Transcript of Meet The Other Me

Tonight, the relationship some people say sounds like a real-life Silence of the Lambs. Missing women, a terrifying suspect, and the detective who risks her life to solve the case. An all-new 2020 starts right now.It.

Was a baffling case.It.

Was baffling.

To have missing women in this town of Ashton is a big deal.

A huge deal. Unusual? Very unusual.

Elizabeth was very naive. She would trust anybody and everybody. She was like, Why haven't I heard from her?

And I can't find her.

The last known images of Elizabeth Griffith were recorded while she was shopping inside this Walmart.

It seemed like a very short time frame that people started to look before Elizabeth, that now Stacey is gone.

Just love to dance and just have fun with the kids. Just a bundle of joy. She's like, Some nice guy's up to help him.

You told her, Let him go. Tell him to leave. You've got help coming. Yeah.

She wouldn't.

But now, a phone call that would change everything. A third woman taken.

There was a female, and that she had been held captive.

Sounds like something out of a movie.

Absolutely.

A horror movie.

You can hear her desperation for help.

It's a chilling call.

Oh, my God, I woke him up. Just set the phone down.

Did you know anything about what you were about to face?

No. And I saw her hand. I saw her outstretched hand through the window.

And then the line goes silent. Yes.

911, what is the address to your emergency?

North Street Lodge.

It's a problem. I've been an incentive.

It's 6:48 AM in September, 2016. Emergency dispatchers receive a 911 call from a terrified woman. She's whispering that she's being held at a house near the laundromat and that her captor is asleep at her side.

Is he in the same room with you?

Yes. Does he have a weapon?

He's got a taser. Is there any way you can get out of the I don't know. Without waking him, I'm scared. His syndrome is closed and he made it show he would be yours.

We have officers for sending.

We hope to not.

Officer, Kurt Dorsey rushes to the scene, leaving his siren off so that it does not alert the abductor. So what were you doing when the call came in?

We responded from the police station. We were trying to be stealth. We were told that the suspect was sleeping, so we wanted to approach and not make a bunch of noise.

You weren't even sure the call was real, right?

I didn't believe it was real at first just because of the town that we live in. Just not a typical call that we would get in Ashton.

Ashton, Ohio. It's a small city between Columbus and Cleveland, home to more than 50 churches and a large A large Amish community.

Ashton is a quiet, rural community. There's about 20,000 people who live there. It has a university, a lot of farm field.

So this is Ashtland. What can you tell me about the town?

Well, as you can see, it's rolling hills, scenic. A lot of community stuff going on. Football games. The county fair, a lot of farm animals, a lot of competitions and shows for kids to get involved with.

Typical small town where everyone knows everyone, right?

Yes, exactly.

Kim Major has had 23 years of service as a detective in Ashland.

I handled violent crime, and I handled killed, sex offenses, and child abuse. I'm over a thousand of those cases.

Thousand? Yeah. At the time of that terrifying 911 call, the community is already on edge. Just a week before, police discovered that a woman in town had simply vanished. It was a missing person named Elizabeth Griffith. Yes.

Elizabeth was known in our town. I had had contact with her. I think we all had. A lot of the officers would have an eye on her.

She was a vulnerable person, and we helped her quite a bit as a police division. She used to call them quite frequently. She would call them about anything and everything. Just like, I heard it's going to snow today. Is there any chance that the roads will be closed? She was definitely a character.

Facing mental health challenges, 29-year-old Elizabeth Griffith attended meetings at a peer support center called LifeWorks.

Elizabeth was very bubbly and energetic. The first time I met Elizabeth was at LifeWorks, and She was coming down the hallway, and I was coming opposite of her. And she was like, Hey, you're new here. And I was like, Yeah. And she was like, You want to be my friend? And I was like, Sure. Let's be friends.

She was embraced not just by lifeworks, but also by her church family.

Elizabeth was a really sweet girl. A simple person. She liked to make people laugh.

She liked to sing.

She loved to worship. She would raise her hand the highest during worship. Even though she was toned up, she'd sing louder than anyone else. She was very much with the heart of a child. It was a little harder for her to grasp something sometimes.

She was a very loving person and a very loyal person. Certainly financial challenges, certainly medical challenges, mental health challenges.

She lived on her own in in our own apartment. She did have a case manager that helped her with daily life struggles. She was always introducing herself to everybody. Very outgoing. The community knew a Elizabeth, and she was one of ours, and she was taken care of.

But then, Elizabeth's support team realizes no one has seen her in weeks.

We were at LifeWorks, and the phone rang, and it was Elizabeth's case manager, and she had asked if we had seen Elizabeth lately. She was like, I can't find her. So I called her cell phone, and it just went straight to voicemail, which was highly unlikely for Elizabeth. I was like, something's not right.

I was concerned because where would she have gone? What could have happened?

She wasn't the type of person that would go missing. So We knew something was wrong there.

This is an area where I would often see Elizabeth Griffith walking. And just days before her disappearance, I stopped and chatted with her right up here.

It was a baffling case.

It was baffling. We didn't know if she had taken off or did she meet somebody online and leave. We didn't know if it was suicide. We didn't know where she was.

Everybody was taking to social media, posting pictures of her. Everyone was looking for her. Everybody was praying for her.

Police began to investigate, speaking to Elizabeth's neighbors and friends, and tracing her last known steps.

I began talking with some of the public transit drivers because she would often use public transportation.

Before she disappeared, records showed that Elizabeth had taken the bus to go shopping. The last known images of Elizabeth Griffith were recorded while she was shopping inside this Walmart. There's video of her going through the aisles and then waiting for the bus. She disappeared shortly thereafter, and she wouldn't be the only one. It turns out there's another missing woman in Ashley.

I said, All right, Mom, I love you. I'll talk to you tomorrow. And that was the last we ever heard from her.

Police in Ashley, Ohio, are searching for missing woman, Elizabeth Griffith, and then they discover there's a second woman in town who also has mysteriously disappeared. 43-year-olds Stacey Stanley, a divorced mom, devoted to her sons, Curtis and Cory.

One of my mom's favorite song was Leonard Skinnered, Free Bird. It's a pretty good song.

Cory likes simple pleasures, playing music, riding his motorcycle on the highways of Ohio, raising his baby daughter. For him, family is everything, and his bond with his mother, Stacey, has always been particularly tight. Good boy.

You kiss your brother. How would you describe her? Very loving and caring to do anything for anybody. Give her the shirt off her back if she needed to. Always there for her kids, calling you consistently. No, she didn't pick up. She'd call you like a thousand times. My sister was a very outgoing person. If I would say, Perfect time to make this more. She had a happy birthday. Love grandma and grandpa's family.

Growing up, we were so close in age, and we shared the same room and stuff growing up.

Karaoke? She would sing some songs. She loved the punk rock music and the look, too.

Guns N'Roses, Sweet Child of Mine. I actually had a video of her singing it. When we When I was kids, I was videotaping her singing that.

So she was not afraid to get on stage and perform?

No.

Even as adults, you were pretty close.

Yeah, I'd come home from work and she'd have big bunches of food made up, and I was like, Oh, wow.

I hear she was a great cook.

Yeah. I mean, we didn't get looked like this.

She fed you well, huh?

Yes, sir.

And Stacey was a new grandmother to Curtis's three-year-old daughter.

She was a great grandmother. She was spoiled the hell out of her for sure. Just love to dance and just have fun with the kids. Just a bundle of joy.

Stacey lived in Greenwich, Ohio, 30 minutes from Ashland.

Stacey was not from our county. She was from a county that butts up to our county, and she had visited Ashland.

It was September eighth, 2016, when she takes a fateful drive to Ashland to run some errands.

She went to Walmart to get some gardening supplies because she loved doing her gardening, and she also went to get her nails done. And then after that, she was getting some gas to come back home.

It's around 8:30 at night when Stacey calls her son, Cory, from this gas station. She's stranded here with a flat tire and needs help.

She was freaking out. And I said, We'll just calm down. We'll find somebody to help you.

Were you worried?

Not necessarily off the rip.

It's just a flat tire, you're thinking.

It's just a flat tire, yeah.

They're able to find a family friend to meet Stacy at the gas station. But it turns out a stranger has also shown up to help.

She's like, Some nice guy stopped to help. I had then told her to tell him, Kick Rock, so we got somebody to come and help you. And She wouldn't? Well, she's like, Oh, he's a nice guy. He just stopped to help. And so my mom, the person she was, she was friendly and talked to people. This guy takes over and he changes the tire. She offers him ride home. And I said, All right, Mom. I said, Call me in the morning. She's like, Okay, I love you. I'll talk to you tomorrow. I said, All right, love you too, Mom.

But the next day, Cory and Curtis don't receive the usual flurry of calls from their mom.

And then I talked to my aunt, and I'm like, Hey, Mom's not picking up. I I don't know what's going on. We ended up breaking into her house to get in, and she had two little dogs. She loved them little dogs, little chihuahua's. Her dogs were still in their kennel, so we knew something was going on. The Huron County Sheriff had put out a bullo beyond the lookout for her vehicle. We went driving the roads. Looking for her. In case she had an accident, was down in a ravine or a ditch or anything, we went looking, driving the routes from Ashton back to Greenwich.

Within hours, Stacey's family spreads out across the streets of Ashton, trying to find any trace of her.

We went down to the gas station, the BP, where she was last seen. I had printed off almost 2,000 or 3,000 flyers. They were just passing them out and putting them up everywhere. Probably a good 70 of us, at least, out there, handing flyers Detective Brian Evans is on patrol in Ashtland when he spots the family. As I was driving around the city of Ashland, I met up with different groups of her family who was actively searching for Stacey at the time. They were in different groups, knocking on doors. They were going down to some abandoned buildings. Well, I came across the radio that somebody had reported her car on East ninth Street in Ashtland. We beat the cops over to the car. And I opened the door, and I looked, and the seat was all the way back. My mom was short, so it didn't make sense why the seat was back. I had grabbed her a cigarette container. She put her cigarette butts in, and I happened to see a Campbell filter cigarettes in there. And I was like, These aren't my mom's. My mom don't smoke these. At this point, it's alarming because somebody else was in this car.

So now it's not just Elizabeth Griffith who is missing in Ashton.

It seemed like a very short time frame that people started to look for Elizabeth, that now Stacey is gone. The odds of two women missing at the same time just did not make sense whatsoever.

To have two missing women in this town of Ashton is a big deal.

It's a huge deal.Unusual? Very unusual for a county this size to have anyone missing, much less two women missing.

The community had concerned. The word was starting to spread around. We were like, What's really going on? It's Ashtland. Like, stuff like that doesn't happen in Ashland.

Then a heart-stopping clue in a window at the back of the house. Sounds like something out of a movie. Absolutely. A horror movie.

711, 22 to Kennec, Cribs.

I'm a 911 dispatcher, Fashion Police Department. I've been a dispatcher for 26 years.

What is your typical day like?

Good work.

Sign in to all the computers. We usually have six to eight screens depending on what center you're at. Answer calls. You never know when the call will come in or what call it's going to be.

Your most memorable call?

Probably this one.

911, what is the address to your emergency?

September 13th, 2016. 6:48 AM?

Yeah, end of my shift.

By September 13th, 2016, Elizabeth Griff had not been seen for a month. Stacey Stanley for five days. You're working the dispatch and you get that call.

At first, I couldn't hear her. It was real quiet. She was whispering. What's your problem?

She says, I've been abducted. Yes. Your reaction?

My reaction was to find out where she was at first. To get her out of there. 20 West 81st Street.

Dispatcher had told us that there was a female and that she had been held captive somewhere near a logermat. So we immediately and start to drive towards the area of the call. Where's she at now? Where's she sleeping at?

I don't remember. I asked her more questions, trying to get as much as I could before he woke up.

You have to be calm, but there's an urgency. Yes. The woman says she's calling from her abductor's phone.

He had fallen asleep at some point, and she was able to secure this phone.

You couldn't trace the call back then.

Couldn't trace the call. This was a flip It was not coming back to a location. Do you need an ambulance?

Are you bleeding from anywhere? Anywhere.

Where were you bleeding from?

You don't have to talk. You don't need to, okay?

Why couldn't she get out on her own.

Well, he had taken the doornaubs off, apparently.

As Officer Dorsey heads to the scene, there's a problem. How to find her? The caller does not know her exact address, but she tells 911 and she's being held captive in a house next to this laundromat. The problem for police is that there are two very similar houses in this area. There were two houses right here?

Yes. Two identical houses.

You didn't know which one?

No, they were nearly identical, both the same color, same shape, two-story. We had no idea which one.

They can't just gangbust into a house.

What if he woke up with a weapon and hurt her?

So they had to find her quietly.

So they were outside looking for her.

So how do you approach the house knowing that the captor is asleep?

So we first started to just look in windows to see if we could see anything. Just check different doors to see if we can pinpoint which house she's in.

As police conduct the search, there's a heart-stopping moment when the caller says she has awakened her abductor.

I'm going to have to walk him out. I just have the phone down.

You can hear the sheer terror in her voice when he wakes up. Yep. And then the line goes silent. Must have seemed like.

Yes, forever.

What's going through your mind?

I'm just praying they find her.

Five agonizing minutes later, she's back. Yep.

Are you still there? Do you hear any officers outside? Okay, they're in the area.

What was it like to hear her voice again?

It was good. Glad she was still there and not her. And he was still sleeping. So that's good. You can hear her desperation for help.

It's a chilling call.

It's chilling.

I remember as I was checking the doors, panic starts to set in. I wanted to find her so bad. We're going back and forth between the two houses. The dispatcher had told us at some point that she heard a door. Can you hear him? Can you hear him? I remembered that I had pulled on a door hard, and it made a noise that I didn't intend. So I ran around the house that we were currently at and looked towards the direction of the other house.

I'm going to tell her to come back.

She said, hurry, hurry. And I saw her hand. I saw her outstretched hand through the window, and I knew at that point she was in there. I would have gone through the wall to get to her.

A hand right on the window. That's pretty eerie. Sounds like something out of a movie. Absolutely. A horror movie.

We went to the door, it was locked, and I asked the dispatcher to relay to her that she needed to unlock the door. Can you unlock the door at all? She's able unlock it and we're able to open it. Come on, come on, come on, come on, hurry up, hurry up. Where is he? He's still sleeping.

He's still sleeping?

Yeah.

Okay, they have It took 19 long minutes to get her out. What was it like when you finally hear Detective Dorsey make cut?

It's the best sound ever. I was glad because officers were safe. She was safe.

You smile a little. Are you proud of her?

Yeah, proud of her.

What a relief. What was it like when you came face to face with the victim?

I'll I'll never forget the way that she looked at us. She looked shocked like she had seen a ghost. She was fully nude. I don't think I've ever felt so much relief to find her. Divine intervention and a good dispatcher led us to that house and ultimately that door.

So now police need to find out what happened in this house.

. Fifty years ago, a young woman named Karen Silkwood got into her car alone. She was reportedly on her way to deliver sensitive documents to a New York Times reporter. She never made it. And those documents she'd agreed to carry were never found. Do you think somebody killed her? There's no question in my mind, someone killed her that night. I think they were trying to stop her in order to get the documents. A new investigation into the life and death of America's first nuclear whistleblower. Listen to Radioactive, the Karen Silkwood History from ABC Audio. Listen now wherever you get your podcast. In the dry states of the Southwest, there's a group that's been denied a basic human right. In the Navajo Nation today, a third of our households don't have running water. But that's not something they chose for themselves. Can the Navajo people reclaim their right to water and contend with the government's legacy of control and neglect? That's in the next season of Reclaimed, the Lifeblood of Navajo Nation. Listen now wherever you get your podcast. Come on, come on, come on, hurry up, hurry up. Where is he? He's still sleeping. He's still sleeping?

Yeah. Okay, they have her. It took 19 long minutes to get her out. What was it like when you finally hear Detective Dorsey make us? It's the best sound ever. I was glad because the officer Others were safe. She was safe. You smile a little. Yeah. Is you proud of her? Yeah, proud of her. What a relief. What was it like when you came face to face with the victim? I'll never forget the way that she looked at us. She looked shocked like she had seen a ghost. She was fully nude. I don't think I've ever felt. So much relief to find her. Divine intervention and a good dispatcher led us to that house and ultimately that door. So now police need to find out what happened in this house.

. Fifty years ago, a young woman named Karen Silkwood got into her car alone. She was reportedly on her way to deliver sensitive documents to a New York Times reporter. She never made it, and those documents she'd agreed to carry were never found. Do you think somebody killed her?

There's no question in my mind, someone killed her that night. I think they were trying to stop her in order to get the documents. A new investigation into the life and death of America's first nuclear whistleblower. Listen to Radioactive, the Karen Silkwood History from ABC Audio. Listen now wherever you get your podcast.

In the dry states of the Southwest, there's a group that's been denied a basic human right.

In the Navajo Nation today, a third of our households don't have running water.

But that's not something they chose for themselves. Can the Navajo people reclaim their right to water and contend with the government's legacy of control and neglect. Our water, our beauty.

Our water, our beauty.

That's in the next season of Reclaimed, the Lifeblood of Navajo Nation. Listen now wherever you get your podcast.

Come on, come on, come on, come on, hurry up, hurry up. Where is he? That's 22. Still 22? Yeah.

Okay, they have With the terrified 911 collar safely in their custody, police turned their attention to her abductor, a 40-year-old man identified as Sean Great.

Where are you? Right now.

The dramatic moment when he's apprehended is heard on that open line from the 911 call.

Once we got Mr. Great into custody, he was handcuffed. He ended up in my car. So I began interviewing Mr. Great. And how do you know her again?

We spent a lot of time when we laid together.

We go to lunch every day.

The victim, a 36-year-old woman, police identify as Jane Doe, to protect her privacy. It's transported to the Ashton Police Department. Police are desperate for information. No easy task, as the woman was traumatized and still in shock. But Ashton police have a secret weapon. Enter Detective Kim Major.

Kim is the best interviewer that I've ever seen. She's able to speak with anyone, whether that be small kids or a violent criminal.

I was the only female detective for the majority of my career. Is that good? Is that good?

Major balanced the demands of detective work with the responsibilities of being mother to three. That morning, Detective Kim Major is in the shower getting ready for work, and she misses two phone calls from her captain at the Ashton Police Department.

And I called him back and he said... Well, he gruffed at me and said two calls and a text. And he said, There's been a kidnapping. We've rescued the woman, and I need you to come in and interview her.

You come to the station at what What happens?

The victim was taken into my office, the end of this hallway, and that's where I spoke with her.

She had been tortured emotionally and physically?

Yes, she had. So bring her to my office.

The effects of the woman's harrowing ordeal were immediately apparent.

The first thing I noticed is her appearance, of course. I could see that she had been victimized. The second thing I noticed was that I could smell the scent of perpetrator. It's testosterone.

You could smell him.

I could.

What did you learn about Jane?

I learned that she had met Sean Great. She eats her noon meal at what we call the Crock Center. They provide free meals at noon. Jane Doe would eat there sometimes, and that's where she met Sean Great.

He was tall like my brother, my elder brother, and he's goofy, but he struck me as kind. When I would run into him at lunch, and if neither one of us was doing anything, we'd just walk around Ashton.

This is a woman so strong in her Christian faith that no man's phone number is on her phone. Not one. No man crosses the threshold of her door.

He let me know that he would be interested in more, but I told him that I wasn't interested in beyond friends. Kim was speaking with Jane Doe, and our captain at the time, Captain Lee, was speaking with Sean Great in the interview room. David Lee. You are Sean. Sean Great.

At the same time, Jane Doe and Sean Great were being interviewed at the station. Detective Brian Evans was part of a team sent back to search the house where Jane had been held captive.

We went upstairs. The mattress in the bedroom looked like a dirty used mattress that was just found somewhere and used as a mattress. And then there were some restraints, as in tied clothing, tied to different areas of the mattress to where it looked like that's where Jane Doe was possibly tied up.

So just how did Jane Doe end up a prisoner in this house of horrors? The pair had been out for one of their regular walks and ended up at the house where Sean Great had been staying.

He told her that he had some clothes for her. She also had bagged up some food for him, and she said it was against her better judgment to walk through the door because it's unlike her. But she did.

He just started showing me the clothes, and I remember him asking if I had an extra Bible because he didn't have one. So I got one.

So she sat down to read the Bible, and as she's reading, he began to pace. And then he charged towards her, grabbed the Bible from her hands, ripped it from her hands.

Jane Doe tells Detective Major that at that point, Sean Great attacked her.

I tried to push him away and get up. I was just doing everything, trying to kick punch. But everything I did, he just did it so much harder.

And then what did he do to her?

Sexually assaulted her. Her words were every way imaginable.

He would always bind my wrists, my legs at times.

The details were horrifying, but the interview takes a sudden turn when Jane Doe mentions the name of Elizabeth Griffith, one of two missing women police had been searching for.

She lived in the building next to me.

Sweet, but like a child. Sean and I were playing badmitten in the front yard, and Elizabeth saw us and came out. I think she just started talking with us.

I don't know if I introduced her or if she introduced herself.

Police discover there's a vital link between Jane Doe, Sean Great, and Elizabeth Griffith. All three of them would frequent this community center where they'd get free meals. That connection sets off alarm bells. Was it possible that this man, unknown to law enforcement in Ashton, Sean Great, was also involved in the disappearance of Elizabeth Griffith?

When I stepped out of my office, my captain said, Listen, I need you to go in and talk to him about what Jane Doe told you. Can you go in and see if you can nail down the facts regarding that, see if it parallels what he's saying happened? Hey, Sean. I'm Kim Major. Nice to meet The last thing he said before I walked in was, While you're in there, see if he knows anything about the missing girls.

Did you know anything about what you were about to face? What did you do?

Well, I walked down this hallway. I was told to go ahead and interview him, and this is where the interviewer room is. And when I came in, he was seated right here.He.

Was right here?Yeah.

Hey, Sean. I'm Camadre. Nice to meet you.

Before you came in here, did you have any idea what you were in for?

No. I had no idea.

You had your own recorder?

Yes.

And what did you do?

I took the recorder and just dropped it down my top.

Because you wanted a record of this?

Yes, just a backup in case something happened. And in this case, it proved valuable.

Valuable indeed, because the video system stopped recording shortly after Detective Major began interviewing Great. That means her backup was the only recording of the interview while the system was down.

Thwarting these cuts off.

You decided to take off his handcuffs?

Yeah.

Why?

I need to drop all of those things that would inhibit somebody's ability to relax or feel comfortable.

But out of his handcuffs, he could attack you.

He could.

You weren't thinking At that time, no. In a city where law enforcement routinely interacts with the community, Sean Great was not known to police.

I had never heard his name. I had never had any tips about him. We didn't know him.

Sean Great had grown up in Marion, Ohio. That's about an hour from Ashland. He was a good-looking kid, charming.

With Sean Great, people talk about his eyes, their piercing blue eyes. And women will talk about that. That's how they recall him or his eyes.

He just had one of these very likable personalities, very soft, laid back, very unassuming type of personality. And it was just one of those things that you just almost couldn't hardly not like. Sean never told me much at all about his background. I knew he had either a sister and a brother. I had never met his dad. He told me His mom abandoned him. He absolutely hated his mother.

Christina Hildreth dated Sean Great for five years.

I think before we moved in together, he had worked at... It was a motel, Super 8 or something in Marion, and he might have worked there a couple of weeks. That was about it. Other than that, I've never known him to have a job.

While unknown to police in Ashton, Sean gray had become a familiar face at the Crock Center.

He would just come to our hot meal and just integrated himself into the community meal and the community that attended. And started making friends. I'd see him around town walking and talking with people, and he just really absorbed what we had.

What did he say about Jane?

At At first, he tried to present it as if she wanted him, like they were in a relationship, that she wanted the sexual piece of this.

I was one of the reasons why she wanted to marry me because she was horny that day.

Eventually, as we peel that away, you realize she didn't want this.

Just as empathy had helped in speaking to Jane Doe, Major was using a similar approach, hoping to gain great's trust. And slowly, he begins to open up, sharing details about his childhood.

It may have started when my mom left me when I was a child. I come home from school and she's gone, but I don't blame her. I used to, but...

Why did she leave?

She had to go find herself.

I'm sorry.

It's fine.

Does he admit that something happened with Jane, too?

Eventually, he begins to talk about what happened and admits in layers, he admits that he had held her there captive, admits that he had tied her up. I mean, looking at this whole thing, you forced her to have sex. She didn't want to.

I have done it here. And I raised her.

And there it was. Detective Major had the confession, but the confession itself Ralph only raised more questions.

As he spoke about what he did to Jane Doe and would use the words kill, that he strangled her, you begin to realize this may be way more than Jane Doe. And earlier in my career, I probably would have stopped right at Jane Doe. Now, I realize it's a partial confession.

Detective Major brings the conversation back to Elizabeth Griffith, that missing woman who Jane Doe said also knew Sean Great.

We can't find Elizabeth. We'll find her, but we can't right now. Hey, look at me. Look at me. I need your help.

I don't think I can help you.

That goes on for just so long, long enough that he's acting like he has no idea what I'm talking about.

And then suddenly, Sean Great makes a shocking revelation.

I might not be able to take you to her or maybe someone else.

How many are there?

I don't know.

I don't know.

How much do you say you mean?

Now, detectives knew Elizabeth Griffith and Stacey Stanley were missing, but now, Sean Great seems to be talking about even more women.

I guess I'm ready to go ahead and get my lethal injection, but I'll tell you first.

Then things take a bizarre and frightening turn.

I'm thinking, this is not good.

At what point do you realize I might be dealing with a serial killer? You're in this very room alone with a serial killer.

The magnitude is becoming clearer to me. Whatever he did, I'm going to get it.

Police are now investigating whether they have a serial killer on their hands.

Are there any other girls in the house right now? He had cut a slit into the back of the couch, and he was crawling in and out of the couch, and he would come out at night.

He says, Meet the other me. I just froze. The first thing that hit my mind is a monster. You don't normally have a killer to show you how he did it. He said, I'll just do it on you. Kind of grinned. I get up behind him like this. He locks this in. He locks this arm in. He locks this head here. And then he just pushes down and squeezing. Wow, wow.

At one point, He told me it was probably a good thing I had him in custody because there would be more.

We knew that she was relatively young.

She had perfect teeth. We had somebody that had confessed to her murder.

A fellow inmate tells you that Sean Great, that he wants to kill you? No.

That desire, I'm doing it now.

Sean Great has confessed to his assault on Jane Doe, but what about those two missing women in Ashland? It's an urgent race to find out, is he behind their disappearance, and can they be saved?

And as you continue interrogating Sean Great, time is of the essence.

Time is always of the essence. I feel like I'm against the clock to get him to say something before I say the wrong thing and cause them to stop talking at all.

And you're thinking he might have these two missing women, and they could still be alive.

Absolutely. I start pressing him on where Elizabeth Griffith is. Can you take me to where she is? Why? Sean, look at me. Have I taken my little detective truck? Can you take me out?

I don't know what you're talking about right now.

I'm looking for Elizabeth's body. Can you take me to it?

She's dead.

But suddenly, Sean gray reveals shocking information that maybe he can bring Detective Major to somebody else.

I be able to take you to her, maybe someone else.

How many are there?

I don't know. What do you say many?

What?

I don't know. There might not be none.

He says he might not be able to take me to her, meaning Elizabeth, but might take me to someone else, and that there might be some many or there might be none.

So he's playing with you.

Possibly he's wanting to tell me something. Will you take me there?

I can take you to the place of Mansfield.

Where she is? Where are you going to take me to Mansfield? Where there's another girl.

Where is your girl?

I didn't you not?

What happened?

Is she gone?

She's been gone. Is she in a house? What is she in? What? All right, what's her name?

Candice. Candice? Cunningham.

Cunningham?

He tells you there's someone else, and that that woman is Candice Cunningham.

Yes.

Did you know who she was?

I did not know Candice. Candice hadn't been reported missing.

As her colleagues watching in the other room start looking for information on Candice Cunningham. Detective Major continues to question Sean for more information. After all, the two missing women in Ashland are still unaccounted for.

As I watched the interview, I could see that Sean was warming up to Kim. He was telling her more. Her methods were working.

What was it about you that he connected with, felt comfortable with?

He told me that I had empathy, that he could see it. Who else?

Al. Where I came from. Yeah.

Is somebody in there?

Yeah.

Who is it? Is it Elizabeth? Where is she in there?

In the closet.

So then Sean admits to you that Elizabeth's body is in the closet in that same house where he was holding Jane too.

Right in the same house, when he said that, I didn't know if she was alive or not.

Has As Kim's interviewing, I called Detective Brian Evans to tell him that Elizabeth was upstairs in a closet. He had been working on a search warrant at the house. I was surprised by the information because officers had cleared the house. We headed upstairs to see if we could locate Elizabeth. This is an abandoned house that has old wooden steps. You could see their footprints going upstairs.

One of the guys on scene said, There is no closet upstairs. That detector went directly to a particular room and looked up and realized there was a concealed closet.

There was a bunch of clothing just all over this closet.

There were stuffed animals piled down below.

As we started to pull away the clothes, you could see the fly activity, and there was an electrical tape that was taped up around the sides of the door to help from the smell to come from the door. And once the door is open, there was another large pile of clothing. You could see the fly activity again all over the clothing.

Elizabeth His body was underneath all this?

Yes, it was.

What goes through your mind at that point?

That it was a tragedy. And once the clothes were removed, her body, she was actually like, face down and hog-tied back. Chilling. Yes, it was very sad.

Sean tells Detective Major that the night of Elizabeth's murder all began when he says she called him late at night because She couldn't sleep.

She came over about 11:00. She brought on the housey, the big outside. It just happened to have a truck to her. It just reached her. It just choked her. We just didn't think it was possible. It couldn't have been Elizabeth. I mean, it just couldn't have been. And then we found out it was. And we just sobbed and sobbed because it had come to a conclusion that we were not going to see our friend again.

You're in this very room alone with a serial killer.

Yes. As it I'm really impressed. The magnitude was becoming clearer to me.

I guess I'm ready to go in and get my lethal injection, but I'll tell you everything I'm going to do.

He's bought into me. He's going to talk to me. Whatever he did, I'm going to get it.

Sean Great has confessed to the kidnapping and rape of Jane Doe, the murder of Elizabeth Griffith, and knowledge of the disappearance of Candice Cunningham. But Stacey Stanley is still missing, and Detective Major has a hunch. He knows more about her as well. As the hours tick by in this very same room, you got more and more out of him.

That's right. It just kept coming out in layers a little bit more and a little bit more. Are there any other girls in the house right now? Yeah.

Yeah?

One down in the basement.

Down in the basement? What's her name?

Stacey.

He tells me that Stacey Stanley was in the basement of the home under a pile of trash.

Now, remember, Stacey was that missing woman whose family had been searching for her after she was seen with a stranger changing her tire at that BP gas station. Sean says he that stranger, and he tells Detective Major his version of what happened that night.

She came home with me. We did it all pretty good. And then... We didn't... We saw her fast.

I just see that on her.

The mood at the was shock. It was just chaotic and pretty unreal.

Then you got another disturbing call. There's another body in the basement.

Yes, if you go down the basement, There was space behind the stairwell. There was multiple bags of trash stacked up, and underneath the trash is where Stacey was. There was actually a picture of just her hand sticking out of the trash, eerily saying, I'm here.

Have you ever seen anything like this in all your years of police work?

No. I've been on other homicides and other tragic cases, but not to this magnitude, no. A lot of our local community was coming to the area, and you could tell the feeling in the air was that the people knew that we found bodies in that house. What started as a rescue ended with a gruesome discovery that only got worse. Now, families wait to find out if those women are their loved ones. I got a phone call saying I need to get to Ashlyn ASAP. I don't want it to be my mom. I mean, nobody wants it to be their mom. I don't get to watch a girl. My daughter don't get to She don't get to watch my daughter grow up. Honestly, I think that my sister's in that house, and they're not going to know anything for a couple of hours. They pulled out a couple of pictures. They're like, Because that Do you guys recognize that? She says, Yeah, that's my mom's picture. It was very traumatic. Having to see that, and that was my mom laying there.

It's bad enough what he did, But for some reason, thinking that he put her under trash makes it worse.

It still touches you.

It does. For me, the day that cases don't impact me would be the day that I need to pack it in.

You wanted to touch you.

Do you want to feel-I wanted to touch me. I mean, I don't want to be in an interview and lose control. I had no control, but these ladies mattered.

But Detective Major had to put aside her emotions. Sean Great had confessed to a third woman named Candice Cunningham.

Candice was a little, tiny, vibrant woman, lived in the next county over, Richland County. Candice had not been reported missing, and Candice had dated Sean Great.

On her Facebook page, Candice posts about Sean Great, including this picture, and later writing, I am back with Sean and love him. It was just one month before her murder. In the interrogation room, Sean describes strangling her in an abandoned house after an alleged altercation.

3:00 in the morning, I hit my face with the guy in the back of. I just hadn't.

After I was done interviewing him, which went all day, I had asked him if he would take me to where Candice's body was.

What's going through your mom?

I was hoping that he wouldn't shut down from just having the emotions of going back to that place. So this is the scene where the home was, where Candice Cunningham was living with Sean Great. So there was a home here. He burned it down after he murdered her in the home.

Investigators took video of Sean that day as he led them to where he left Candice's body.

He's agreed to come out and show us where he put the body.

He killed her in a house that was here and then dragged her body toward the ravine.

Prior to burning that down, he carried her body wrapped up in a blanket. He carried her to the ravine.

Yeah, I remember these rocks. How far down? Carried her across the creek and up straight up the hill, about between 10 to 15 feet.

There's a big shrug. While you were here, Sean got emotional.

He did. When we rolled up, I actually had to ask him, Are you okay?

You okay?

He said it was hard. It was hard.

What was it like to finally find this woman and give it some closure?

I wanted to go down to the ravine and rescue her, but she's gone. It was frustrating that she hadn't been reported missing, that no one even knew at all.

As the investigation continues, Sean performs another show and tell.

I just lost it.

And then I just turned her around. Revealing more deadly secrets. During the interrogation, you asked Sean to show you his strangulation to me.

He said, I'll just do it on you. Kind of grinned. A few months ago, five people were charged for actor Matthew Perry's overdose death. Three have pleaded guilty. It was a sprawling indictment with lots of drug charges, including this very serious charge, Conspiracy to Distribute Ketamine, Resulting in Death. Charges like these put the blame for an overdose on whoever gave someone the drugs that caused their death. When someone dies from an overdose, who should we blame and how should they be punished? Dive into the heated national debate on what justice means after an overdose. Listen to ABC's Start Here on November 28th, wherever you get your podcasts. Next to that desperate call for help from a woman being held captive, police are now investigating whether they have a serial killer on their hands.

Sean Michael Great is being held for kidnapping tonight, and the Sheriff's Department says he should be charged with murder Lord, I told that.

Under taker, Under taker, please drive slow. The community response was one of just complete shock. People had no idea that something like this could happen here.

Even though I don't know him, we are thinking about him and praying for them.

All I kept saying was, Oh, my God. And it was just like, This is unreal. No, we're not talking about the guy.

I was just like, How?

I knew he had this anger, but when I first found out, I couldn't comprehend that this was something he had actually done.

Those closest to Great were surprised to learn of his killing spree despite them having their own chilling experiences with him. His former girlfriend, Christina Hildreth, says Great once spied on her from inside her sofa.

He says, I've been living in the couch. He said, When you came in, you were sitting on me. I've seen everything you did. He had cut a slit into the back of the couch, and he was crawling in and out of the couch, and he would come out at night. That was terrifying.

And his friend Tim Dennis claims he had a text exchange with Sean that made his blood run cold.

He had, just out of the clear blue, asked me if he could borrow $20. And I told him no. All of a sudden, here's this whole slew of scathing messages. And he told me, Bed bugs are coming to your house. Roaches are coming. And then he makes this statement. He says, Meet the other me. Honestly, I just froze. The first thing that hit my mind is a monster.

Two days after his arrest, you go interview him again now with Detective Evans?

Yes, I did. I asked him if there was anything else he wanted to get off his chest. Anything else you thought about that you haven't talked about it.

What's that?

It's a cold case.

They've already found her. I'm thinking her name is Dana. I totally forget her name.

He tells me that he had killed a woman in Marion County.10.

Years earlier.10.

Years earlier. Dana. He didn't know her name for sure. Who was she? She had come to his mother's house to sell magazines.

Sean says he got upset because the woman didn't deliver the magazines that Sean's mother had ordered.

He said he was in town and just happened to see her. So he said he made up a story that he had money back at his house.

So I fronted her So are you going to rip me off like you did my mom? Dad, that's when I just wanted to put her out right here.

He said he placed her out by some robot tracks. Her body had been found years and years ago. She just hadn't been identified.

Detective Major knows authorities will need to figure out who this Dana is, but they press on probing Sean about key details of his other murders.

Detective Evans and I decided we might try to have him show us how he strangled the victims. Brian Evans says, Would you use on a doll.

And what did he say?

He said, I'll Let's do it on you, and grinned. I was like, Okay, and then we got up.

I roll the camera. Okay, this is Detective Major. We have Detective Evans in the room. Sean Great in the room. Then he just gets behind Brian and does a hold on him.

Brian just grabbed her.

I look at Brian's eyes and I'm thinking, This is not good.

I'm you, and you're Sean.

So what did he So he just came up behind. He said I'd get up behind him like this, and then he comes back. He locks this in. He locks this arm in. He locks this head here, and then he just pushes down and squeeze it. Wow. At At a point, I mouthed over to Detective Major that I'm not doing that again.

You could have lost consciousness in seconds. He could have killed you.

I didn't put a whole lot of thought into that. It just went to getting the evidence, and I feel I have some training that I don't believe he would have killed me. Police don't normally get this demonstrative evidence. You don't normally have a killer not only confess to a crime, but then actually show you how he did it. How do you know if he stopped? He shouldn't like this. This morning, suspect Sean Great held on a $1 million bond and facing double murder and kidnapping charges. Do you understand the nature of the three offenses charged in a person to complain, Mr. Great? Yes, you know him.

He seemed unalarming. I could understand why maybe women were trusting of him or went with him willingly because he didn't look like a monster.

Law enforcement is on the hunt to figure out just who is this unidentified woman Sean Great has confessed to killing 10 years prior in neighboring Marion County.

Nobody knew who she was. It was a great mystery.

Investigators reached out to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

My name is Samantha Molnar.

My My position at Ohio BCI is a forensic artist. I can do a clay facial reconstruction from the skeletal remains.

We can actually 3D print an exact replica of the skull. I basically start doing the clay reconstruction from there, building the muscle structure on the face, placing the average tissue depth markers, and then finishing the sculpture. We did receive some tips, but none of those tips led to an identity.

Detective Kim Major is in just trying to crack the Sean grade case, she also has to juggle the full-time job of being a mom to three active kids.

All right, hook her up.

I'm always worried about her, no matter where she is.

I would stay up at night.

Me and my little brother would, and just wait till she gets home.

I try to say that I am not overprotective of my kids, but I'm sure I am.

But could this case put Kim or her family in grave danger?

When the case was going on, our fair kicked off. I got a phone call, and it's a man, and he said, I have your daughter. On Friday night, my husband coaches football. I actually took my younger kids to the football game, and I sat there, which was also surreal, seeing all the things around me in the lights.

People are happy. They're happy, the crack of the helmet.

The band, watching my husband, hearing the whistles. Friday Night Lights.

Let's go, let's go, let's go.

It's Friday Night Lights. That's small town America. I brought my kids on, put them to bed.

That's when Detective Major's oldest son, Corbin, who's preparing to enter the Police Academy, comes into the room.

He's like, What's going on, Mom? I said, Sean Great builds forts all over the place. He's like MacGyver. He stays in these things. But there's one in particular he keeps talking about.

He had a fort in the woods, and she explained to me where it was. I remember there was a body recovery within a quarter to a half a mile that deemed a drug overdose right on a gas line.

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.

We also just learned a body was found in Ashton County. Police say a gas company worker found the body behind a tree on County Road 1908, just south of Route 30.

And he said, Hold on a second.

I marked out where she thought his fort exactly was. It marked the distance. It was on the same county road. I was like, There's no way this is just a coincidence. This has to be from him. There's no way it's not.

He said, Honey, it's an overdose and a dumping. And he said, That's because of her lifestyle, and people assume it's that. He said, He did it. You have to go talk to him. You have to do something. The next morning went in to the jail, pulled Sean Great out? There's a case from out in the county, meaning that we found a girl, and we're trying to see if you'll be honest, if that's something you have something to do with.Rebecca Lacy.Yes, sir.

I had a problem with her once. 31-year-old Rebecca Lacy's death had been ruled a drug overdose by the Ashton County coroner. But now, Sean Great shares what he says happened to her.

We played a game of pool. I went to the bathroom, right?

I had some money.

I had my wallet. And that's the first thing I did. It was just checking my wallet. And it was gone.

He said she had stolen a few dollars from him, and he said he had strangled her. He talks about borrowing a car and taking her body out and dumping keeping her in my county.

This is where Rebecca Lacy's body was found?

Yes, right against this tree right here.

When was she found here?

March of 2015. Her body was found, and she had been here for a couple of months.

Hard to believe that such a heinous crime could have happened here.

It should be a place of solitude, but instead, it's a place where a woman's body was discarded like she didn't matter.

But Rebecca Lacy's case was public knowledge, and Detective Major needed proof that Sean was actually involved in her death. So she asked him about details from the crime scene. What did Sean tell you about the placement of that memorial?

During the interview, when I had I asked him to tell me some things that nobody would know, he said...

I can tell you the truth, because where I found the cross and stuff right now, she wasn't found there. She was found over by the tree.

He said you put the memorial in the wrong place. Yes.

He was right. Nobody would have known that.

With this new information, authorities reopen the Rebecca Lacy case, rule her death a homicide, and later charge Sean Great with her murder. Detective Major had formed a unique bond with Sean Great. You spent 33 hours with Sean Great.

Yeah, eight interviews, 33 hours over the course of over a month.

So much so that they've been compared to Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lector from The Silence of the Lands.

Starling.

Well, Clarice, have the lams stopped screaming? What toll does it take on you?

It may have made me a little more hypersensitive. When the case was going on, our fear kicked off. I got a phone call, and it's a man, and he said, I have your daughter. I said, Who is this? And he won't answer me. And then he hangs up. They contact a guy who made I had a phone call. It was just a coincidence. The case probably changed how I handled something like that. That was a rough one for me that night.

A month after he's arrested, there's another chilling development. A fellow inmate tells you that Sean Great is targeting you, that he wants to kill you?

He said that Sean gray told him he was trying to find my gun on my body, that he thought it would be the ultimate to kill me.

This information did not lead to any additional charges against gray, but future meetings between Detective Major and Sean gray took place at the jail where no weapons are allowed. All along, do you think he was plotting to kill you?

I didn't know that initially. I went into a later interview with him. I said, Are you still having that hunger that you talk about? Can I ask you something? Will you be honest? Do you still He still had thoughts.

About that desire? Yeah. The free desire probably grew. There wasn't no desire at first, but it might have gotten more now. It's I feel like something that I had to do. I'm feeling it now.

He told you he still had that hunger to kill? Yes. Sean Great says he had a hunger to kill. But Jane Doe and the victim's families had a hunger for justice. And now in court, they come face to face with the man they say is a monster. It's April 2018, and Sean Great goes on trial at this courthouse for crimes against three of his victims. Jane Doe, Elizabeth Griffith, and Stacey Stanley.

It was the trial that everybody was waiting for. They wanted to know if this community, if these families were going to get justice. This is not a whodunit case. This is a he did it case. The defendant, subsequently, over the course of multiple interviews, confessed to every element of every crime with which he is charged. I ask that you consider that Sean Freely, involuntary, gave information during several interviews, which implicated himself in several serious offenses.

Jane Doe comes face to face with her abductor, bravely taking the stand against Sean Great, detailing her horrifying ordeal.

It was probably the most crucial testimony in the in the case. How was he choked? With both hands around my neck. Did he let go of your neck?

I think when I stopped struggling and fighting, he asked me if I had enough.

I think I just remained motionless, and so he released his hands. She testified about the terror that she went through during the time that she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted.

At the trial, they played the audio of your interview with Sean.

They did. Yes. I entered the interview room to interview Sean Great. You can hear my heart beating at key times during the interview. Who was that that you were talking to on the phone? It made me realize that maybe it affects me physically more than I recognize.

Prosecutors reveal gruesome details about the deaths of two of his alleged victims. People don't understand when you were in that trial, what you see and what you hear, you can't unsee or un hear ever. And those thoughts are always in your mind. You can't forget it.

It was too gruesome. It hurt you that much. Yeah. Even talking about it today. Why?

Just what she went through. It wasn't fair. Sorry. We, the jury, being duly impaneled, find the defendant, Sean M. Great, guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the offense of aggravated murder.

Sean Great, guilty on two counts of aggravated murder, as well as rape and kidnapping. But justice is bittersweet. He devastated so many people.

He changed our lives, and he took away not only Elizabeth's innocence, but the innocence of all of us that believed we were safe.

The day of his sentencing, Sean Great addressed the court.

I ask you maybe forgive me, finding your heart someday. I know not today, but someday.

This mess, I'm sorry for all human beings to have to listen.

Hear this? Okay? I'm sorry. I can't change nothing. Believe me, I would. Not Not for me, but for you guys. He asked us in court to forgive him, not for him, but for us. And obviously, I haven't forgave him for what he did. Real justice would be for you to come with me for about five minutes, burn in hell. The victim impact statements were extremely emotional and very powerful. We heard from Stacey Stanley's son and two of her brothers. That doesn't affect just one person. When you kill them, that affects everybody. You ever bury your mother? I did what? Pick a casket out. I didn't expect that this young. The offender was found guilty. Any sentence of death by lethal injection shall be imposed on Mr. Grape. At the trial, you had justice for Stacey Balloons. Yeah.

And Stanley Strong. And you released him when he got the death penalty.

Yes. There was quite a few people that showed up out there to show the support for the family and that we were glad that he got convicted and received the death penalty. I mean, that was what we were hoping for. In March 2019, Sean Great pleads guilty to the murders of Rebecca Lacy and Candice Cunningham in Richland County.

But his first victim remained unidentified.

You are what you eat.

So the different things you're exposed to in your environment all show up in your bones.

We learned that she likely was from a Southern state somewhere between Texas and Florida.

Then finally, a match.

Now this woman, a victim of serial killer, Sean Great, has a face and a name.

In June of 2018, the community of Ashton, Ohio, gathered at the site of Jane Doe's frantic 911 call.

Today, that house was finally demolished, bringing closure for residents and relatives of the victims. Many people felt like they needed to be here today. After we found out that Elizabeth was one of the people in the house, I would have nightmares about it. 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.

You were there when you saw the house on covert court, destroyed, demolished?

I was.

What did that feel like?

It was a tangible piece that was destroyed, but the weight of the situation is still here.

2007, the remains of a female-One year later, another step forward, a new development in the search for the identity of Great his first known victim. The preliminary results indicated that the victim was very likely Dana Nicole Lowry of Minden, Louisiana. So genetic genealogy was able to provide us a family and a potential identity of this person. And what we did next was go down and swab the daughter of Dana. We were able to directly compare the DNA from the daughter to the DNA from the remains to be able to confirm that that was Dana Lowry.

Sean gray pleaded guilty to Dana Lowry's murder. So now there are six known victims, and only one of them survived, Jane Doe. What would you say to that woman if you were able to talk to her today? To Jane Doe?

How brave she was.

She saved so many people.

She had to have been brave and did what she did.

We wouldn't have caught him. And how many more women would have suffered.

Kim Major has retired from the Ashton Police Department, and she now works as the Safety Services Director at Ashton University. And she's written a book about the Sean Great case.

I don't want to forget this case. I don't want anyone to forget it. These women could have been anyone.

You titled the book A Hunger to Kill.

Those are his words. He has a hunger to kill.

Do you think there are other victims out there?

I don't think this is a closed book situation. I think more information may come out.

We never are going to say our goodbyes.

As for the Stanley family, they're still dealing with the tremendous pain of losing Stacey. You miss her still?

Oh, yeah. It's been eight years. I haven't even opened a box or anything of hers.

I just put it behind like it doesn't exist to an extent. What keeps you going?

I know she would want us to go on. And the boys. It just It breaks my heart to see what they go through every day. Are you ready, girlfriend? And he just had a new baby. Grandma? Where's she, grandma? And he took her out and set her on his mom's bench at the cemetery. Hello, dear. Is it Grandma? I talked to myself in the going out there. That was so cute. She was smiling so big.

It's beautiful.

And that's hard for me to set and see my daughter never going to be my mom. She was a great grandmother to her first granddaughter, and I'm sure she would have loved mine just as much. My mom did not deserve that. And any of the women didn't deserve that.

And even though Sean Great's execution was originally scheduled for 2025, it is currently on hold until Ohio picks an alternative to lethal injection. His appeals have been denied.

He also denied 2020's request for an interview.

Meantime, Kim Majer's new book about the case, A Hunger to Kill, is available now. That's our program for tonight. Thanks so much for watching. I'm Deborah Roberts.

And I'm David Muir from all of us here at 2020 and ABC News. Good night.