What started as an intense relationship between two young parents quickly spiraled into one of the most disturbing murder cases the UK has seen in recent years. Shay Groves watched true crime obsessively, studied killers like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, and turned her bedroom into a shrine of murder. Then one night, she became the very thing she idolized, brutally stabbing her boyfriend to death as he lay asleep in bed. This is the story of Shay Groves and Frankie Fitzgerald.
My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and Grim, a true crime podcast.
The following podcast material intended for a mature audiences. I don't know why, but the coffee's hitting extra good this morning.
It does every morning for you, doesn't it.
But it's extra good, extra good, extra good.
I got my green tea steam in a way I haven't even taken a sip.
Theres some serious steam billowing off that story. For interrupting, it's.
Gonna burn my tongue, so yeah.
That is cooking. Holy shit, Wow, it's calling my name though. You're gonna melt that foam all right? Off the microphone if you're not careful, maybe maybe this is an interesting case. We got some more true crime obsessed persons going to the dark side.
Yeah, you know, usually I ask, well, what are we covering? And I have your intro like when everyone else is hearing the intro is when I heard what we were covering for the first time too.
Yeah, typically I give you like an elevator pitch of the story. Yeah, like I'll give you like like what you guys heard on the intro. I'll usually give Nicole like that, or maybe once or two sentences more like a day before we actually record.
Well, I think sometimes you also have to get it off your chest lately.
Sometimes I do. Sometimes I do. I'm like, holy shit, this is gonna be quite the case. Guess what we're doing. And then yeah, I need like someone to vent to for a moment. But I try to keep it like to a minimum when I talk to you about still.
Yeah, this is gonna be fascinating though, because I don't know, we like our world is pretty pretty true crime heavy. You don't say, and yeah, I haven't really. I can't say that I've ever felt the need to replicate anything.
I agree. I we'll talk all about that post show near the end, Like at the end of the episode, we'll go through some of that sort of stuff with the true crime world and the boundaries, I guess is a good way to put it. But I can tell you that there is one one line that a lot of people do cross that I'm completely, actually okay with, and that's stepping into the world of signing up over in our patreons.
Gosh, I'm like, is he actually segueing that way?
Yes? I am.
Oh, that was good, but also cringe.
I know, but I did it. So over on Patreon, we have a few people who signed up and they're getting that behind the scenes access and the exclusive episode that comes out at the end of every month. Not to mention, we're actually going to be doing a live here soon to get some input from our patrons in you know, how we can restructure our Patreon and what
sort of things they want to see. So shout out to Kay's, Holly Herdier and Angel Marie who all signed up this week and they're getting that access to all those things.
Awesome right on. Thank you very much.
I hadn't be doing this without you, guys, so thank you so so much. But let's get into the show, shall we.
Yeah?
Okay. So it started like any other Sunday morning in the quiet English town of Havante, but only July seventeenth, twenty twenty two, something deeply unsettling was unfolding behind closed doors on Botley Drive. That morning, a woman named Vicky made a panicked call to police see her friend Shay had just shown her something on a FaceTime call, something Vicky couldn't quite process until it was too clear to deny.
Shay had confessed to her about killing her boyfriend, and not just that, she actually showed Vicki his body over the FaceTime call. That man was her boyfriend, Fanky Frankie Fitzgerald, a twenty five year old father of two from Portsmouth. He'd been stabbed repeatedly, and his lifeless body was lying on the floor of Shay's bedroom, partially wrapped in a duvet, with cleaning supplies nearby and the scent of bleach already filling the house.
Holy shit, and she's just phone in her friend. Yeh, look what I did last night. Now.
When police knocked on the door a short time later, Shay answered in her dressing gown with cigarette in hand. Eerily calm over the situation. Frankie's murder would soon dominate headlines across the UK, not just because the brutality of the crime, but because of the strange and unsettling backdrop behind it all. Cichet wasn't just another woman accused of a violent act. She was something. She was someone who was deeply obsessed with serial killers, with true crime as
a personal passion. Her bedroom walls were decorated with framed art of infamous murders like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Rose West. She collected knives, weapons, boasted about studying how criminals covered their tracks, and even installed CCTV cameras in her own bedroom, partially for her own interest and partially, as we'd learned, for something much more manipulative.
Now.
To anyone who'd been in the circle, Shay was a bit of an outsider, someone with a rough pass, a dark esthetic, if you will, and a growing fixation on violence and control. But no one could imagine that she would actually go this far. Over the next several months, the investigation into Frankie's death peeled back the layers of
the toxic and disturbing relationship between the two. It started as a whole whirlwind romance, and it turned quickly into something much darker, filled with jealousy, powerful games, sexual domination and manipulation on both sides, and eventually it turned to a fatal turning point. So before we get into who Shay and Frankie were and how everything went so horribly wrong in this story, it helps to understand where this all took place. So let's backtrack a little bit and
start before they even met each other. Havant is a small town in Hampshire, down in the southern coast of England. It's not the kind of place you'd expect to see in headlines about a murder. It's more known for being quiet, a bit tucked away with green space and family neighborhoods. Nothing fancy, but not the kind of town where people lock their doors out of fear either. Now, the specific area where this story unfolds is lay Park, a large
residential suburb built after World War II. It was originally developed to provide homes for people whose houses were destroyed during the war. Over time, it's grown into a community of its own, filled with a mix of council estates, privately owned homes, schools and parks, a quintessential, nice little town. One of those parks was Stouton County Park, a big draw for locals, with walking trails, gardens, and a farm
that's popular with families. It's a place to go to clear their heads, not just think about not to think about any sort of violence, let's put it that way. But just a few streets away from those peaceful woods and lakes, one of these houses would host this unsettling crime. Shay Groves lived on Bontley Drive that house. It was a house that she shared with her daughter and her longtime friend Lauren. Now, to outsiders, it probably looked like a typical home for a single mom, messy at times
and busy, but you know, nothing out of the ordinary. Inside, though, the house reflected something a little bit different. The walls were covered in dark decor. There were also weapons on display, daggers, axes, and even a coffin shaped bookshelf. Now, there's nothing wrong with this decor by any means, if you ask me, but in this story, it was clearly a sign of
things to come. However, that's not always the case. For example, I'm sitting just a couple feet away from a it's not ceramic but a plaster gold skull on our shelf. So I get it.
Well, but the weapons is maybe not the best if she has like Kitto's running around and stuff. Right, it depends how if they're not in arms reach and stuff.
I guess, yes, definitely, it depends on how you store it. You can have it displayed, but you know you need to have it safely displayed. Yeah, right, exactly. Now, to say that she wasn't displaying these or having them out of reach of her kid and stuff like that, like to say that she wasn't doing it in a safe manner, I have no idea. So I'm not going to disregard her parenting skills in that aspect. I know a few of my friends who have homes just like this, completely
great people. They're raising kids as well, and it's a completely great safe environment for you know, raising those kids. Yeah. So in this case though, yeah, it might have been a bit of a precursor.
Okay, so we can't judge, but for this one we can.
Well, we can't judge, and I'm not going to judge on it, But in hindsight, it's like, Okay, there was something else going on, maybe I don't know. It's for most people ninety nine percent of the time, this has
not a concern. It's not a concern. Yeah. Her bedroom, though, was having a bunch of pictures on the walls, had many pictures framed with illustrations of famous serial killers, and she kept a Celtic style dagger stowed away under her pillow where she slept, Whether for protection, ritual or esthetic, that dagger would soon be a centerpiece of this story.
I do have to think, say, like the bedroom, though, if I went to someone's house and they had like posters of serial killers and shit on display, that would I would probably be like slightly alarmed with that.
Well, I have no problem with people being like, oh my god, you know, obsession with the occult obsession with true crime. But I do personally draw the line at having pictures of serial killers. Yeah, because you're no longer just like obsessing over true crime in the genre, you're obsessing over the killers themselves. I draw the line at that.
I mean, okay, like maybe if it was just like one and it was just like one simple little thing, I might be able to just pass by that. But yeah, there was like numerous and shit along with everything else, it would probably it would flag something for me.
Fair enough, totally agree. Where am I here now? Right? So, if you met Shae Groves on a good day, you might not have guessed that she was, you know, something out of the ordinary, that there was something different going on underneath the surface. She was a mom, She had a loud laugh, She dressed in all black, and you know, leaned hard into the alternative esthetic tattoos, piercings, have a eyeliner, the works. I mean, I've got tattoos all over me.
I understand. To some she was just a goth girl who never really outgrew the style like her parents said she would one day. But the truth was a lot more complicated. Shay grew up with a rough hand in life. She was born in nineteen ninety six, and from a young age things were far from stable. She experienced physical and sexual abuse as a child, trauma that's struck stuck with her well into adulthood. By the time she was a teenager, she was already struggling with serious mental health issues.
In fact, she even started self harming at just thirteen years old, and around the same time she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Later doctors would also identify complex PTSD, likely connected to everything she went through growing up.
Now.
At school, Shye didn't exactly fit in. She was partially deaf and wore a hearing aid, which made her an easy target for bullies.
Oh, which is so wrong it is.
On top of that, she leaned into a dark, horror inspired style. As I mentioned already, that made her stand out even more. People called her weird, so I'm even nicknamed her Chucky, after the possessed killer doll from Child's Play. You know that horror movie. Yeah? Yeah, and it wasn't said kindly of course either. Well kids are the worst, though they can. They can be pretty brutal when it comes to bullying and such.
Yet, yeah, if you're any sort of different, it doesn't always go well in like elementary, middle school, high school.
Yeah. Now, she wasn't one to follow rules or play nice just to fit in, though. If anything, Shaye seemed to embrace her role as an outsider. She was into horror movies, serial killer documentaries, heavy metal, and anything that made people uncomfortable. A lot of this was probably armor in retrospect, a way to protect herself after being hurt so many times. You know if people are calling her chucky and making fun of her for looking different, why
not be different and own it right? It makes total sense. Yeah, now enterteens. In early twenty Sha bounced around a lot. She even ran away from home at one point and ended up CouchSurfing, staying with friends or boyfriends, mostly of whom sadly were reportedly abusive too. It was a cycle she just couldn't seem to break. Unstable living, toxic relationships, drug use, and repeat. Then at twenty, she met a guy named Ashley, and for a little while things looked
like they might turn around. She got pregnant. She had a daughter in twenty seventeen, and for a short time she really tried to clean her life up. She stopped using drugs and started getting help for her mental health. She seemed almost happy at this point, but the stability didn't last. Shay and Ashley eventually broke up, and she found herself a single mom without a steady place to go. That's when she connected with Lauren, a childhood friend who
had also become a single mother. The two decided to move in together and try to support each other while raising their daughters under one roof.
Okay, I kind of like that plan, so do I.
From the outside, it might have looked like things were getting back on track for Shae. She had a home, a best friend, and a daughter she adored. She even posted proud mom updates on social media. But underneath it all, the darkness hadn't gone away. If anything, it was actually growing. Now everyone has their thing for sure, for whether it's baking, or for others it's hiking or fashion reality TV. And for Shae, as I mentioned, true crime was a center
point in her life. And honestly, we kind of already touched on it, like we live in the true crime world quite a bit with this p so hey hashtag relatable, right, But this for her was not just in the passing. She had Netflix on the ground, on the on in the background, constantly playing true crime documentaries, consistently consuming every free moment of her life kind of thing. It was different.
It became her aesthetic, her identity and yeah obsession as someone who is you know, constantly diving into the true crime all the time. I honestly, I can get very I can get behind it to a degree that it can get very, very heavy and overwhelming and breaks from it are very welcome. So to say that it's on all the time in the background and it's what you're diving into consistently and constantly, that's a lot.
Well, I think I've mentioned this before. I've I've done an eight hour road trip before where I just listened to true crime in the whole time, and when I arrived, I was like kind of fucked up, like kind of suspicious of everyone, and I don't know, my anxiety was a little bit over the top, Like it didn't do and it didn't do well for me.
It weighs on a person heavily at times. Yeah, So the fact that she's going through, like through all this content of true crime and the amount that she's going through.
It and assuming it maybe a bit too much.
Yeah, and she's just enjoying it the entire time, Like when I listen to stories when I'm researching, like it weighs heavy on my heart, my shoulders. There's times where like I need to take a break and absorb this, Like I feel like I'm going to fucking break out and cry at times, like you know what I mean, And she's just going and enjoying it, and like, like you know what, it's different. There's a difference in the way she consumes it.
Yeah, so it's not It doesn't really affect her in any way, poorly, it.
Doesn't seem that way, Okay. Regardless though, things all ramped up around twenty twenty now during the first COVID lockdown, like a lot of people, you know, stuck indoors. She spent a lot of time online and deep diving in to these documentaries with true crime. Where most people watch out of curiosity or interests, you know, that sort of thing. Shay seemed more fixated on the killers themselves. And that's where I can no longer relate to her, because she
wasn't just studying the cases. She was admiring the criminals and murderers. Specifically. Her bedroom slowly transformed into what can only be described as a shrine. And I told you, there's these posters a Bundy Dahmer, Rose West, There's Charles Manson, Eileen Warnos. They're all plastered all over her walls. It's not just a couple here and there.
Holy shit. So she's going to bed and waking up staring at.
These people exactly. And these were like posters she'd buy off Etsy with like blood dripping like art style, kind of like, oh, graphic type art, and this is this is her abode, this is her safe place. Now. Yeah, it didn't stop there. There was also her interest in how killers got away with murder. She read about crime scene cleanup alibis police procedures like she was prepping for
an exam. Almost She even installed the cv CCTV cameras in her house, reportedly for quote safety and to record intoment encounters as well, because it was also in her bedroom.
Huh okay.
Now these recordings, though, they would eventually become a tool for manipulation, but we'll talk about that in a bit now. She claimed all of this was just her style. It was her dark humor, and that you know, the art wasn't real photos, just creepy looking pieces she liked. And hey, she's totally got a point, totally fair enough. But if that were true, why did she also spend hours editing videos of her sex life to reflect this dark style?
Oh shit, so it's okay. I was wondering if this was going to go that way, but and it does.
It does. So she'd keep videos of her boyfriends and you know, from these security cameras in her bedrooms, and she'd keep them as quote evidence on these boyfriends. She would edit them certain ways to make them look like they were forcing themselves on her and such. Really, yes, and she would threaten to share these videos if they didn't do what she wanted.
Holy shit, So were they even aware they were being filmed?
I wonder most likely? Okay, and again we'll get into a little bit more detailed about that too. How about these videos and stuff? Now, this wasn't just a harmless obsession. It was a mindset one that glorified control, pain, and punishment. And the more she built her world around this aesthetic, the harder it became to tell where the performance ended
and where the real Shae began. Blurring that line. So to me, it seems like Shaye was watching true crime to understand wasn't sorry, watching true crime to understand victims or injustice. She was taking notes more on like how to become the kind of person that she was reading about. That's what it seems like to me.
Now.
Shaye and a friend, Lauren White, they had known each other since they were ki. Lauren is the one who's moved in and raising their kids together under the same roof. They weren't casual friends. They had history. They'd grown up together, They'd bonded over being a bit different even, and stayed connected into adulthood. And then when both women became you know, single moms around the same time, it almost felt like fate. When they moved in together and you know, helping each
other out. They raised their daughters under this one roof, and from the outside it was a good setup, right. Their daughters were close, They're co parenting, supporting each other there for when they need it. They were more like sisters their daughters more than playmates. Okay, Now, she had always been the dominant one in this friend relationship. Lauren, according to multiple people who knew them, was more reserved, quiet, accommodating, and often would let Shade kind of dominate the dynamic
or make decisions between the two of them. Now, over time, though, that dynamic starts to look a little bit less like friendship and a lot more like control. Would do things for Shay that most people wouldn't ask of a roommate, let alone expect. Some were small things, should you know, wash her clothes, roll her cigarettes for her, But it went a little further. Lauren would even put her socks on for her.
Oh wow, that's gone too far. Yeah yeah.
And it wasn't even just helping out. It became routine. So these things were no longer like hey, could you do my laundry for me today? I'm busy. It was like, hey, why didn't you do my laundry for me? Like it's sitting there waiting for you go do it.
It's not help like it's not healthy anymore.
No, it's becoming you do my laundry. Yeah, you know what I mean. Lauren was like a more of a living assistant, more than an equal partner in this household kind of thing. Now, there were also moments of psychological aggression. At least one instant was later brought up in court when Shay attacked Lauren with a pair of nail clippers, cutting her badly enough to draw some blood. Now, Shaye apparently did stop when she realized she'd gone too far.
But again, one of those things is that it's like, okay, in hindsight, red flag. Well, I mean, it's a red flag if your friend attack.
She's it's almost like thankful that she's realized she went too far. But I mean, she'd already she's already.
Been going too far exactly. So then came the surveillance that I already mentioned. By the time the murder happened, Lauren was already stuck in a relationship that was less about friendship and more about fear. So fast forwarding a bit to the actual events of the murder, Shay woke her friend up after killing Frankie and asked her to help clean up all of the blood. Lauren didn't scream or run. She helped. She helped move the body, She helped clean the room, and when she hesitated at all,
Shay reminded her, you're already involved. Now if I go down, you go down to and she like, you're on fucking camera. Oh here cleaning up a body. You're fucked.
That's fucking terrifying because she probably also is worried that her friend will.
Do that to her, exactly, so she's most likely terrified. Goe. All it takes is ten seconds for her to touch the body, like, because she's panic. Okay, what do I do? Yeah, okay, I'll help you move real quick while I'm still thinking. And now it's like, well, you're on camera moving the body.
Ah, yeah, Okay, this is real messed up already, Okay.
And Shane knew that she could use these security footage and things to manipulate people like that if you don't do as I say, you know, I'll show this footage to someone, whether it's your boyfriend, authorities or public or your work, who knows.
But and like, sitting back listening, I'm kind of like, well, look at all the shit that it's going to be showing how terrible she is. Right, So I feel like the friend could still get away with stuff at this point, you know, if they like saw all the footage and stuff of the manipulation and everything. But then it's so hard to in the moment, you know, realize that one hundred percent.
Yeah now. But in the eyes of the law when they arrived later on, it was enough to get Lauren arrested there on the spot, and she was actually even charged with failing to provide a pin code to her phone. She was seen basically as a possible accomplice in the crime, but once investigators pieced together the power dynamic and got Lauren's full account, those charges were eventually dropped, and even Shay, when questioned, admitted that Lauren had nothing to do with
the murder itself. She hadn't been in the room when it happened. She hadn't planned it. She just caught in the blast radius sort of thing.
Okay, good.
So was she a co conspirator of Shay's No? But was she Was she more of a victim? Yeah? Probably?
Yeah, I would say so.
Yeah. Now I think we've gone deep enough into these these two and in the crime itself. Let's back up a little bit more and let's take a look at Frankie, who is the victim of the story. Frankie was a twenty five year old father of two living in Portsmouth, trying to navigate life like a lot of young dads would do, balancing responsibility, social life, and relationships that, of course,
didn't always work out. People who knew Frankie described him as funny, charming, and someone who could diffuse a tense moment with humor. He was known to be easygoing, the kind of guy who didn't like conflict and rarely stayed angry. His ex partner, Charlene, was the mother of his children, and although their relationship had ended, he was still present in his kids' lives. But Frankie had struggles of his own He was by far a perfect human. Behind the
easygoing personality was someone who also dealt with instability. His life wasn't always steady. Let's say. He'd reportedly been dealing with substance use, including cocaine, and had a bit of a reputation for partying and unpredictable behavior, especially when he was under the influence. In February of twenty twenty two, he met Shay at a local pub, and that's when everything started to shift. They clicked quickly. Both of them were young parents, both had a rebellious streak, Both were
into rough sex, heavy partying, and pushing boundaries. For a moment, it probably felt like a perfect match for two people who understood each other, who got each other in ways that most people didn't. But as fast as they connected, the relationship also turned volatile. Just as fast. They began dating almost immediately, and within weeks it was an intense blend of sex, jealousy, fights, and making up again. There was a deep mutual obsession, especially around their shared interest
in BDSM and knife play. So they're into some heavy, kinky shit and they brought knives into it as well.
Okay, so the knife play is also involved in the bedroom.
Yes. Now. Most notably, they explored kinks together, including quote not sorry quote consensual non consent, which is also known as rape play. Okay, you know, so pretending to rape, but it's actually consent. It is consensual. So it's consensual non consent. So we're pretending it's not consensual, but we're planning it out prior to and making sure we're on the same page and it is consensual. Okay, Okay. So it's like, okay, we're all good. Okay, I'm gonna go
in the bedroom in ten minutes, you burst in. I'm going to pretend to scream and not like it, and you force yourself on me. That's the plans.
Okay, Okay, So.
It is consensual, but in the moment they act like it's not right. Okay, just making sure I'm really clarifying that because it is a very important distinction piece.
Okay, because yeah, she's also filming this shit exactly.
Yeah, she is filming this shit, which is very important to remember.
Huh.
Their relationship was anything but healthy. They broke up, they got back together again, consistent they both accused each other of cheating. They regularly went through each other's phones, The fights got louder, the sex got rougher, and sometimes, and somewhere along the way, the line between that consent and coercion began to blur. By July, they'd only been together for about five months, but the damage ran deep. Frankie accused Shay of seeing her ex. Shay accused Frankie of
messaging other women and girls. The CCTV camera Shay had in her bedroom was often used to record many of their encounters now. Initially, she said it was for fun to watch and even edit the footage into private videos to keep for later or whatever, right, but as things deteriorated between them, those recordings became something else. Entirely, she edited these clips to make Frankie look like the aggressor, and she threatened to release them to ruin his reputation.
At the same time, Frankie wasn't innocent in this dynamic. Friends said that he could be intimidating and aggressive at times, especially when high and intoxicated. For example, he once texted Shay a threat, saying that if he caught her cheating, he'd hang her.
Oo.
Yeah, he was volatile.
I mean I probably would have say something like that too.
Though, fair enough, fair enough. He was volatile, though, but so was she right their fights could turn explosive, flip to affection, and spiral once again. They were addicted to each other, and it wasn't love. It was obsession, dependency, and emotional warfare in all honesty. By the summer of twenty twenty two, Shay's mental health was visibly unraveling. She was using cocaine more regularly, often alongside Frankie, and had returned to self harming coping mechanism that she hadn't relied
on for years. Friends noticed her withdrawing, becoming more paranoid and erratic. She told people Frankie was abusive, then begged him to come back. This back and forth fuck you love you sort of dynamic once again, right. She claimed she was terrified him, yet she filmed him in bed and made jokes about his performance. Their shared world of sex, secret and manipulations and violence even kept growing more and
more unstable. It was almost like a teeter totter going back and forth, back and forth, and if you do it hard enough and long enough, that teeter totter is eventually going to break. Right somewhere along the line, that pivot point can only take to so much. But in one of the most unsettling parts of the Shay Graves case isn't just the violence itself. It's how deliberately she blurred these lines between what was consensual and what was not,
especially when it came to that sex and power. So he kind of already talked about it a little bit, but at the heart of it was a dangerous combination of manipulation and performance. Shay was known for being controlling in her personal relationships. It wasn't always obvious at first. Sometimes it looked like charm, sometimes vulnerability, but once someone was close to her, she'd start to tighten her grip
on them. She wanted to know where people were, who they were talking to, what they were thinking, and if she didn't like the answer, she'd find a way to twist the story or threaten consequences. Very much so like she's doing to her boyfriend Frankie, you know with the sex tapes. You know, I'll show people that you were an aggressor sort of thing, or what she's doing with her friend, her roommate Lauren, right through all of this. To me, it seems like with all the bad blood,
all the violent sects. She was trying to build a narrative around her, one where she was a victim in relationships, specifically right now with Frankie, and that he was a monster, and building a narrative that she could control. By July sixteenth, two thousand and two, things between Shy and Frankie were nearing a boiling point. The relationship had already been volatile for months, with breakups, makeups, blah blah blah, we already know all that. On this day, it started with an argument,
though Shaye accused Frankie of cheating on her again. This time she'd gone through his phone, a regular ritual at this point, but she claimed to find a message that pushed her over the edge, a message between Frankie and a girl who she said was thirteen years old. In reality, that girl was later confirmed to be seventeen, still a minor, and Frankie reportedly blocked her when she made the quote thirteen comment. But at the moment, the difference between thirteen
and seventeen didn't really matter. Shaye wasn't interested in the context. The messages confirmed everything she feared and worse now in her mind, Frankie wasn't just cheating he was a predator. Fueled by alcohol, cocaine, and what she described as protective rage, possibly also digging up unresolved trauma from her own abuse as a child in past history, Shay's anger became something else entirely on its own. After a little while, she went into the bedroom where Frankie now lay sleeping on
the bed. She grabbed one of her decorative Celtic daggers that she kept under her pillow. She raised it and began stabbing him in the neck. She thrust it deep, a forceful wound that severed his jugular vein and carotid artery. The first blow was a fatal blow.
Yeah, I was like that, you're done.
Yeah, even if emergency services have been called right then, right away. Frankly, Frankie most likely wouldn't have survived.
Lost too much blood.
Yes, now, going through first aid training and stuff, because I was a first aid attendant for a while. If someone severs their jugular vein or an artery in their neck, they say, what you do is put your hands together like you're praying right and pray. That's literally what you do. You pray that they survive.
You're putting your hands together on the wound.
Well, yes, put your hands in front of your in front of you right now, like your fingers pointed up. You're praying, right and you take your thumb and your fingers and you go in the neck and you pinch the artery closed. So make the motion like you're praying, because you're praying. You're that they survive because they're most likely not.
Like, that's the only thing you can do, the only thing you could do, and hopefully it works, but it probably won't.
Yeah, her pinch the arteries, hope they survive, and pray they survive. That's it.
Wow, she probably didn't even like was she meaning to do that hit there?
To hit the arteries are her first blow and shit like that or on her first blow? Maybe not, but she probably meant to because she kept stabbing. In fact, she stabbed him a total of twenty two times in total, jeezuz, mostly to the neck and chest. The attack was frenzied and she did want him dead. She made sure he was dead.
Well, yeah, she was like you know, they say, the more time someone stabs someone, it's like rage killing, and she was though.
Now when that rage wore off, shade didn't panic. She didn't call nine one one or an ambulance. Instead, she started relying on her knowledge and began laying the groundwork for a cover up.
How the fuck would you cover this up?
Yeah, you can't. She tried. Okay, poorly in my opinion, but she tried. She sent a text to her ex boyfriend inviting him over, possibly to try and create an alibi.
Okay.
She also messaged her friend Vicki, claiming Frankie had just left the house, planning the seats to suggest that he's alive and well outside of the home.
Okay.
Then she walked down the hall and knocked on her friend Lauren's door. She told her friend calmly that she'd done him. Lauren followed her to the bedroom and saw Frankie's lifeless body lying in the room. Oh gosh, blood was everywhere.
Yep.
Shay, still eerily composed, told Lauren they need to clean it up and figure what to do with the body. Now. Remember, by this point, she already has a firm grasp and control over her friend Lauren.
Yeah, I know, because right now I'm just like, uh, you mean, you need to go figure this shit out. But yeah, she's already really set the groundwork for she has, she's worned to be help on her ear if.
She can manipulate her to say, put my socks on for me. Yeah, it's probably in a moment like this where she's panicked and scared easily manipulate her into helping her clean a murder scene.
And I'm assuming there's just kids at home too.
Probably I didn't look into that, but probably. Yeah. Together they discussed the possible options. They could bury him in the garden, framing it as a suicide, you know, they could dump him somewhere else, whatever they could think of. Right, And while this was happening, she did something that would haunt the investigation. She picked up her phone and facetimed
her friend Vicki. She showed her friend Vicky Frankie's body on camera, giggling, laughing and making jokes, showing no signs of remorse after the fact, And when Vicky asked what she was going to do, Shay casually said that she'd clean it up and bury him, and then disturbingly, she added, we're still friends, right.
What the shit? So she thought this was just fine and dandy and normal, she did, and she trusted that her friend would just not say anything.
I guess either. Yeah, but that's not the case. Vicky hung up the phone and did what any sane person would do. She called the police. Now, when police entered the house on July seventeenth, twenty twenty two, the scene they walked into was nothing short of disturbing. She had greeted them at the door like nothing was wrong, pink RoboN cigarette in hand, acting like she was ready to host a brunch or something like that, not standing over a murder scene. But inside the house, the sense of
bleach was thick when that door was opened. It was clinging to everything. It was obvious to officers that a hurried clean up up was underway. Now, she didn't resist to rest, she didn't even try to deny what she'd done. When they asked what was going on, her response was blunt. She said, he's dead, he's in my room. It's a mess. I took someone's life.
And okay. So she's probably thinking that she's going to be able to get away with this, maybe from the footage or something that she has, or that he was like sleeping with someone underage, or I don't know what's going through her mind, but maybe those things like she thinks she is. He was like worthy of this.
We'll talk about it, Okay, Her defense is self defense. Oh shit, yeah, but.
Well he's a sleeping man in bed.
Okay, we'll get back to that though. Don't worry. Now, this was the kind of thing you'd expect to hear in a movie. That's what the police thought, you know, not quite the suburban neighborhood. On a Sunday morning, uh huh. In her bedroom, police found Frankie's body laid out on plastic bags, with a pillow over his and a duvet partially covering him. The dagger that was the murder weapon
was now cleaned but still wet, sitting in the bathroom sink. Lauren, who had helped, you know, move the body and everything clean up, you know, that sort of thing. She was also arrested. Now at the time, police couldn't be sure how involved she really was, and both women were taken into custody. During the initial interviews, she admitted to killing Frankie,
but immediately tried to frame it as self defense. She told investigators that Frankie had flown into a rage after she confronted him about the messages on his phone with a minor, right, Yeah. She claimed he'd grabbed her by the throat, pinned her against the headboard, and began choking her. She said her vision started to blur, started to get tunnel vision, and she said she wasn't sure. She was
sure that he was going to kill her. So, in that moment, pinned up against the head board of the bed, she claimed, she reached out blindly for something to defend herself, and she grabbed what she thought was her money box, which wh actually turned out to be the dagger she kept under her pillow, the one that she slept with. She said she struck him in the neck by accident and with what jo so happened to be the dagger.
And then struck him twenty more times.
By twenty one more times. But yeah, yeah, of course, her story quickly fell apart almost immediately. For starters, Frankie had been lying down when the attack began. The position of his body and the wound patterns and the autopsy findings didn't support the idea of a struggle whatsoever. In fact, he hadn't even fought back. There were no defensive wounds. According to the medical examiner, he was likely asleep when he was stabbed.
Yeah.
Then there was the footage the security cameras in the bedroom. Thanks to her CCTV system, the police had access to unedited recordings of her interactions with Frankie. Those videos, many of which had been selectively edited by Shay, you know, the sexual encounter ones and stuff.
To make him seem like a monster exactly.
The raw files that she still had and everything they panted a much different story. They showed rough sex, yes, but they showed it was consensual. There was no screaming, no struggling, no signs of fear. And when a full conversation was restored off like the cards and the files, it was clear that she had cut the parts where they were talking about what was going to happen beforehand, the precursor conversation, so that was even captured exactly now.
Her alibi text that she sent right after killing killing Frankie also raised some red flags. She texted Vicki saying Frankie had left the house, tried to invite her ex
over all obvious attempts to rewrite the timeline. And if she had actually acted in self defense like she claimed, then why were these conversations even happening in the first place, if he attacked you and you acted in self defense, why after his death are you inviting your ex over and telling your friend that Frankie's actually left the house.
Yeah? And did she just forget that she was recorded all this shit at that time too? I don't know, because that seems weird to me.
I think in her mind, she was just going to get away with it and didn't expect the police to show up at her door, didn't expect her friend to call police, and then she just started spewing bullshit and the evidence was too much. She didn't have time to try and hide it. And I have a feeling even if she did get time to try and hide it, she would have hit it very poorly.
Yeah, and see that this is questionable to me because someone who is like a true crime fanatic and like consumed it so much, I just feel like she should know what the fuck's about to happen here.
Yeah. Well, not only that she didn't. She wasn't just a fanatic, She wasn't just consuming it so much, she was literally studying it.
Yeah, but she thought she could easily get away with this. That doesn't make any.
Sense, right, And she was going to fucking bury him in her backyard garden. Yeah, and think she's going to get away with it. That's rule number one. You don't bury someone in your fucking backyard.
Yeah, that's going to come back to you at some point exactly. Maybe not right away, but it will one hundred percent.
Just saying, not saying that you should study and do those things. Just obviously get rid of evidence. Right, you do a thing, you get rid of evidence. That's one O one.
But I mean when she was consuming maybe she was consuming other pieces, right, just the pieces about like the the murderers and the no bad people.
She was specifically studying, you know, police files and how they capture people, how people get away with it, crime scene clean up, all those things.
Okay, well then what the shit?
Okay, so she was studying those things, yet she still had CCTV footage in her home, She still called and facetimed a friend. She also involved another person and was going to bury him in the backyard, all within hours of this happening. Yeah, you have those flaws already there.
Okay, Yeah, I'm kind of shocked.
Yeah, I'll just say that anytime we cover a true crime fan doing a murder, it always surprises me because there have been other ones and it surprises me on how bad they do.
But also I feel like doing the act might actually play a toll on you and your mind and stuff, and then you're not thinking clearly or something. I don't know. I'm trying to process this too and understand it, but yeah, it doesn't make sense.
You have a good point. Maybe they're just fucking wannabes, you know, and.
Then they actually do it and it's like, holy shit, Yeah.
Like Ted Bundy or something like that is a true fucking psychopath, you know. They can actually think clearly and calmly and make these decisions to protect themselves, where these people are just fucking wannabes and don't have that capability of thinking that way. That's actually a really good point.
Yeah, it could be high five on that one. Oh my gosh.
Okay. Back at the police station, Lauren was questioned as well. At first, she wouldn't give up the pin code to her phone, which led her being charged arge with a non compliance under digital investigation laws. But as time passed, the investigators piece things together and it became clear Lauren hadn't be involved in the murder itself. She'd helped after the fact, Yes, under what she later described as intense fear, feared that if she didn't help clean up Sha would
hurt her too, which totally understand. The charges against Lauren were eventually dropped, especially after she agreed to testify and tell the full truth in court.
Okay, that's good.
Meanwhile, she was formally charged with murder, but she continued to insist that she wasn't the killer. Of course, who the fuck was then, Well, she wasn't saying that she wasn't the killer.
She was saying.
Reason she's saying that she's not a killer. I'm not a killer. It was self defense. Yeah, So she maintained that this was self defense and that her story. That was her story, and she's sticking to it. Behind the scenes, though, both the prosecution and the defense were building very different narratives, and each one relied not just from the crime itself, but on who Shay was and how she'd spent the years,
you know, obsessing over serial killers. The trial was scheduled to begin in early January twenty twenty three at Winchester Crown Court, the very same court room in fact, where Shay's so called one of her idols. Rose West had once been convicted decades earlier. Dang, she probably loves that most likely, And yeah, that coincidence wasn't lost on anyone now. The defense strategy Shay's legal team leaned into her claims
of abuse heavily. In fact, they described her as a traumatized, vulnerable woman with a long history of mental health struggles, including bipolar disorder complex PTSD, and they pointed to her childhood, the abuse she'd endured growing up in the pattern of toxic relationships that followed her into adulthood. Their goal was to reframe Shae not as a cold bloody killer, but as a woman pushed to the edge by the violent and unstable partner. They submitted edited videos that Shade put together.
The edited CCTV footage that appeared to show Frankie being physically aggressive with Shade during sex, what the shit?
You know?
The ones taken out of context she specifically edited together to make him look like he was raping her and beating her and all this sort of stuff.
No, that is okay now.
In one clip even he reportedly made a chilling comment quote that was a bit rapie, wasn't it.
Huh?
The defense used this as evidence of a relationship that had turned dangerous and exploitative. Shay also testified that she discovered the messages between Frankie and someone claiming to be a thirteen year old girl. On that this discovery, paired with the years of trauma, had triggered a panic response. She said that she was choked, pinned to the bed, and truly feared for her life.
Wow, Cay, do we know for sure Frankie was cheating with this girl?
I'm pretty sure they both were, by the sounds of it, Okay, don't know for sure, by what sounds of it those messages with the seventeen year old, Yes, were true, But I don't know the context of these messages. I don't know if it was like flirting, if maybe he didn't know her age. I don't know if they were sexting. I don't know if they were meeting up the message. Honestly, it was in court, So it seems true to me, Okay,
but I don't know the facts behind it. And it does seem again to me that they were both cheating.
And yeah, like it wasn't a healthy relationship.
No, it was far from healthy. Yeah, and Frankie was far from a healthy partner, but he was not a murderer, and he was not abusive per.
Se, right, because yeah, they were no good for each other at all.
No, because well maybe he was abusive. I don't know. I should should not say that. At least in the sexual context, it was consensual right now. The prosecution, their case was a little bit different in how they presented it. Prosecutor Stephen paren Casey led the charge. He didn't just focus on the murder. He painted a much broader picture, one that portrayed Shay not as a scared woman, but as a master manipulator, obsessed with control, obsessed with revenge,
and the darker corners of true crime. They started with the evidence tampering Shay's carefully edited videos, the ones that the that you know, the defense were playing in the courtroom. It was clear that the encounter with Frankie had been consensual in the real footage, and that the worst moments had been clipped out of context, with the pre imposting conversations intentionally removed to make Frankie look violent and unhinged, and they presented the real footage in court.
Well, yeah, I'm like that's easy.
Yeah, So if the defense is like, look here he's raping her. There's a footage the prosecutors like, yeah, here's that exact encounter, not edited, not edited, with the pre and post conversations, you know, of them agreeing to this, you know, them laugh and chilling together afterwards, and like enjoying it.
That's why I almost think it's crazy that the defense played this, you know, the edited Yeah, well that's ayraly, this is gonna not go down well well, And that's.
Why they say, like defense lawyer, defense lawyers are generally pretty slimy because it's like, who's going to use that as evidence? Look, he's raping her. No, here's the real footage. Why are you playing tampered ship?
Yeah, here's the conversation pre and posts.
Yeah. Then came the timeline manipulation. The jury saw how Shay had immediately texted her friend Vicki saying Frank had left the house, part of this manufactured alibi she was trying to to come up with. She'd also invited her ex over shortly after the murder, likely hoping that if he showed up, she could potentially shift the blame to him as the murderer. Oh or muddy the timeline.
Okay, that was the reason potentially of contacting the X.
We don't know the exact reason, but it is a potential reason.
Makes sense.
Actually, Yeah, and perhaps perhaps most of all, her obsession with serial killers. And I say serial killers, not true crime, because that is a very important distinction. She's obsessed with the serial killers themselves.
She's a fascination with them.
The court was shown photos of Shay's bedroom lined with all the artwork of these infamous murderers, and the books about true crime, seeing cleanups and how serial killers avoid capture. Her notebooks, in fact, were full of journal style entries of how to get away with murder. As I mentioned, she was studying, and she clearly fucking flunked that test.
This wasn't just a passing interest in true crime, it was a lifestyle for her, and the prosecution argued that she didn't just admire these figures, she wanted to become one. They even quoted her saying quote, no alibi is airtight and no murder is perfect. Both sides called friends and former partners. Vicki, one of Shaye's closest friends, was especially important for the prosecution. She testified that Shay had bragged about having dirt on exes and often used blackmail tactics
to manipulate them. Of course, much of that would most likely be the videos in the bedroom, right yeah. She also described how Shay had giggled on FaceTime while showing Frankie's dead body and completely detached herself from the horror of what happened. Lauren, the friend and roommate who helped clean the scene, confirmed that Shay had confessed within hours of the killing, and that she had feared for her
own safety if she didn't help. She explained the power and balance, the history of control, and how deeply manipulated she had felt. Shay also took the stand and told the court her versions of what happened, you know, finding the message between Frankie and the supposed thirteen year old girl. He confronted her, grabbed her by the throat, She couldn't breathe, She thought she was going to die, grabbed for what she thought was a money box, but a turnout to
be a dagger, and it was self defense. She admitted stabbing in multiple times, including through the heart, and told the court she tried to stop the blood with her hand before realizing there was no saving him and the situation had just spiraled. However, no matter what she said, though, it became clear this wasn't someone who had just snapped in a moment or fear or was acting in self defense.
This was someone who fantasized about violence, someone who planned for it and knew exactly how to clean up afterwards. By the time the jury filed back in the courtroom on February seventeenth, twenty twenty three, the air in the room was heavy. After nearly a month of testimony and eighteen hours of deliberation. The question wasn't really if Shay Groves had killed Frankie Fitzgerald. It was why she had done it and how much of it was premeditated. The jury,
seven women and four men, deliberated a unanimous verdict. Shay Groves was found guilty of murder.
Hey, yeah, that's not a surprise.
When that was read out in the courtroom, Shaye didn't cry, She didn't scream, she didn't even flinch. In fact, she sat there dressed in dark clothes, a pentagram reportedly stitched on the back of her jacket. She sat motionless as the word guilty rang in the courtroom. Five days later, February twenty second, Shay returned to the court to be sentenced.
Residing Judge Kerr didn't hold back. He addressed Shaye directly, saying that she had committed a shocking and sustained attack that robbed Frankie's children of a father, his parents of a son, and his friends of someone they deeply loved. But the judge also introduced a controversial idea. He called it a crime of passion, not a cold blooded murder. To quote him, Judge Kerr said, you loved the man you killed, and you killed the man you loved. The
phrase crime of passion stirred mixed emotions. Some saw it as a fair description of how jealousy, rage and obsession had boiled over. Others felt it downplayed the brutality of twenty two stab wounds, an edited cover up and calculated plans to try and get away with it. And honestly, I wholeheartedly disagree with this judge personally. I don't think
she loved him, not one bit. I honestly don't know if she knows what love love even means, And honestly, that's kind of tragic in itself for many reasons.
I don't know if I fully disagree with the judge. No, because she didn't go about covering anything until after the fact. She was like super pissed off, right, and she did stab him like twenty two times, which is kind of like a rage passion kill of sorts. Okay, crime of passion, fair enough, But yeah, I don't know necessarily if I would say that she loved him.
Yeah, that's what I disagree with. You love the man you killed, and you killed the man you loved. I disagree with the fact that it was love. And if he's referring to crime of passion as like passion love, no, crime of passion as in like overwhelming emotions.
Sure, okay, because yeah, I think the passion part is there, but yeah, maybe not necessarily the love part yet.
Yeah, because you can have a passion for many things, like you can passionately hate someone, yeah right, you can passionately love chocolate milk, which I do. Honestly, I guess that's love, But I don't think I personally do not think she knows what love means. Yeah, you can't look at that relationship and everything between the two of them and say she loved him. No, point to one point of their relationship and tell me that's love.
Yeah, I mean yeah, their relationship was very passionate, but that does not necessarily mean love mean love.
No, no, no, Either way, it didn't change the outcome. Shay Groves was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of twenty three years before she could be considered for role. That means, at the very least, she won't walk free until she's fifty years old.
Which, okay, I said this before. When people are young and they commit crimes, it's like scary because then there's this the chance that they're gonna get out and I don't know, but then they're in there so long and the hope is that they're rehabilitated and yet.
Yeah, so that is the story of Shae Groves and Frankie Fitzgerald.
Huh. We also have to note too, like Shaye had a kid, that kid no longer really has a mom. Yeah, you know, like that, it's this so many victims really in this story, like Frankie, like his two kids, you know, his family's friends. But then also like Shay's kid, I don't know even even the roommate. The shit that she's gonna have to like go about now to try to Actually, she's gonna have PTSD exactly well, and because her friend just fucked her up.
I feel like, and the friend who just got facetimed, Like, next she gets fucking face timed, she's probably be like, should I fucking answer this? Don't?
Yeah, I don't want to answer this. Yeah, I would probably never answer a FaceTime call again in my whole life.
I agree. Now, do you have a bit more written here in regards to this case? So let's go through this part.
Okay.
So, when the news of Shade Grows and the conviction hit headlines in early twenty twenty three, it exploded across the UK and of course beyond. But it wasn't just the murder itself that caught people's attention. It was everything around it. The serial killer posters, you know, the coffin bookshelf, the Dagger collections, and the obsession with true crime that made the entire case feel like, honestly, it was something
straight off a Netflix series. People were stunned not just because of what she did, but because she looked at first glance like someone they might know. Honestly, she was just like an everyday person Yeah, sure, you know, a little bit alternative style. But she was a single mom into horror movies and watched, you know, the same true crime documentaries that many of us binged. You know, the Ted Bundy ones are all the ones that are popular on Netflix and everywhere. Yeah, it made the story hit
uncomfortably close to home for a lot of people. It sparked a lot of uncomfortable questions for people who love the genre, not just creators and consumers of the content, but everyday fans who listen to true crime podcasts and The Way to Work watch back to back dayline episodes on the weekend. Because Shay wasn't just interested in true crime, she idolized the killers. She didn't study them out of
curiosity or understand justice. She glamorized their power. And that's the important distinction between her and honestly like content creators and the consumers of the content of the genre is it's the true crime versus the killers? Which one are you are you listening to? Which one are you consuming the stories of? And on this podcast we often try to tell the stories of the victims more often than not. And if we try and talk about if we are
telling the story of the perpetrator. Like in this case, we're trying to dissect it a bit and be like, Okay, don't do this shit. That's fucked up, holy shit, you know what I mean.
Well, yeah, it doesn't really seem like le even in regards to her own killing, that she has any feelings towards the victims whatsoever, Like it just like it's mute to her. It doesn't matter. Like even yeah, her killing Frankie, it was just she didn't seem like she showed any emotion or regard that she took his life, which was like not a big deal.
Which I don't know how to approach the idea of that, because as you mentioned already, like was she numbed? Was her emotions numb? Did she not know how to handle it? Was it something that she hit later on behind closed doors we didn't see. Was that actually her honestly, like with how she tried to portray herself and everything in the beginning, as I'm saying, many of these things were like an armor or her right. Did she even know how to react? Was she surprised by her reaction herself?
There's so many questions revolving around that, like do you mean, was she sort of in shock maybe.
And it didn't really her Her actions didn't come to fruition until quite later.
Well, was she in shock? Was she putting on a facade and pretending because that's what she's used to doing, is pretend. Is leaning into this being like oh, yeah, you know, this stuff doesn't bother me when people make fun of her calling her chucky. Oh, being called chucky doesn't bother me. I'm just going to watch horror shows. That Was she doing this to like put up a front? Was she actually a psychopath and a killer? Like that?
Was she in shock? There's many questions that you could ask in regards to that perspective.
Yeah, I kind of like, yeah, it would be interesting to have an interview with her, and I don't know, I want to kind of this is bad, See, I almost want to know more about her in the sense of is she have remorse now? And like is it something where we'll never know this? But does she feel like she wants to do this again?
But that's the difference. That's the line between fascination and fixation, Right, You're fascinated with their story. You want to know more about her mind, how it works and why she didn't fucking panic and lose her shit. Yeah, she was fixated on.
I do not in any way idolize her whatsoever.
Yeah, and that's the difference. Yeah, it's a fascination of understanding and learning, whereas she has the fixation of, oh my god, I want to idolize you. I can't believe you're able to do that. I want to know more.
How I want to be.
How can I have that mindset that's that fine line. But where that fine line is and how to draw it, I mean that is technically up for debate. Yeah, because some people even think listening to true crime and doing this what we're doing is fucked up.
They do. Yeah, some people out there.
For sure, right, But we live completely healthy lives and we're not about to go and do some of these things.
Yeah. I feel like sometimes it almost makes me live a healthier life because I'm just like I think I just always have like an extra eye out for like weirds or or like is this person following me or or whatever.
You know, I don't know if higher anxiety is healthy.
Okay, Yeah, I guess it is desire anxiety, But I don't know. I just or I make sure my doors are always locked, and.
I mean that's good.
I don't know, it makes you more away.
I guess it does. But this case, and honestly, this story, it's it had a lot of people questioning, you know, is the interest in the true crime genre healthy? Why are people drawn to this stuff? In fact, we even had someone recently reach out to us doing a report on the same topic on you know, the true crime and the questions around it and ethics and everything, right, right, So it's it's a big old question mark, I guess.
M h yeah, yeah, I mean that's that's honestly that I know. Well, I guess I'm just trying to think because yeah, I'm going to trip back to that like email with the questions and like is it ethical the way I guess some people present true crime necessarily like we do it sometimes with some humor, and some people don't like that.
Yeah, we get flack for that sometimes in reviews and stuff.
But then a lot of people are like, oh, it's so heavy, and you guys like, lighten it up a little bit so that I can digest it, you know.
Well, and that's that's the point of our humor in it is to you know, tell these heavy fucking stories, not only for a light in the load of listening to it, but also for b you know, taking away that that fear mongering power.
Yeah.
Right, So when we talk about a very heavy case and a serial killer who's like, oh yeah, badass and scary, and we call him a douche canoe, we're not quite as scared of that guy anymore. It takes away that power that that individual sought to have. Now they're sitting behind bars, now they're rotting, and now we're laughing at them.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Yeah, So there's many reasons why you know, that lighthearted this for us, but there are people who question it too, there are. But there's also the question around you know, she had these posters, these pictures, the artwork of Ted Bundy, you know, Eileen Warnos and everything, Stabby Vibes only like a lot of that sort of stuff you can go and buy an Etsy. Right, what's the ethics behind that too? That's another big, big question mark, where's the line on that?
Because like we honestly we have a piece of merch that we created with a it's AI generated. It was specifically purposed for an AI piece of merch right, And I did honestly spend fucking hours on it, altering it, taking into photoshop, doing a bunch of work on two So it's not just AI, it's AI assisted art, if you will. But this one piece of AI assisted art we have it shows a woman grieving with a knife in her hand over her like murdered husband in the
kitchen seventies sort of style. Yeah, is that crossing a line? You could probably argue it is.
Yeah, I mean, oh yeah, this could be like a whole nother podcast and topic. But is there sometimes we've talked about it before. Is there a huge difference between consuming like true crime and listening to the stories and like the news, right, because they're both reporting on shit that's happened, like bad shit.
And stuff they are so, I mean, people think about before even televisions, you like, look at like early footage like when cameras were first invented in like New York City, right, and it's like people are walking down the street, they're all on news, reading newspapers and shit, you know, you know, telegrams are what's the read all about it? I can't remember the saying that they do like headlines read all about it.
Or yeah, I know what you're saying.
It's often tragic headlines, you know, accident.
There's always been a fascination. Yeah, what's necessarily the difference of how you're consuming it.
It's no different. You're right. News is honestly a lot of the times true crime because they report the same stories.
Yeah, not in the detail I suppose.
But honestly, yeah, they do because much of my resources for researching these cases is news artists.
That's true. That's true.
So just saying hmm, you're right with that.
Well, anyway, that gives us some shit to think about for the day if we didn't have anything else.
Yeah, And there's no easy answers to it. So if you think about it, if you want to think about it, go for it, fly at it, get it locked in your head, come up with answers if you want. But there is no easy answer. There's no definitive answer easy.
Maybe just don't display a bunch of serial killer posters in your in your room.
Don't idolize those dirt eggs.
Yeah, don't do it.
No, they're not worth it. Is Ted Bundy good looking, sure, but who fucking cares? He killed people? Is Douche Canoe.
Yeah, I don't think yeah good looking or not? Like ugh, no, oh there's yeah. No.
Charlie's Stharren played Eileen Warnos. Charlie's Starren is absolutely gorgeous. I wanted to vomit when I seed her as Eileen Warnos. No way, never, no, gross. Seriously, I have trouble looking at Charlie's there in the same after that, Oh my gosh, that's seriously just saying you know who Charlie's Saron is.
Right, Oh yeah, okay, I do, yes, yeah, and just yeah, okay, well not no, we should wrap things up here.
Yeah, it's been a bit of a longer episode and a lot of ethics discussions and what's the word theories and stuff. I don't know what I'm trying to say, philosophy, a lot of philosophy and true crime at the end of this episode, and a lot to think on. But thank you for being here. We appreciate you. If you want to hit us up in a message with your thoughts, you know links in the description of this podcast you can find your social media as website. All of it's
down there. If want to leave us a review. We really appreciate it. I'll give us a five stars if you like. If not, hey, whatever you think is appropriate. My recommendation is a five star.
Just say yes, definitely our recommendation. If you've made it this far, I like you might think that.
Yeah. Either that or you're stuck driving on a road trip and your hands are busy driving and you're just like, God, shut up so we can get on something else because I don't have hands free at the moment. Those are the two options and why you're still listening. But thank you for being here.
Until next time, Stay wicked.