The Misery Machine - The Case of Shaye Groves + Frankie Fitzgerald

Starting point is 00:00:00 Frankie Fitzgerald was the youngest of five children born to parents Barry and Roseanne of Wimmering Portsmouth, a city on the south coast of England known for its naval base. He was raised in his family's home on Halstead Road alongside his four siblings. His mother described him as The Shining Light, a kind and beautiful person. Frankie was described by his close-knit family as a jovial and comedic sweetheart who cared deeply for his friends. He attended the former King Richard School, which was later renamed Castleview Academy, in March of 2018. He later went on to work as a plumber in Havent Hampshire, a town just northeast of Fort Smith. By the time that Frankie was 25 years old, he had fathered two children with a woman

Starting point is 00:00:42 named Charlene Scut. But things were not all sunshine and roses in the Fitzgerald Scott household. Frankie, who was once described as a caring friend, had become a violent partner with a history of DV issues. In February of 2022, Frankie met 27-year-old Shea Groves while on a night out with friends. Soon, the two began a tumultuous on-again-off-again relationship that was complicated with hard drug and alcohol use. Shea Groves had a troubled childhood marred with health issues and alleged abuse. At the age of 11, she began wearing hearing aids due to being partially death. By age 13, it became apparent to those around her that Shea was not only a danger to herself, as she was inflicting injuries to her own legs, but others as well. This will become an ongoing theme in

Starting point is 00:01:32 Shay's life as her story progresses. One particular incident, she threatened to slice someone with a scalpel. She also regularly carried a knife with her. Due to this, she was evaluated for mental health issues around the age of 14 and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. As a teenager, Shea went off the rails using drugs and alcohol on a regular basis. She became withdrawn and only hung out with a few close friends. Shea left home early and entered into what was described as a series of abusive relationships. At age 21, She gave birth to a little girl named Marissa. Her relationship with her daughter's father, Ashley Wingham, was described as safe and caring. Just before her daughter was born,

Starting point is 00:02:13 she was diagnosed with C-PTSD or complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Wanting to sort herself out, she stopped drug use and sought mental health care. However, Shea left her child's father not long after to live in a woman's shelter with her daughter. Around this time, she also became interested in alternative lifestyles. Shea began dressing in a goth aesthetic and obtained a number of tattoos and body piercings. Her friends said she always stood out in the crowd when they went out because of her clothing choices. However, they also noted that Shea had always been a bit strange, even as a child. In addition, She became fascinated with true crime, serial killers, and violent adult films, and began collecting blades, axes, and other weapons.

Starting point is 00:03:00 She kept a Celtic dagger in her pillow in a switchblade in her boot. She would later claim that she kept the dagger for religious rights, but there has been no evidence to suggest that this was the case. Baby in tow, She then moved in with her best friend, Lauren White. Lauren was a single mother who worked at a nearby KFC Russ. The two women lived together with her daughters in a house that Shea filled with pictures of serial killers, books about true crime, and security cameras that she kept running 24-7, including in her bedroom, a little detail that will become important later in our story.

Starting point is 00:03:38 Shea spent her free time binge-watching true crime videos, reading books about serial killers, and playing with her knife collection, as her young daughter, whom she had custody of, played with her dolls. Now, Lauren did not have many friends, and she relied heavily on Shea, who she felt was always there for her. However, her friendship with Shea was also very toxic and manipulative. Shea ordered Lauren around making her clean up after her, make her tea, roll her cigarettes, put on her socks, she basically treated her like a servant. Others noticed this behavior as well. Friends noted that Shea regularly bullied and engaged in controlling behavior with Lauren. At one point, she assaulted Lauren with a pair of

Starting point is 00:04:20 of nail clippers, only stopping when she realized she drew blood. As we mentioned previously, Shea met Frankie Fitzgerald in February of 2022. A pair quickly became enamored with one another and engaged in a relationship that a judge would later refer to as nothing if not passionate. Remember the security cameras we talked about earlier? Well, Shea used those cameras to film the couple's romantic encounters on a regular basis, which they would later watch together. their brand of romance wasn't particularly vanilla either. Shea and Frankie would engage in foreplay that involved humiliation. Frankie would refer to Shea as his dirty little whore, which according to court documents was a title she was happy to accept. Flash forward to March 12, 2022,

Starting point is 00:05:08 things had reached a breaking point in their relationship. Frankie started using Coke, a substance that Shea had stopped using after the birth of her daughter. The two began to argue after Frankie began pressuring Shea to use with him, which resulted in her resorting to some of her old behaviors. As we mentioned previously, Shea had a history of becoming a danger to herself and others. Its behavior caused fights in the couple's already toxic relationship. Frankie felt frustrated by Shea's unsafe behavior, expecting their relationship to be enough to make her happy. He thought he could just simply fix her. But Frankie wasn't without his own faults, as we discussed earlier.

Starting point is 00:05:48 Frankie was a jealous man and would often go through Shea's cell phone. Upon finding messages from her ex-boyfriend, he refused to allow her to leave and proceeded to destroy her belongings, which was captured on one of the many security cameras Shay had installed in her shared home. Following this incident, She began claiming to both Frankie and Lauren that she had cancer. However, this was all fabricated in order to elicit sympathy, control, and to receive money from those around her. As I'm sure one could imagine, She's existing, mental health issues affected her greatly throughout her relationship with Frankie. One day, she would be writing him love letters and telling her psychiatrist that Frankie was very loving and sweet when

Starting point is 00:06:29 not using drugs and alcohol. The next day, she would be writing notes to her father, threatening to self-cancel, claiming that she was staying with Frankie out of love. Later, the security camera in Shay's bedroom caught the couple on film in an intimate act that Shay consented to, but clearly was not enjoying. According to court documents, Shea stated that it was not the most romantic act, but proof of her love for Frankie. In this video, Shea complains that she's in pain and she wanted Frankie to stop, but he refused to. Throughout their six-month relationship, Frankie and Shea engaged in dangerous but consensual behavior in the bedroom. This often involved humiliation, knife play, beatings, and consensual non-consent with a safe word.

Starting point is 00:07:17 She also liked to keep that Celtic dagger in her pillowcase, a fact that Frankie allegedly found disturbing. On March 22nd, 2022, the couple signed a makeshift contract of sorts before Shea's friend Vicky Badeup, outlining the acts they consented to in their intimate relationship. On May 12, 2022, Frankie sent a barrage of jealous texts to Shea, calling her a f***ling slut, threatening to snap her in half if she was intimate with other people. people, adding that, cancer will be the least of your worries. On May 30th, Frankie decided Shea should be punished by being spanked a hundred times, spanking her 54 times in six minutes. She was required to respond to each slap with, sorry, Daddy, or I'll be a good girl for you, daddy.

Starting point is 00:08:07 Initially, Shea consented, but after 36 spanks began pleading with Frankie to stop, which he later refused. It's unclear why, as they did have a safe word in place. Remember, this was all caught on camera. She then edited the footage with the footage from March 12th where Frankie hadn't stopped when she asked to and included a picture of her red and raw backside. Over the next few months, the two engaged in physically violent arguments, which caused them to split up and get back together several times over the summer.

Starting point is 00:08:40 Each time they reunited, Frankie became more jealous and controlling of Shea. The two would engage in behaviors to make the other jealous, such as contacting exes and checking the message history and image gallery of the other's phone. They believed, even without any proof, that the other was unfaithful and accused each other of cheating with former partners regularly. In fact, Shea honestly believed that Frankie had contracted thrush from another woman, and that he was attempting to catfisher via Snapchat. Shea had kept a close friendship with one of her exes named Declam Payne, which Frankie became

Starting point is 00:09:13 increasingly jealous and violent over. The two both destroyed items and threatened the other one, causing Shea's friends to be concerned about her safety. Around this time, Shee began discussing her plot to bring physical harm to Frankie with her friend. Remember, there were cameras all over the house. Her friends did not take any of her threat seriously, and were actually more concerned that Frankie would hurt her. As Shea was, as they put it,

Starting point is 00:09:39 only a little skinny thing easily broken. Instead, they encouraged her to break up with him. On June 11, 2022, a drunk Shay went to Charlene Scutt's house with her daughter's father, Ashley Wingham. Charlene was Frankie's ex and the mother of his children. Expecting to find him there cheating on her, she dumped Frankie's clothing on her doorstep. Over the next few months, She regularly cheated on Frankie with Declan Payne. She even had Frankie and her new lover over at different times on the same day.

Starting point is 00:10:11 Shea filmed all of the interactions and later threatened to upload the explicit videos to Frankie's Facebook to ruin his life. She also threatened to have her male friends attack Frankie in the alleyway. The police investigated the plot but no charges were pressed. Now, around this time, Shea removed the cameras from her room, which coincided with an allegation of S.A. she made against Frankie. While having an otherwise consensual act of intimacy, Shea claimed that Frankie performed an act known as sunflowering on her, causing her incredible pain. I'm not about to explain to you what that is. Feel free to Google or don't.

Starting point is 00:10:56 Meanwhile, something very serious was going on in Shea's household. Remember Shea's friend Vicky Baita? The one that witnessed Frankie and Shea's intimacy contracts? Well, it was discovered that Vicky's seven-year-old son may have essayed Shea's now five-year-old daughter. The incident was reported to social services on July 8th, but it's unclear what became of that report. On July 14th, 2022, Frankie found messages from Declan after going through Shea's phone, in which the messages Shea was comparing each of their sizes. As a result, Frankie did what he always did.

Starting point is 00:11:36 He made threats, he punched holes in the wall, and he destroyed Shay's possessions. Yel's proceeded to talk about his exes and called Shea by his ex-girlfriend Vicky's name in bed. After hearing him say this, Shea threatened to stab Frankie. Following day, Shea discussed the incident with her friend Vicky Beta, not to be confused with Frankie's ex-Vicky. She expressed her concern about Shea's safety, but Shea assured her she was willing to use the weapons she collected on Frankie if she's. needed to. July 16th, 2022, after the blowout two days prior, Frankie went to Shay's house to spend the night. Shea's daughter was not home, but her roommate Lauren was. They did coke and drank beer, all the while trying to sneak glimpses at each other's phones. Shea sent texts to Declan

Starting point is 00:12:25 while Frankie gambled online. At some point, Frankie used Shay's phone to tell Declan that he should stop texting his girlfriend. At 1.20 a.m., Frankie went through her. her phone a second time and found that Declan was among Shea's Snapchat friends. Lauren witnessed this encounter and texted Vicky Beta, concern that things could get dangerous. In the early morning hours of July 17, 2022, Shea was upstairs in her room searching through Frankie's phone and found he was messaging a girl who claimed she was 13 years old. Shea did not realize that upon finding out the girl was 13, Frankie had blocked her. In court documents, it is shown that the girl was actually 17 but still a minor.

Starting point is 00:13:10 She took a picture of the message at 3.12 a.m. before turning her rage on Frankie. While Frankie was asleep in Shea's bed, she took the dagger she kept under her pillow and stabbed him fatally in the neck before stabbing him in the heart and chest 19 times. An autopsy later showed that his left internal jugular vein was completely severed, and the left comment and carotid artery partially severed, causing torrential bleeding and rapid loss of consciousness and death. His body showed multiple perforations of the heart and lungs with no defensive injuries. According to Shea, she saw a bubbling coming out of Frankie's throat and realized he was dead when his chest wasn't moving. She then wrapped him in a duvet and began crafting her alibi while cleaning the blood from her room. This is where Shea starts spinning her stories. She called her

Starting point is 00:14:04 ex Ashley Wingham shortly after killing Frankie, which he later lied about in court. She also sent messages to Vicky claiming initially that Frankie had left the house safely. She and her roommate, Lauren White, placed garbage bags under Frankie's body. Shea told Lauren that she is an accomplice to the murder and manipulated her into helping with the cleanup. She did not immediately call the police, instead using that time to cover Frankie's body and clean up the blood. Four hours later, at 7 a.m., Shea video called Vicki again, showing her the body and giggling as she cleaned up the mess. She told her friends that she snapped after catching him messaging a 13-year-old girl and killed him in a fit of passion. She discussed with Vicky

Starting point is 00:14:45 her plan to stage it as if Frankie had done it to himself out of shame and her plan to bury his body in the backyard. In a later interview with police, Vicky said the first messages from Shea said they argued and Frankie had stormed out. During the video chat hours later, Vicky said Shea was giggling and having a normal conversation with her, asking how her weekend was. She heard Lauren asked Shea in the background if she was going to tell Vicky what happens, when Shea made Vicky promise not to tell anyone before admitting to killing Frankie, saying, I've done him. Shea showed Vicky his body in the enormous wound,

Starting point is 00:15:23 calmly explaining she caught Frankie texting a child and killed him in his sleep for it. At the end of her called a Vicky, Shea asked her if they were still full. friends. Vicky called emergency services shortly after the video call with Shea ended. When police arrived at Shea's home just after 8 a.m., they noted that her room smelled strongly of bleach. In video footage, Shea is calm and collected, smoking a cigarette as police enter her home. She told the police she killed Frankie in self-defense after he violently attacked her. In addition, Lauren refused to give the police the PIN number to access her phone. Over time, Shea told several lies about what happened that night, both the friends and the police.

Starting point is 00:16:08 She shared footage of herself and Frankie being intimate, edited to make it look like he had assaulted her so she could spin a story about how she killed him in self-defense. We're going through over 4,000 hours of security footage from the cameras Shea had set up around her house, was found that the videos were deliberately edited to be taken out of context. And within context, the interactions were consensual. During interrogations with police officers, Shea initially refused to comment, till the third interview where she maintained her claim of killing Frankie in self-defense, staging her as a victim. Later, she told a mental health nurse that she did not deserve a blanket because she had taken a man's life and said what she had done was inhuman.

Starting point is 00:16:51 She wrote a letter of apology to Frankie's family and children one week before her sentencing. It was not enough to earn her sympathy from the judge. During a grueling five-week trial, Shea pled not guilty, using her knowledge gained from true crime videos to stage herself as a victim of Frankie's abuse. During her testimony, she showed the heavily edited video she made, at the end of which Frankie is heard to say, that was a bit riepy, wasn't it? Shea made herself out to be a victim, claiming that Frankie was awake and attacked her first. She claimed that she was afraid Frankie would choke her to death after finding the messages on his phone. And in October after her arrest, she told doctors during an assessment that she defended herself with a metal money box, which was what cut Frankie's neck open.

Starting point is 00:17:42 She claimed that she stabbed him afterwards to make the bubbling stop. She was seen making jokes in court as Frankie's mother, father, sister, and the mother of his children made statements. She smiled as she was issued her sentence. During sentencing, Winchester Crown Court Judge Care commented, Ms. Badeup said accurately that your life was a complete mess. On February 17, 2023, Shea Groves was found guilty of murder. Following the verdict, the Fitzgerald family released the following statement. As a parent, you never expect to outlive your children.

Starting point is 00:18:19 You'll do anything in your power to protect them. Frankie was our baby, the youngest of five children, he can never be replaced. He was a kind and beautiful person and sadly leaves two children behind that will never get to know their daddy. We thank the jury for their verdict today. To our Frankie, we love and miss you more than anything in this world. Your shining light will always be our hearts. Senior investigating officer detective chief inspector Nicola Burton shared the following. This was a shocking and sustained.

Starting point is 00:18:51 attack which tragically resulted in Frankie's death. You're pleased with today's sentence and that Groves will now spend a considerable length of time in prison for what she has done. As always, our thoughts first and foremost remain with Frankie's family, friends, and loved ones. I would like to praise their courage and hope that this sentence helps them to begin to move forward, despite knowing that nothing can fill the void left in their family by the loss of Frankie. We will do everything we can to investigate and bring to justice, those responsible for such horrific crimes. The details disclosed in court were distressing for all to hear.

Starting point is 00:19:28 I am pleased that the jury has reached this verdict and that Groves has been brought to justice following tireless work from our local policing teams, detectives, specialist teams, and the Crown Prosecution Service. I would encourage any victim of domestic abuse to find the courage to come forward and tell us about it. She was sentenced to life in prison

Starting point is 00:19:48 with a minimum term of 23 years on February, 23rd of the same year. Her roommate, Lauren White, was also taken into custody over failing to release her phone password to the police. She was released on bail in relation to the murder. Fred's and family held a tribute to Frankie on July 18th, releasing balloons and sharing loving statements and memories about him. There was no obituary, funeral information, or grave information available. He is survived by his loving family and two children. His family grieves the loss of a vibrant and beloved soul and worries for the future of his children. In his statement, his family said,

Starting point is 00:20:32 Frankie was a loving father, brother, and son. He was the light of our lives and we will miss his kindness, his happy smile, and the fun person that he was. Frankie had a large number of friends and family, and this news has left us all devastated. This case was a difficult. one for us because in many ways both Shea and Frankie were both

Starting point is 00:20:56 perpetrators and victims of the others' abuse at different points in the story. This was an extremely toxic relationship and it's pretty obvious that the two of them shouldn't have been together at all. At any point they could have

Starting point is 00:21:12 broken up and stayed separated but instead they kept going back to one another like a moth to a flame for whatever reason. In the end, this twisted romance ended in cold-blooded murder. If you are someone you know finds themselves the victim of DV, please reach out for help because there are resources available out there for you. Like I said, this case was pretty difficult to unpack.

Starting point is 00:21:40 Let us know your thoughts about the case in the comment section down below.

The Misery Machine - The Case of Shaye Groves + Frankie Fitzgerald

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