brought to you by Darkast Network in Deep Podcasts with the twist.

1:10 Have you ever wondered how in the hell did I get here? You are not alone. My podcast is called True Crime Connections with an advocacy podcast where I talk with survivors of toxic relationships, abuse of marriages. We all have one thing in common. How in that hell did we get here? And how do we get out? How do we find our self worth again? Well, if you feel that way, come check out my podcast, because not only. Do you get actionable steps to take to help you take your life back, but you can listen to how others have dealt with their own situations including addiction, suicidal, aviation and love. Hello, self worth and respect. We can get you on the right track. Make sure to check out True Crime Connections.

2:09 See you there, Hello, Hello, Welcome to the next chapter in the Book of the Dead. Before we jump in, just as a quick little note, stick around to the end for an update on Lisa and how she's been doing. She's fine, I promise, but there is an update at the end for those wondering. The case I have for you today involves a young woman who repeatedly cried out for help to the police over a period of eight months. Every single cry was ignored. In twenty sixteen, a nineteen year old woman was killed in her home in Brighton, England by a man she had tried again and again to keep away. He stalked her, he harassed her, and despite her repeated report to police, her concerns were dismissed, sometimes even punished. This is a case of obsession, failure and the tragic cost of a system that didn't believe her.

3:16 This is the murder of Shauna Grice. This case begins in twenty fifteen when Shauna Grice was eighteen years old and living in Portslade, East Sussex, England, where she had just started a job as a receptionist at Brighton Fire Alarms. The company installs and maintains fire alarms, emergency lighting indoors, as well as conducting fire risk assessments. Shauna was excited to be starting a job at this big company and to be making her own money, as Shauna, according to the huff Post, was saving money for a future wedding. Shauna was dating a young man named Ashley Cook and they had been together for two years. While I don't know if the two were engaged, the relationship was serious enough that marriage seemed to be in their near future.

4:09 Ashley himself was working as a carpenter, so things were going very well for them. It seems that Shauna got along really well with her coworkers and they all liked her, especially a twenty six year old mechanic named Michael Lane. Michael found Shawna to be incredibly attractive, and Shauna was flattered by the attention that Michael was giving her. I'm sure it was a huge confidence boost to have this older guy flirting with her and going out of his way to talk to her while she was at work, and because of all of this attention, Shawna and Michael started seeing each other in secret. I will say that a few reports do state that Shawna and Ashley had been on a break at this point, but others suggest this was an affair either way. The relationship didn't last long, and Shawna and Michael broke up around Christmas of twenty fifteen.

5:10 Now this is allegedly because Michael had a volatile temper and Shawna was tired of walking on eggshells around him. As Michael is in his mid twenties, one would think that he took the ending of their very brief relationship in stride as a grown adult. However, he didn't. Michael could not accept the fact that their relationship was over, especially when Shawna actually cook got back together. Very quickly after their breakup, flowers were delivered to Brighten fire Alarms for Shawna's nineteenth birthday, and according to the huff Post, Shauna complained about this to her boss, citing that the flowers, which were from Michael, was a very inappropriate gesture. A few days later, where the tires on Shawna's car were slashed, and Michael was miraculously right there in the vicinity to offer Shauna help in changing the tires. According to an article for The Cut, after this incident, things quickly escalated even further and Shawna's irritation started evolving into fear. On February eighth, twenty sixteen, Shawna called the Sussex Police and claimed that Michael was following her. Michael always seemed to appear out of nowhere, and he had called and texted so many times that she blocked his number. He was able to tell where she was going and who she

6:41 would be with, freaking out not only Shauna but her friends as well. Additionally, after Shawna Ashley had gotten back together, Ashley's car was keyed with a note placed on the windshield stating quote, dear ash Shawna always has and will cheat on you New Year, according to BBC dot Com. Now, even though Shauna brought the Sussex Police a myriad of concerns, they did nothing except tell Michael that he needed to leave Shawna and her friends alone. Now, all of these incidents that occurred leading up to this first report are textbook examples of stalking behavior that police were already not taking seriously. According to George Washington University. For those that don't know, stalking is engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for their or other safety or lead them to suffer a substantial amount of emotional stress. These behaviors can include repeated calls or messages via phone or the internet, following or lying in wait at the person's home, job, or places they frequent, repeat sending unwanted messages or gifts, making threats directly or indirectly to the victim or their friends and family, Harassment, and the damaging of the victims or their friends or family's property. Now, stalking doesn't even

8:15 have to be threatening. It could just be repeated on wanted contact. However, when the victim of stalking starts to fear the behavior, the issue is that many law enforcement officers don't act. And this is because fear is subjective. What might be frightening to me may not be frightening to you, and many people will dismiss the victim's fears because they believe that it's quote not a big deal. It's also difficult to prove that someone is being stopped because many times what they're doing is not a crime. It's not illegal to blow up someone's phone or show up in public places at the same time. So what typically happens is that the victims will be told that there is not much that can be done unless a crime is committed or our harm has been done in some way. Now, this is not the case with every police department, but it happens way too often for comfort, and it's what happened to Shauna. On March twenty fourth, a month and a half or so after the first report, Shawna called the police for a second time. Police were summoned to Shawna's home, where Michael had chased her. When Shawna said she would call the police be he didn't leave.

9:34 Michael had grabbed her by the hair and attempted to take her phone from her. When police arrived, Shauna complained of the assaults, but when they spoke to Michael, he claimed this was just a standard couple's argument, and even showed police old messages from Shawna to prove that they were dating. The police believed Michael, and instead of charging him with assault, find Shawna ninety pounds or one hundred and sixteen dollars for quote wasting the police's time. According to BBC dot Com, the officers told Shawna that she would have to get evidence to prove that Michael was stalking her or there was nothing they could or would do to help her. Out of fear, according to the huff Post, Shauna came up with a system for her friends and family so that if it had been more than a couple of hours that they had heard from her, they would immediately start calling around to track Shawna down and make sure she was okay. Can you imagine how terrifying that situation must have been to be so terrified of what someone is capable of that you have to tell people to keep tabs on you to verify that you're safe because the police said that they wouldn't help you.

10:55 Due to everything going on, Shawna decides to quit her job at Brighton Firearms. As much as she enjoyed being there, the position wasn't worth the risk of prolonged contact with Michael, especially considering they were still communicating via phone at least occasionally, And the main reason for this is that Shawna, at only nineteen years old, really didn't know how to handle the situation with Michael, especially when he was constantly threatening to hurt himself if she cut off contact with him. Michael was emotionally manipulating Shauna as well as stocking her, and she didn't know what to do to get him to leave her alone once and for all. By July eighth, twenty sixteen, Shauna was preparing to move in with Ashley.

11:47 She contacted Michael, telling him that he needed to come get some things he had left at her home. When he came by to get his belongings, Michael stole the key to the back door and then used it very early the next morning to sneak into Shawna's bedroom and stand over her as she slept. Now Shauna was awake and knew he was there. She pretended to be asleep, secretly recording what was going on until Michael eventually left, and according to the cut, Michael could be heard in the recordings saying quote, I wanted to see you and I knew you wouldn't let me in. Shauna then set up a call with him that she recorded in order to get evidence to give to the police. She demanded he admit to taking the key, and he apologized after she got angry with him for sneaking into her home.

12:45 According to the huff Post, the end of the phone call went like this. Michael said, quote, I'm just not right in the head. If I was, I wouldn't do it. Shawna said, quote, well, maybe you need to get help. Then maybe you need to do something about it and stop crying and getting all upset about it. So Michael says, quote, yeah, I know, I just don't know what to do. Though I know I've got a problem and that I just don't want to be told that I'm mad. Shawna replies, quote, well, don't do mad things. Then you can't steal someone's property and expect just for us to be all right with it.

13:26 The last response is Michael saying, quote, obviously something's not right in my head and I don't know what it is, but I know I need to find out or be locked up or something. Can you just not tell anyone please? Now. Shauna does report Michael to the police once again, and when Michael came by to return the key he had stolen, the police were waiting for him. However, despite the evidence that Shawna had proving that Michael had not only stolen from her, but entered her home and watched her sleep, The police did not arrest Michael. In fact, all the police did was warn Michael to not do it again, which is mind boggling. He stole the key to gain entry into her home and watched a nineteen year old sleep and the police just said, don't do that. I don't understand. Since the police proved yet again that they were useless in this situation, Michael immediately started her asking Shauna.

14:35 The very next day, she received countless phone calls with someone breathing heavily into the phone that she knew was Michael, and she started noticing him following her around. While she was driving, she would see him in her rear view mirror, and onbeknownst to Shawna, it's because Michael had installed a tracking device on her car so that he could follow her movements. Allegedly came by to change the batteries every ten days to make sure the feed was uninterrupted. As Shauna reported the behavior on July twelfth, fearing that Michael's behavior was escalating, but the police decided that the entire situation was low risk. In fact, according to BBC, they sent a letter to Shawna informing her that they would not be taking any further action regarding her claims. They left Shawna vulnerable to deal with what was a clearly escalating situation all by herself. On August twenty third, twenty sixteen, Shauna and Michael met at a hotel in Hove, where Shauna told Michael that their relationship was over and he needed to leave her alone. Two days later, on August twenty fifth, Shawna was supposed to be at her job at Palmer and Harvey, where she worked in the account's department, but she never showed up. How her coworkers were immediately

16:06 concerned and called Ashley, who I assume was in emergency contact, and informed him that Shawna had not been to work and they couldn't reach her. Ashley called his sister to check on Shauna, and when she arrived, she found a bloody footprint on the doorstep. She called the police and her father, Ian. And Ian arrived at the home Shauna shared with Ashley and two other roommates and immediately attempted to gain entry into the house. Upon entering the house with a couple of neighbors, They immediately smelt smoke. Ian was able to enter Shauna's bedroom and in her room, which was filled with so much smoke, with Shawna's body yeing on her bed. Her throat had been cut, and there were burn marks on the carpet and on her bed where fires had been started but never act actually caught.

17:01 Police when they arrived also found a box of matches and a piece of cardboard that had been used as a wedge under the door to keep it closed. Due to Shawna having made multiple reports about being stalked and harassed in the eight months prior to her death, police very quickly zeroed in on Michael Lane as a suspect in Shawna's murder. They also reviewed various CCTV footage in the area that showed Michael purchasing Kansas gasoline right before the murder. He was seen on camera walking to the home that Shauna was living in, and he was caught on camera using Shawna's debit card at an ATM to withdraw sixty pounds from her account. Police theorized based on the video footage and a pair of bloody sneakers that was confirmed to belong to Michael. That he had snuck over to the house she was sharing with Ashley and waited for them to leave. Knowing that Shawna would still be asleep in side, he snuck into her room at seven thirty in the morning and killed her while she was asleep in her bed based on the lack of defensive wounds on her arms and hands. He then set fire to the bed and the rug to try and hide what he had done before running. When police spoke to Michael, he initially denied being anywhere near Shawna's home on the day of her murder. After repeated questioning, and they questioned him seven different times, according to BBC dot Com,

18:35 Michael finally admitted to being at the home, but said that Shauna was already dead when he got there. He said, quote, you ain't going to believe me. In the morning, I did go to Shauna's. According to Michael, he found Shauna in her room, the front door had been opened, and she was lying on the floor. He claims he left in a panic. Now Michael was trying charged with Shawna's murder, to which he plaid not guilty, and he went to trial in March of twenty seventeen. When Michael took the stand, his lawyer, Simon Russell Flint asked if Michael had murdered Shawna directly, and he said no. According to The Guardian, Michael said after finding Shawna's body, he had gone to a local convenience store so that he could have a lottery ticket checked because he quote didn't want what he saw to be true. He said when he found her, quote, I saw her slumped against the bed. She wasn't moving.

19:36 I saw blood on the bed and blood on the floor. She was in her dressing gown. I thought she was dead. I didn't know what to do now, he said. He didn't call an ambulance because he was in shock and there was no fire in the home while he was there. As for the gasoline he purchased, Michael claimed he was going to use it to commit suicide because he was dead, stated over the death of his grandfather. Also during the trial, it was learned that while Sussex police believed Michael was not a threat, this was not the case. Michael, according to a domestic homicide review that was conducted, had harassed and stalked twelve different women between two thousand and six and twenty sixteen, and had been arrested in twenty ten for allegedly grooming a fourteen year old girl. At this time, Michael would have been twenty years old, and this incident occurred when Michael was a volunteer Scout leader, but this arrest was apparently not noted by police when Shawna reported him, even though the arrest was on his record, and this review can be found in the source notes, although I will preface it by saying that the names have been changed in the review.

20:56 Now. Michael had resigned from the Scouts after the arrest and was told that the allegations would prevent him from being able to volunteer again, but in twenty fifteen he had no problem re signing due to a computer error. These victims reported after Shawna's murdered that they had been harassed, stocked, and sent explicit messages. Some even claim that Michael was very controlling during their relationships, and at least one had been sexually assaulted by Michael. None of the women felt like they would be taken seriously if they reported the harassment prior to Shawna's death Divina. James Handman, chair of the Domestic Homicide Reviews, said, in response to this quote, prevailing culture among young people in which teenage girl's face an endless bombardment of messages that inform them that they are valued for how they look leads to harassment being minimized, normalized, or even rationalized as romance. Women's discomfort and fear is routinely dismissed as being unable to take a joke. At the end of the two week trial, Michael was found guilty of murder and sentenced to a minimum of twenty five years in prison. Trial Judge Sir Nicholas Greene said it sentencing quote, you robbed Shawna of her life and you have caused grief untold to her family and friends.

22:29 This was a cold hearted murder. I have not detected you any appreciation of the devastation you have caused, nor have I detected remorse. In so far as I have detected emotion in you, it has been a determination to do all you can to protect yourself, and you have been the one person you have felt sorry for. Judge green also had some choice words for the Sussex Police, saying, according to the huff Post quote, there was seemingly no appreciation on the part of those investigating that a young woman in a sexual relationship with a man could at one and the same time be vulnerable and at risk of serious harm. The police jumped to conclusions and Shauna was stereotyped. When further incidents of stalking occurred, Shawna did not complain to the police because she felt her complaints would not be taken seriously. Michael Lane felt that if he continued with his obsessive stalking behavior, it was most unlikely that the police would do anything to stop him, and he did continue even though he had been warned by the police to keep away from Shauna. Now an investigation into the conduct of the Sussex Police was conducted by the IOPC, which is the Police Complaints Commission or Internal Affairs due to how poorly they handled the reports made by Shawna, and the investigation concluded that there were concerns that quote Sussex Police's response to victims of stalking

24:03 or harassment is not always as effective and consistent as it could be. This is because not all officers have received enhanced stoking training, so because of this, a training program was introduced, as well as sixteen different recommendations on how to improve the police's response to reports of stocking and harassment. Additionally, two officers were accused of gross misconduct, one of which was Police Constable Mills, who resigned after Shawna's murder for failing to properly investigate Shawna's complaint about Michael Leane stealing her key and entering her home. Incidentally, Mills was also investigated in twenty nineteen for misconduct after sending messages to a victim of a crime on a dating app, in which he was accused of taking advantage of his position. Police Constable Trevor Godfrey was also in mistigated for claiming that Shawna's complaints were lies and she was wasting police time. As a result of this investigation, the Sussex Police was ordered to make changes, and they claimed that they did. However, according to the CUT, as of twenty twenty one, Sussex had the second highest number of stocking reports in the country, and rape convictions in England and Wales were at an all time low for victims of intimate partner violence from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty.

25:31 As of twenty twenty four. According to the Office of National Statistics, the police recorded eight hundred and fifty one thousand and sixty two domestic abuse related crimes in England and Wales in the year ending March twenty twenty four, which was a decrease compared to twenty twenty three at nine hundred and eleven thousand, two hundred and forty eight. And for stalking, the police recorded only one hundred and twenty nine thousand, seventy six stocking related crimes in your ending March twenty twenty four. As to put those numbers even more into perspective, the estimate for victims of domestic abuse in England and Wales is somewhere around two point three million, and victims of stalking is estimated at one point four million. So based on these numbers, it looks like the police still aren't taking reports seriously at all.

26:26 Shanna Grice's death was one hundred percent preventable, but she was failed by the very people whose job it was to protect their community. Michael Lane was allowed to habitually harass and stalk women for years with zero consequences until he took a life, and very little has been done to prevent something like this from happening again. If you think you were being stalked, keep a record of every single incident and report it relentless. It could save your life, especially if the police do not want to listen the first time. As always, thank you so much for listening to this chapter of the Book of the Dead again.

27:16 If you liked the podcast so much you're hearing, please rate, review, share with your friends. It really helps me a lot. And for those wondering. Speaking of reviews, I got a review asking where Lisa was, and Lisa's here. Lisa's okay. Lisa is having her shoulder replaced on Friday, so by the time you hear this, she will be having her shoulder replaced on Friday, May sixteenth, and that is because of the car accident she had last year. So she's been okay. She just hasn't felt up to recording. I'm not going to force her. She's definitely not gonna feel up to recording. After her shoulder is replaced, She's going to be out of commission for at least another month, if not longer, especially because she's going to have to do Pete and all of that. So she's okay. Please don't hate me because she's not here. There is quite literally nothing I can do about it. But she's here, and she's sorry that she hasn't been around, but it's truly just due to her not feeling up to it and the chronic pain she's been dealing with. So hopefully after the surgery she will be ready and raring to go.

28:38 So I appreciate you guys asking about her. I think it's very kind. She will be back when she feels better. But as always, I hope you have a wonderful week and I will see you in the next chapter of the Book of the Dead. Bye, guys. Another page closed, But the story isn't over for the families left behind. The pain doesn't end when the headline's fade. And for the victims, we owe them more than silence for our on solved cases. If you have any information, please reach out to local authorities or visit our show notes for links and resources. Someone out there knows something, maybe it's you.

29:25 Thank you for listening to the Book of the Dead. If this story moved or spoke to you in some way, talk about it, share it, keep their names alive. Until next time. I'm Courtney Liso. Stay safe, stay curious, and stay vigilant. And remember the dead may be gone, but their stories will not be forgotten.