The Cheat Sheet: Carjackers and Convictions

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[00:01:39] Enhance your every day with Viah. Content warning. This episode contains discussion of violence, kidnapping, rape and murder. Today on the cheat sheet we'll be covering three Midwestern cases out of Ohio, Illinois and Missouri as well as one case out West in Utah. My name is Anya Kane.

[00:02:03] I'm a journalist and I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney and this is the murder sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the murder sheet. And this is the cheat sheet. Carjackers and convictions.

[00:03:06] Let's start with this carjacking case out of Ohio. It's been pretty widely covered. One article I found that seemed to summarize all the known facts in a pretty clear way was in people.com.

[00:03:23] And this is just like an utterly night-mirish story because I think if you're a parent it's very, very easy to imagine something like this happening to you. There was a woman named Alexis Stakely. She is a single mother of a six-year-old. She actually works a couple of jobs.

[00:03:52] She goes to pick up her six-year-old son from the babysitter. She carries her son out, puts him in the back seat of the SUV, starts the car and then she remembers all he left one of his toys in the babysitter's house.

[00:04:11] So just for a second she goes to grab that, leaving her sleeping child in the back seat of the vehicle. And that is when the vehicle is a carjacked. It's stolen. And she sees this and she reacts in the way I think any loving parent would.

[00:04:33] She wants to do anything possible to stop the vehicle and save her child. She gets in front of the vehicle and it strikes her. And it injures her so severely that she ends up passing away.

[00:04:51] And so now the people who were committing the carjacking are going to be facing, very likely facing murder charges. Just a terrible, terrible story. That makes me so sick and just... She was a speech pathologist too.

[00:05:15] Like helping kids speak and kind of dealing with issues around that for children. I don't know. This breaks my heart. I mean, this could happen to anybody. And the fact that this was just over some stupid carjacking, it sounds like two of the perpetrators were 16.

[00:05:37] And then one has been named as Gerald Dowling Jr. It's like this woman's life for a car. Yeah, it's obscene. And I believe at least one of the people involved came in and turned themselves in out of conscience. But... A little late, in my opinion.

[00:05:59] It's a little late. This child is going to grow up without a mother. And people who she might have been able to help with her career in speech pathology aren't going to get to have that help.

[00:06:13] And everybody who loved this woman and who appreciated and cherished her and valued all of the good she brought into this world now have to face life without her. And it's... This is a person who did nothing wrong.

[00:06:32] You often talk about how you're interested in cases where people woke up that day not intending to kill anybody or commit murder. And I would argue that that being said in a situation where you're doing something as dangerous as carjacking,

[00:06:51] when it turns out that somebody fights back or tries to get their kid out of the car, it's almost inevitable that someone is going to be harmed in the commission of such a violent crime. And so I really hope that there is accountability in this case.

[00:07:09] The only bright spot is the six-year-old child was unharmed. It's awful. I feel so bad for her family and everyone who cared about her that it's just out of... I think everyone's worst nightmare. Everyone's worst nightmare. Oftentimes, I think when we hear tragedies, we try to think,

[00:07:28] well, maybe this is something that I could have done differently, not been put in the situation. But all she did was go for a moment to get her child's toy. Yeah. Anybody...

[00:07:39] Anybody could be in that situation not knowing that there are people lurking around waiting for you to leave so they can steal your car, not caring at all that there's a child inside. It's not clear if they knew there was a child inside.

[00:07:53] You know, it certainly sounds like they didn't care enough to actually scope it out to the point where they could have determined that. I don't know whether it's like they just happened to be there or they were looking for someone to victimize, but it's just... It's horrifying.

[00:08:10] So moving on to our other neighbor here in Indiana, Illinois. This is another case, I think, out of everyone's worst nightmares. The purpose of law enforcement and police is to serve and protect communities.

[00:08:27] And when that doesn't happen and when in fact that doesn't happen to the point that an innocent person is killed, then that not only represents a tragedy for that person and that person's family and community, but also everyone else because it undermines faith in the system.

[00:08:49] It undermines our sense of fairness in society and it undermines trust as a whole. And so it's awful when things like this happen. And of course, I'm talking about the killing of a 36-year-old woman named Sonia Massey. So this took place in Springfield, Illinois.

[00:09:11] And after midnight on July 6, 2024. Oh, also I should say my sources for this are CNN and ABC7. So Sonia Massey calls 911 after midnight and is reporting a possible prowler. Two Sangamon County Sheriff's deputies show up. One is named Sean Grayson. The other at this point is unidentified.

[00:09:33] And body camera footage from that unidentified deputy shows what happens next. Illinois State Police ultimately released a 36-minute span of footage from him. Grayson's camera was off at the time. So when deputies arrive, Massey does not initially answer the door.

[00:09:52] And when she does, it becomes apparent that she is somewhat confused. She's not telling them why she called them. She asks them not to hurt her and they say, well, you called us. I am by no means an expert on mental health.

[00:10:07] But the footage appears to show a person having mental health related challenges. And that is also something that civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Massey's family has also acknowledged that there were mental health struggles here.

[00:10:21] We've talked on the show in the past about how training and learning to deal with somebody who might be having mental health challenges is very important because you never know when you're going to encounter someone like that, whether you are dealing with,

[00:10:38] you know, whether you're working in security and medicine or in law enforcement as a first responder. So this is what it looks like. She's confused. She seems to be struggling. But at first things seem okay. The deputies and Massey even share a laugh at one point.

[00:10:56] Things don't seem to be out of control. And unfortunately, things would not remain that way. In fact, everything would escalate in frankly a matter of seconds. This escalates very, very quickly. So one of the deputies notices a pot of boiling water on the stove and says,

[00:11:17] well, we don't want to fire. So turn that off. So Massey goes to turn it off removes the pot of water. And there is an exchange that results in Massey saying, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. And it's unclear.

[00:11:36] I'm seeing media reports saying that she also pours the water in the sink. So Grayson seems to interpret the I rebuke you in the name of Jesus comment as some sort of indication that Massey was going to fling the water the scalding water at them.

[00:11:54] He draws his weapon. Media reports that I saw also indicated that Massey then apologize and hid behind the counter covering her face. She's scared. When she rises Grayson shoots her three times in the face.

[00:12:11] And from there he told his colleague not to bother treating her because she was dead. He called her a crazy bee while speaking to other law enforcement personnel outside and he didn't use the word be he used the entire derogatory word. And this is this has been investigated.

[00:12:34] So prosecutors in Illinois State Police looked into this and they said that Grayson was not justified in shooting her and using deadly force. And their experts indicated that they felt that he went against his training. And basically this was all completely inappropriate.

[00:12:51] And the consensus that I've seen from different people commenting on this is that while getting the possibility of getting splashed with scalding water could justify a shooting in some circumstances.

[00:13:02] In this case Grayson created no distance didn't use other tactics didn't seem to even necessarily be at risk of that. At that point and was not justified in shooting her three times in the face.

[00:13:15] So he was indicted by a grand jury on three counts of first degree murder. He has pled not guilty and is currently incarcerated. Some background on him he apparently been discharged from the United States Army after a little over a year of service due to misconduct.

[00:13:29] He had two drinking under the influence charges in his past. And it seems like he bounced around from department to department a lot in his early career. So now we have another case of a black woman being killed in her own home.

[00:13:46] There have been a number of high profile cases around this in past years and also someone possibly dealing with a mental health crisis being shot by police.

[00:13:55] And I really tried to keep an open mind looking at the footage that I saw and reading the media articles that I saw but I don't understand why she was shot. This seems like I mean she was cowering she was apologizing.

[00:14:09] I don't understand why Grayson's are such a threat that he decided to end this woman's life instead of helping her. I mean she obviously was dealing with some stuff but I think othering someone to the point where they're just an obstacle or you know constant threat.

[00:14:31] That's not a way to police things. That just makes different law enforcement officers at war with the communities they're supposed to again serve and protect. So it's very, very disturbing. Yeah it's incredibly disturbing.

[00:14:49] This is not something that should have happened and at least based on what we know that it has appeared to be any rational justification for this. Yes it really does not seem that the body camera footage bears out any sort of justification for Grayson doing what he did.

[00:15:07] And I know I mean Illinois State Police and the prosecutors certainly felt that it did not and so that is why things are proceeding the way they are in terms of criminal charges being filed. Yes we just wanted to talk about this because it's a high profile case.

[00:15:27] It's disturbing and it should disturb everyone who cares about these issues, cares about equity, cares about racial justice and cares about mental health.

[00:15:36] Being not treated as a crime you know there's got to be a better way to deal with somebody who's having some trouble and get them the help they need so that things don't escalate. I just don't understand. Well let's move over to the great state of Utah.

[00:15:58] The sources I use for this story were KUTV and also the Salt Lake Tribune.

[00:16:05] Maybe if you think back there were times in your life maybe in elementary school or something when you were like playing a game and then some kid comes along says oh you're not playing by the rules, you're not playing by the rules.

[00:16:18] And maybe that could be annoying at the time but often times the kid who insists on the rules has a point.

[00:16:25] And I mention this because in the legal process it often falls on the defense attorneys to be the person saying you're not playing by the rules and it is absolutely crucial in our process that the rules be adhered to.

[00:16:42] Our courts hear matters of life and death, the stakes couldn't possibly be higher. So it is absolutely crucial that things are done in the appropriate way even if that sometimes can cause some frustration. So why am I saying all this?

[00:17:05] I'm talking about the latest developments in the murder of a woman named Joyce Yast. We have not covered that case but it has been covered on other podcasts. She was raped and murdered by a man named Doug LaValle.

[00:17:28] He had one trial, that trial was thrown out, he was retried and ultimately sentenced to death. Well that sentence of death has been overturned by the Utah Supreme Court.

[00:17:45] And the reason for that is that it was brought up in court that Mr. LaValle had been excommunicated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He'd been excommunicated by the Mormons in other words.

[00:18:02] And the thing is of course Mormons have a right to excommunicate whoever you want but that really is not information that should be relevant in a courtroom. That's the argument that the defense attorneys made and made successfully because judicial decisions or decisions about the law

[00:18:26] should be based on the law. It should not be influenced by what a church does. I have a question. Was his excommunication brought up in the context of sentencing or did it just come out organically during testimony? I understand that it came up in regards to sentencing.

[00:18:55] Oh okay, yeah that makes sense. You know there could be, I'm going to make up a church maybe there is a church out there who says if a guy wears a t-shirt he can't be allowed to be a member of the church.

[00:19:13] And that's not something that should be brought up in a court. Churches are great, religion is great. They have their rules, the state has their rules and they really shouldn't be super influenced by one another.

[00:19:28] So basically by bringing up this excommunication during sentencing it almost gives the impression that it was like wow and he's not even part of LDS anymore. He really should die like that sort of thing. Yeah they must have, that must have been serious.

[00:19:45] If when you're thinking about a sentence one of the factors is something that happened in the man's church, that really isn't appropriate. There are certain things that should be a factor when you're weighing whether or not to sentence a person to death.

[00:20:02] You know the nature of the crime, why it happened, was it especially heinous? Things like that. Do the guy have a record? Long list of things perfectly legitimate to consider. But considering that person's current religious status is not really on the list.

[00:20:23] And that's frustrating because as I say he'd been tried before, that was thrown out. He was tried a second time and sentenced. And it's frustrating when mistakes are made that have these results and it's easy to say, well, thigh on the defense attorneys for bringing up this stuff.

[00:20:47] It doesn't really seem that important. But there are rules in place and they need to be respected and adhere to. Yeah, this case is especially horrifying giving that he was killed or to cover up his the rape that he committed against her.

[00:21:03] So he's like eliminating a witness to his other crimes. It's really disturbing and just horrific. And it sounds like there's certainly heaps of evidence against him around that. But my question is does this mean that he might get out? Or does this mean he just won't be executed?

[00:21:19] This means he won't be executed. Death sentence has been overturned. He can be resentenced and certainly on I know expert on Mormonism, but certainly on the basis of what we know about this man, it appears they had good reason to excommunicate. Yeah, I mean, definitely.

[00:21:36] I would say so. And that's, you know, it's unfortunate that it was brought up in the context of sentencing. But it sounds like at the very least it's not going to be one of those things where somebody walks on a technicality.

[00:21:48] It's more that they will not be executed around this. It's frustrating, but the thing to remember is that in criminal cases, the state has so much power.

[00:22:02] They have the power of investigation and the state also has the power if they are able to get a conviction, they can take away a person's liberty or perhaps even his life. So the stakes are really, really high.

[00:22:19] And because the state has so much power, the process is designed to try to even the power a bit by respecting the rights of the accused and bending over backwards to ensure that those rights are not infringed upon. Does that make sense? It does indeed.

[00:22:41] I just feel bad for Joyce Yost's family for having to deal with this because I imagine it's like when you think, okay, there's been an outcome. It's settled. And then suddenly, nope, somebody did something wrong. Now we have to start part of the process over again.

[00:22:55] I imagine that's incredibly frustrating and absolutely not what they want to hear. I don't know if they're for the death penalty in this case, but that would be very frustrating for me if I was sort of locked in with that.

[00:23:08] We're not covering it this week, but there was a case here in Indianapolis over the last few days where a person is on trial for murder and there was a witness in the case who in the midst of their testimony turns over to the accused and says, why did you do it?

[00:23:23] And because of that, a jury member said, well, that's going to be in my mind during potential deliberation. And so that had to be thrown out.

[00:23:33] It's frustrating, but at the end of the day, it is absolutely crucial that if we have a conviction, we want to be sure that everything was done appropriately.

[00:23:46] And there are no doubts about how that conviction was obtained and that the jurors made up their mind based on legitimate evidence.

[00:23:54] And certainly we want to have a process where if a person is actually executed, we can have some sort of confidence that again, that sentence was decided based on actual evidence and not because people were swayed by what a particular religion thought about it. That makes sense.

[00:24:17] So speaking of legal wrangling, let's go next to Missouri and my sources for this are exclusively articles from the Associated Press. They have done a phenomenal job covering this complicated situation. But before I get to that, let's go back in time to May 18th 1990.

[00:24:37] A boy named Rico Rogers, a 15 year old kid is hanging out with a group of boys outside of the home. It's like a covered porch situation and a gunman shoots at them and Rico is killed.

[00:24:50] So two of the kids, DeMorris step then 14 and Michael Davis, Jr. then 12 identified a specific person as the shooter. They said it was Christopher Dunn who was 18 at the time. And he was subsequently convicted of the murder and sentenced to life without parole.

[00:25:09] Well, his conviction was just overturned. The reason for that is that Steph's stories kept changing. But Davis later claimed that he pinned this on Dunn because he didn't like Dunn and he thought Dunn might be an arrival gang. So that's horrifying.

[00:25:30] But Dunn was represented by the Midwest Innocence Project and they argued that, you know, the two primary witnesses against this guy have fallen apart. He shouldn't, you know, he's actually innocent.

[00:25:48] And the way things work in Missouri since a new law passed in 2021 is that prosecutors can actually request hearings when they think they have evidence of a wrongful conviction on their hands.

[00:25:59] So if a prosecutor in Missouri feels this actually seems like a wrongful conviction, they can ask for that and sort of be a part of fixing that potentially if they see fit. And they did that and a judge overturned the conviction and ordered Dunn released.

[00:26:19] But there's a problem here. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey opposes the move. Now in some situations, the Attorney General almost has to automatically fight these things. In this situation he has discretion. He doesn't have to but keep in mind he's facing a very tough primary contest very soon.

[00:26:38] So some people commented on that. Is that influencing his behavior? Does he genuinely think that Dunn is guilty? Has he spelled out what his reasons were? He believes that the kids who pointed the finger at Dunn were correct the first time and I guess they're lying now.

[00:26:57] So that seems to be a big part of it. So things have gotten really complicated. The judge again ordered Dunn to be released from Missouri State Prison and Bailey objected. Bailey seemingly called the prison and said don't release him. Then the Missouri Supreme Court got involved.

[00:27:21] They issued a ruling delaying things. So as of now, from what I can tell from reading the news articles, Dunn is still not out of prison. Now that may change or I may have just not seen the latest updates. There's this kind of wrangling.

[00:27:38] And honestly I think it makes the system look really, really bad when a judge says free this man and there's all this wrangling in the background and things are not getting done.

[00:27:50] I don't feel comfortable making a strong claim about what I think about whether or not Dunn is factually innocent without doing more of an extensive deep dive. Because we know that oftentimes coverage of crime is very glancing and it's easy to be like well that sounds bad.

[00:28:08] But then it turned out oh actually there's a bunch more evidence that they just didn't mention in the articles. We've seen too many cases touted as factual innocence when you look at it and you kind of wrinkle your nose afterwards and say I don't know about that.

[00:28:22] Maybe not. I think we just try to be skeptical of everything. If the police or prosecutors are saying this guy did it, we want to be skeptical of that.

[00:28:31] If the defense attorneys are saying this guy didn't do it, I think it's fair to be skeptical of that too. Certainly after a conviction. Certainly after a conviction.

[00:28:38] That being said, the fact that it seems like a significant part of the case was this witness identification that is now being called into a question that does seem significant and concerning.

[00:28:53] So that and the fact that the conviction was overturned and yet he's not been released from prison, I think is a matter of concern. Yeah it certainly is a matter of concern. Like you I would hesitate to pass judgment until we get more information because who knows.

[00:29:18] And certainly in today's work a day world, we are used to oh something happens. I want a full detailed report on all the nuances and all the details right now.

[00:29:29] And sometimes it simply takes time for someone to prepare a document explaining why they want something to happen or why they don't want something to happen. So certainly I would hope whether this attorney general has good reasons or bad reasons.

[00:29:46] I hope he articulates to the public what those reasons are so that we can all have an opportunity to evaluate them and decide whether or not they have merit. At this point, it's certainly rational to have concerns.

[00:30:03] And I think I want to say this and I'm removing this from Attorney General Bailey because again as we said, we don't know. But I will say this. It is not tough on crime to lock up and keep locked up innocent people.

[00:30:18] That's actually going easy on crime because you're not actually punishing the correct people. So some of the posturing around crime when it comes to prosecutors, I find sort of troubling or like that's kind of you're missing the point here. The point is to get it right.

[00:30:37] The point is to not just find someone to beat up on. The point is to say this is the correct person and they are being held accountable and they are being punished. Not, oh well, you know, we got somebody and it kind of looks right.

[00:30:52] That's just not tough on crime. And government actors in high visibility, high publicity cases, I think have an especially high obligation to conduct themselves in a very transparent and open way because right now you have people seeing these headlines and losing faith in the justice system.

[00:31:15] So if he does have good reasons for why he believes this man needs to stay incarcerated, he should articulate them publicly as soon as possible.

[00:31:27] I agree. I agree. Again, and this is coming from people who tend to be quite skeptical of factual innocence claims just because we've seen so many that when we scrutinize them don't really hold up.

[00:31:40] I don't. That being said, we've also seen a lot of convictions that we believe to be wrongful happen and get overturned or not get overturned. So it's just important for everything to be done very transparently.

[00:31:54] And I just, you know, I can understand it seems like the AP is indicating that there's been a lot of frustration about the situation amongst lawyers and judges in Missouri of saying like, well, we've released him. So why is he still in prison?

[00:32:09] And at least as we record that's the current status and that's what I that's what I can tell. That's the best I can tell.

[00:32:17] And it's a very changing situation. It's been a crazy week. So we're behind schedule. So we're actually recording this just probably an hour or two before we release it. So it's pretty up to date. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, thank you guys all for listening.

[00:32:34] I guess I now have to launch into some awkward advertisement for our t-shirts so we can get some of these things out of our house. Right, Kevin? Yes. So we've got t-shirts. But can I rephrase it?

[00:32:46] Okay, rephrase it. Give me give me some notes. Give me some edits. Don't say you want people to buy t-shirts so they can get out of our house. That's not a compelling reason for Joe and Jane listener to buy a t-shirt. Do us a personal favor.

[00:33:05] Try again and emphasize what the t-shirt does for them. Can you do that? It makes you look stylish. It makes you look fly, dare I say. It makes you look fly. Let me give you notes on that. Do you want to try again?

[00:33:19] You know what? You know what? I don't need the naysaying. I need support from my husband. That might be nice. Let me say, Anya, you look quite fly. Thank you. See it's a compliment. They're pretty great and they make you look cool.

[00:33:38] They'll make you look like you have excellent taste in true crime podcasts because they say murder sheet people on them. Maybe your friends and relatives will be like, what's that? You can just be like, haha, and chuckle darkly and not say anything. It creates a sense of intrigue.

[00:33:54] If people ask you about your fly shirt, explain about the podcast. Don't just say it. You're encouraging them not to spread the word about the podcast. You totally bungled this. I'm not really. I'm beside myself. This is a huge disaster.

[00:34:13] All I can say is I hope you do better next week. I can at least tell people if for some reason someone listened to that awful pitch and says, I want to buy this fly shirt to do a favor for you Anya.

[00:34:26] And they not tell anybody why I bought it. Where would they go? They're available at murdersheetshop.com. And if you join our Patreon at the $5 level, you can get free shipping. They're pretty great. I'm just kidding. I mean, they really are. They're beautiful shirts.

[00:34:46] And they'll make your life better. Probably. Right, Kevin? Why don't you try to spin it? Give us a little spin to kind of... No, no, no, no, this is your baby. So then let's over the next few days, let's track what happens to the t-shirt sales.

[00:35:02] They're going to crater. You're going to plummet. You've convinced people not to do it. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe people will respond to your bizarre words and if you're rallying cry in the t-shirt sales with Skyrocket, I don't know. I'll find out. We'll all find out.

[00:35:22] I just think I've seen charmingly befuddled. That's what you tell yourself. So thank you all so much for listening. I hope you have a good weekend. Thanks everyone. Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover,

[00:35:38] please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities. If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests,

[00:36:06] you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com. We very much appreciate any support. Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

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