Transcript of The Survivor

Fall in Ashton, Ohio, is former Detective Kim Major's favorite time of the year. The maple and oak leaves turn blazing orange and deep red, and the county fair comes to town.

The whole community goes. The rides, the food. It's just a wonderful time for families. It's a good time.

The fair runs for a week every September. There's livestock shows, high school band parades, and funnel cake aplenty. As a child growing up in Ashton County, Major used to breed rabbits that were judged at the fair. And in September of 2016, as an Ashton police detective, Major was set to return to the fair, only this time alongside her colleagues, to staff a police information booth.

So we were really happy about it. It lets people actually see us as human and come up and interact with us. We give out little things to the kids.

A few days before the fair, the logistics of the booth were weighing on Detective Major's mind right when she woke up. There was a lot to organize, but that was days away. On this morning, she had an 08: 00 AM station shift, so she jumped in the shower.

And I could hear my phone on the counter, and I got two phone calls, and then I could hear a text alert. So I'm like, Okay, somebody's trying to reach me.

Major ran through the usual mental list. Her husband, Dan, was at home. So were her three kids. If it was an emergency, it wasn't about them. Still, someone clearly wanted to reach her.

So I stepped out of the shower, cut it short, went over the counter, and I looked down, and I can see that it's my captain.

Ashlyn's police captain, David Lay. Call me, his text read ASAP.

And And I called him back and he said... Well, he gruffed at me and said, Two calls and a text. And I said, I was in the shower. I'm on my way. What is it? And he said, There's been a kidnapping. We've rescued the woman. I need you to come in and interview her.

It was September 13th, 2016, the morning of Jane Doe's frantic 911 call. Whatever had happened to this woman, the Ashton Police Department needed Kim Major to get to the bottom of it. Major was the only female Detective in Ashton and a skilled interviewer. Detective Major didn't know it then, but this case would come to represent a defining moment in her career, one that would taint her love of fall. The fall colors and county fair would soon come to remind Detective Major of the her town was turned upside down. From ABC Audio in 2020, I'm John Quignones, and this is The Hand in the Window. Episode 2, The Survivor. Depending on who you ask, the first county fair in Ashton was sometime around 1850. Back then, the fair was a place for farmers to show off their cattle and for young people to meet and dance. And while the county fair has remained pretty consistent, Ashton itself has survived multiple reinventions over the years. Like many small towns in the Midwest, Ashton has ridden a boom and bust roller coaster. By the end of the 1800s, Ashton was perhaps best known for a water pump. The Myers pump.

It was made in town in a factory that employed hundreds. Farmland was swapped for factory buildings as more manufacturing moved in. The town population boomed to 20,000. By the 1970s, Ashton was a production capital for all sorts of things: balloons, golf balls, surgical equipment. But it didn't last. Ashton is right in the center of the Rust Belt, and when manufacturing declined, the population didn't grow bigger, but factory jobs became fewer. Production moved elsewhere, and squatters took over what were once busy factory floors. Twenty years ago, the Red Brick Pump factory was sold off to a local Christian charity. The charity now owned a large patch of downtown Ashton, including some vacant land and two old houses. Houses. These houses, clad in yellow siding, were on fourth Street, right across the street from a laundromat. Empty and abandoned, the houses sat decaying for years. Until one September day. A 911 call was made from inside one of those houses. It was the call that ultimately put the spotlight back on Ashland. I wanted to ask Kim Major about the aftermath of that call, the minutes and hours after Jane Doe was brought into the Ashland Police Department.

What happens when you arrive at the station?

When I arrive, the The worst thing I noticed is her appearance.

Jane Doe, as she would later be called by the police and the press to keep her real name from the public, was sitting in an empty interview room. She was in her mid-30s, thin and wearing a tank top and shorts. Her appearance told the detective a story. She had been beaten with cuts and bruises all over her face and body. Major knew she needed medical attention. Her brown hair was greasy, which told the detective that she hadn't showered in several days. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen, and her face was streaked with tears.

The second thing I noticed was the scent of not her, but I could smell the scent of her perpetrator. It's testosterone. I work sex offenses. I could smell him on her, his sweat. You could smell him. I could.

Early in her career, Major worked for Ashland County in the Children and Families Department. For three years, she investigated horrific abuse cases. Then she joined the Ashland Police Department. That was more than 20 years ago. Since then, Major has been assigned to many of Ashton's sexual assault cases, adults and children. She had become the go-to for cases like Jane Doe's. She'd even been drafted by neighboring counties to help them with their cases. And after meeting Kim Major, I can see why. Out of uniform, she doesn't look like a typical police officer. With long hair and flowy clothes, she could be a high school art teacher. She soft-spoken, gentle, no sharp corners. Her soft approach was at once empathetic and disarming. It made her good at what she did. When it came to Jane Doe, Detective Major immediately had a plan. First, they would need to relocate to a more comfortable space. She got Jane to follow her out of the interview room and down the hall.

My office is where I conduct a lot of victim interviews. I have just my personal space set up to be conducive for those interviews.

Why is that important?

Because sometimes I'm trying to talk to somebody about the most intimate, difficult heinous thing in their entire life. And I try to create an environment so that I can peel away that onion, just get them to talk to me.

In Major's office, there were tangible objects lying around in different shapes and textures, like a fidget spinner and a heart-shaped tournament. Major knew that when people kept their hands busy, it was easier for them to say what was going on inside their heads. Major offered Jane Doe a seat settled in across from her. Up close, Major noticed more injuries on Jane, scratches, some beginning to fade, some raw and new. The man Jane said had kidnapped and assaulted her was also being brought to the station. He would be questioned next. Jane's account of what she said he had done to her would determine the potential charges that could be brought against him. What did you learn about Jane?

I learned that she eats her a noon meal at what we call the Crock Center.

There are 26 Crock centers scattered across the country. They're run by the Salvation Army and provide a mix of community services. In Ashland, they offer a free lunch to any county resident who wants one. It was there at the Crock Center, Jane said, that she met a man named Sean Great.

She explained that she would take walks with him, that they had played badmitten outside.

According to Jane Doe, in addition to playing badmitten together that summer, she and Sean Great went on hikes and played tennis. He'd walk her home from the Crock Center, and they'd sit on her front doorstep talking. Jane said the Great also once took her on a long walk to a fort that he'd made in the woods far outside of town. He was good-looking and friendly. He had, at one point, expressed a romantic interest in Jane, but she had insisted that they stay platonic, just friends. She told Detective Major that she believed in saving herself for marriage.

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

Jane's faith permeated every aspect of her life.

She paints scenes from the Bible. They're on her walls. She had scenes She's saying the Bible, playing her guitar. She's so wholesome. She's so strong in what she believes in. It's incredible.

Jane told Major that she had felt safe with Sean Great. Major asked her how she'd ended up at the yellow house. Jane described how on Sunday, the 11th of September, Great had asked to see her. He had some clothes to give her, he said. He asked her to come to his house, a building opposite the laundromat on Covert Court in downtown Ashland.

She walked to the place where he was staying, and he told her, Can you come in? I want to give you these clothes. And she said it was against her better judgment to walk through the door because it's unlike her. But she did.

The house had boarded up windows, so it was dark inside. When Jane entered the house, she noticed that it was messy with clothing scattered around. There was a strange smell, which Sean said was the result of food he had forgotten to throw away. Jane said that Sean took her through a small kitchen to his bedroom. He sat down on his bed and invited her to join him and read scripture together, which they had done before.

So she sat down to read the Bible, and as she's reading, he began to pace, and she could see that, and she asked him, What's wrong with you? And he kept pacing, and then he charged towards her, grabbed the Bible from her hands, ripped it from her hands. And she said something to the effect of, You took my Bible. What are you doing? And he attacked her.

And then what did he do to her?

Sexually assaulted her. Her words were every way imaginable.

Jane Doe told Detective Major that Sean had tied her to the bed frame and that he assaulted her repeatedly, from Sunday until early Tuesday morning. She said he would come and go from the house, but he left her restrained, so she couldn't escape. The entire time she was kidnapped, Jane said she didn't see Great Fall asleep until early Tuesday morning. He was so exhausted that he slept deeply and didn't hear Jane wrinkling free of her restraints, finding his phone and calling 911. By the time Jane was rescued, she had been trapped in the yellow house for about 40 hours. One aspect of their interview that jumped out immediately to Detective Major was that without prompting, Jane mentioned something interesting, a person who had recently gone missing in Ashland. And then Jane brings up Elizabeth Griffith.

Yes.

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Elizabeth Griffith was a local 29-year-old. With her round face and close-cropped blonde hair. She was recognized all over Ashtland.

Elizabeth was known in our town. I know where her apartment was. I had had contact with her. I think we all had.

Elizabeth was familiar to many of the police officers in Ashtland. She often called the department with complaints about her neighbors.

Yeah, she very much got the title Girl Who Cried Wolf because she call them about anything and everything.

This is Jessica Anderson, one of Elizabeth Griffith's friends. They had met at a drop-in center called LifeWorks, which offered mental health services in Ashtland. Jessica worked there. Elizabeth was a client.

We couldn't understand it. If she wasn't calling us at LifeWorks, she was calling the police Department. If we didn't answer her question, she would call the police Department and ask ask them the question. Like, I heard it's going to snow today. Is there any chance that the roads will be closed? Don't know, Elizabeth. Just started snowing.

Lifeworks, like the Crock Center, was another social support center for residents of Ashland.

So if they were struggling with addictions or with mental health, we would address those issues and have a group about it and help them deal with it. We didn't just single out one person and Well, this person is going through this.

Jessica says LifeWorks was also a place for people to pick up skills and build community.

We would have cooking classes. We would have art classes. We had a dancing class one time.

By 2016, Jessica had been involved in LifeWorks for years, working her way up from volunteer to assistant director. She had known Elizabeth Griffith for all that time.

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.

Elizabeth had a lot of friends, people she'd met at LifeWorks and at her church, where she was a regular and enthusiastic attendee. Though she was popular, Jessica said there were also difficult parts of Elizabeth's personality. Jessica said she could be confrontational.

She had this thing about when she was at Lifeworks, if people were eating, she would sit beside them and stare at them until they would say something to her, and then she would ask them if she could have the rest of their food. If you didn't give it to her, then she had a problem with you.

According to court documents, Elizabeth suffered from mental illness, paranoid schizophrenia, and mania. She didn't have a job and relied heavily on local services. She had a case worker who helped her manage her budget, and she rented a small apartment in town. Elizabeth Griffith and Jane Doe shared some key similarities. First, they lived in the same apartment complex. Second, they both had a strong connection to their faith. And third, they both regularly went for a midday meal at the Crock Center. Jane said they knew each other. In her interview, Jane Doe told Detective Major that she'd seen Elizabeth earlier that summer while Jane was spending time with her new friend, Sean Great.

She said that one day while she was playing badminton with Sean Great, that Elizabeth Griffith walked up and was pouring out her life story. And she said she told Elizabeth Griffith, You can't be telling everybody everything about you. You're going to make yourself a victim.

She warned her not to talk to strangers, not to give up too much information.

Yes.

Hearing about that chance meeting earlier in the summer would not have meant much to Detective Major, were it not for one key detail. Elizabeth had since gone missing. No one had seen Elizabeth Griffith for four weeks. And just before she disappeared, she She had been telling people, including her friend Jessica, from Lifeworks, that there was a new man in her life.

She had come in a couple of times and talked about this new guy that she had met. We didn't know his name or anything about him, just that they were talking and they had gone on a couple of dates.

Elizabeth told Jessica Anderson that this man wasn't her boyfriend yet. Elizabeth said she wanted him to be, but that he wasn't sure.

We just thought she was talking more stories. We had no idea that it was an actual person. I mean, it was Elizabeth. We never She would say stuff all the time, and we would never believe her. I guess we should have taken her more serious.

In late August, 2016, Elizabeth's case manager called the LifeWorks office.

She often called for Elizabeth, so it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. She had asked if we had seen Elizabeth lately. We kept a daily member login. I looked back and I was like, Well, she hasn't been here in a We haven't seen her. She was like, Why haven't heard from her? And we had a meeting and she missed it, and she's not at home, and I can't find her.

The case manager, who usually spoke with Elizabeth a few times a week, was getting worried. The last time they talked, Elizabeth was, in the case manager's words, pretty excited about something. They planned to talk soon. Elizabeth was last seen near a supermarket on the outskirts of Ashland on the morning of August 16th. By the time she was reported missing, it was September seventh. In a Facebook post on September ninth, Ashland police shared grainy security camera images. They showed Elizabeth wearing a bright pink T-shirt on the last day she was seen.

She hadn't showed up to appointments. We didn't know if she had taken off or did she meet somebody online and leave. The whole department was looking for her. I couldn't find her.

Now, a week after Elizabeth Griffith was reported missing, Jane Doe brought her name up in Detective Kim Major's office. Major had a new thought. Clearly, Elizabeth and Jane had something else in common. They both knew Sean Great. Detective Major wasn't sure yet how much weight to give this coincidence. After all, Ashland isn't exactly a big place.

I mean, there's been time periods where I can roll down the road, and if I see someone I don't recognize, I do a double take. So I didn't find that odd at all that Jane Doe knew Elizabeth.

Because this is the town where everybody knows everybody, right?

Yeah, everybody knows everybody.

Major asked Jane if she thought Sean had attacked others. Jane said she couldn't say for sure, but that Sean had mentioned other women going off on him. He had scratches on his face that he said were from fights with mental women. There was a lot she wanted to asked Jane, but Major had run out of time. She needed to keep the interview short and send Jane for treatment for her visible and invisible wounds. Whatever questions were left would have to be answered later. Major. As Major sent Jane for medical treatment, she thought her role in the story was over.

When I finished my interview with Jane Doe, I stood up. At that point, I was told my sole purpose was going to be to interview her.

But while she had been talking to Jane Doe, Kim Major's captain had been questioning Sean Great, the man that Jane said had kidnapped her. And Great was not being as cooperative as they would have liked.

And 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, because you know what she just said. We don't know what she said. Can you go in and see if you can nail down the facts regarding that, see if it parallels what he's saying happened? He told me that he was having a little difficulty with Sean Great, that he got upset or got angry. And he said, the last thing he said before I walked in was, And while you're in there, see if he knows anything about the missing girls.

Girls, more than one. Captain Lea was When talking about Elizabeth or Jane. There was yet another missing woman in Ashland. And now Captain Lea was asking Major to find out, was Sean Great, the missing link between all three.

This might be your moment to do the right thing. To do the right thing, Sean. It's the right thing. The right thing is to tell us where she is.

The Hand in the Wind is a production of ABC Audio and 2020, hosted by me, John Quignones. Produced by Madelyne Wood, Camille Peterson, Kiara Powell, edited by Giana Palmer. Our supervising producer is Susie Lou. Music and mixing by Evan Viola. Special thanks to Katie Dendos, Janice Johnston, Michelle Margules, Caitlin Schiffer, Rachel Walker, Analisa Linder, Joseph Dias, Jonathan Balfaser, Gail Deutsch, Gary Winn, Stephanie McBee, Natalie Cárdenas, and Samantha Wanderer. Josh Cohen is our Director of Podcast programming.