Arizona: Toddler pleaded before she was torched to death
Patty
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 8, 1999
First-degree murder charges filed in horrific slaying
"No, Daddy, no," the 2 1/2-year-old pleaded as she awoke from her
slumber to find her father splashing her with gasoline and preparing to
strike a match.
Just as the blond toddler stood up, her father flicked the burning
match her way and she exploded into flames, sending her frantically
running in circles before she finally collapsed in the dirt.
Shawn Ryan Grell's account to investigators was released Tuesday as he
was charged with first-degree murder in last Thursday's slaying of
Kristen Salem, who was driven to her death, in a ditch in far east
Mesa, under the guise that she was going to look at Christmas lights.
It was a crime so unfathomable that Grell said even police didn't
believe him when he tried to confess to Phoenix officers who stopped
him for drunken driving hours after the slaying. They let him go.
To get arrested, Grell said he had to go to a call box at the state
Capitol and again recount how he picked his daughter up from day care
and killed her.
"I really did do this, I killed my daughter. But nobody believes me,"
an officer quoted Grell as saying in a Maricopa County sheriff's
report.
Summarizing Grell's statements, the report said, "He tried to tell them
that he killed his daughter, but they wouldn't listen."
But Phoenix police adamantly denied Tuesday that Grell tried to
confess, saying they backtracked through videotape in a DUI van and
interviewed every officer who had contact with him.
"We've got to believe our officers on this one," Detective Bob Ragsdale
said. "Put it this way, if you were an officer and you heard about this
horrific crime, would you ignore it?"
Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley announced the charges against
Grell on Tuesday, saying, "I don't think there was a single person from
this community who wasn't horrified."
The next step will be to determine whether to seek the death penalty.
But first, investigators must determine whether Grell is mildly
retarded, as was stated in prior psychological evaluation.
Grell, a 24-year-old drug addict and former transient, has been
described by those who know him as a man who couldn't hold a job, loved
to smoke pot, and was given to fits of rage and abuse.
What drove him to commit one the most horrific crimes in Valley history
still baffles investigators.
But psychologists say he fits the profile of men who kill their own:
those with an overblown sense of their own importance, who have
experienced major depression or loss, either a divorce, or a loss of a
job.
Hours before he admitted to police that he killed Kristen, Grell's live-
in girlfriend, Amber Salem, had lunch to talk with him about losing yet
another job, this one with a temporary services firm.
Salem had previously threatened to leave him if he lost another job.
While Salem was working, Grell cashed the last paycheck he had received
in the mail and used the money to buy beer.
"After sitting awhile, Shawn decided to pick up his daughter," the
report said.
The two stopped at McDonald's for dinner and then went to a convenience
store, where Grell bought more beer.
"Shawn said that Kristen began to complain of being tired and wanted
her mommy," the report said. "Shawn got upset with Kristen, and he hit
her in the mouth with the back of his hand.
"For reasons unknown, Shawn decided that he would kill Kristen."
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They then went to a gas station, where Kristen became sick and vomited
on Grell's jacket sleeve. "After cleaning it up," the report said, "he
drove around looking for a place to 'do it.' "
Steven Pitt, a forensic psychiatrist in the Valley, said most cases
like this involve parents who could be having financial difficulties,
employment instability, religious preoccupation, substance abuse or
emotional and psychiatric problems.
But there's not always a clear-cut answer.
"People find the offense itself so illogical and so counter to the
grain of what we do as parents," he said. "It really kind of presents a
conundrum to people when they're trying to bring logic to an offense
like this."
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, parents were the
perpetrator in 54 percent of homicides involving children under the age
of 5 from 1967 to 1997.
Kristen's grandmother said family members are trying to come to grips
with the little girl's fiery death, and they still don't have answers
about Grell.
"We've said all we really want to say to the public about him," Lee
Petruso said. "He's a mean man, an evil man. He lived with us for two
years, but we are clueless in trying to understand what happened."
Kristen's mother said Grell had been violent with the child in the
past.
And in a 911 call made to police Thursday night, a frantic Petruso
begged the dispatcher to protect her granddaughter from Grell, saying
he was taking anger-management and drug classes.
Details about Grell's childhood are sketchy. He gave police two names
and birth dates when he was arrested involving a robbery in 1995. Court
records show he was born either in Kokomo, Ind., or Indonesia.
Petruso described Grell as a seventh-grade dropout whose mother lives
in the Valley. But Petruso said she has not had any dealings with the
woman.
Grell admitted using marijuana and methamphetamines and has arrests for
shoplifting and traffic tickets, court records said.
Family friend Beth Gandy said she met Salem and Grell as runaways and
took Grell into her Mesa home hoping "that maybe he could straighten
his life out and get a job, get a house and help the family."
But Grell spent most of the three years in and out of her home stoned
or drunk. But even when he was drunk, Gandy said, he was just like a
big kid and would become goofy, not violent.
"I'm still in shock," she said. "There are too many emotions involved
in this. . . . I can't stop thinking about it. I have nightmares in my
sleep, and I picture her crawling around on the floor."
Republic reporters Victoria Harker and Brent Whiting contributed to
this report.
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Before you buy.
Patty
Kristen Salem fell asleep in the car as her father took her on a drive
to see the Christmas lights. She awoke in a shallow ditch east of Mesa
when he doused her with gasoline.
Seconds later, authorities said, Shawn Ryan Grell set his 2 1/2-year-
old daughter ablaze. Kristen survived long enough to crawl 10 feet
before finally succumbing to the flames.
snip
He placed the sleeping girl on the cold desert ground and poured the
gasoline over her body, waking her. Then, authorities said, he lit a
match and tossed it on her.
"He gets in the vehicle once it's (the girl's body is) fully
engulfed . . . drives up and down the road waiting for the flames to
die out," Trombi said. "When it's safe to go back, he checks whether or
not his daughter is dead."