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A ‘possessive’ true crime fanatic who had framed photos of serial killers on her wall murdered her boyfriend in his sleep after discovering he had been texting a teenage girl, a court heard today.
Shaye Groves was ‘obsessed’ with her lover Frankie Fitzgerald because of her ‘bedroom performance’, with the couple’s sex life involving bondage, domination, submission and masochism, jury have been told.
Groves, whose home features portraits of assassins, is alleged to have launched a ‘passionate’ attack on her lover as he lay in bed, stabbing him 22 times and causing ‘catastrophic’ blood loss, the court heard.
She then proceeded to make a ‘false alibi’ for herself, inspired by tips from true crime documentaries to avoid getting caught, the court heard.
Shaye Groves, pictured, was ‘obsessed’ with her lover Frankie Fitzgerald because of his ‘bedroom performance,’ a court heard
The 27-year-old mother-of-one tried to “cover her ass” by texting her friend after the attack, saying Mr Fitzgerald had left her address and called the same friend “laughing” about the incident, she was told to court. .
Groves denies killing him in a “crime of passion” at his home in Havant, Hants, on July 17 last year.
Opening the case at Winchester Crown Court, Hampshire, prosecutor Steven Perian said Groves and Fitzgerald had rekindled an old relationship after meeting in a pub in Cosham, Hampshire, in January last year.
Addressing the jury, Mr. Perian said: “Her sex life involved bondage, domination, submission and masochism – BDSM.”
Frankie Fitzgerald, pictured, was allegedly stabbed 22 times by his lover and suffered “catastrophic” blood loss.
“It’s likely that she was obsessed with Frankie Fitzgerald because of her acting in the bedroom.
‘The prosecution’s case is that the defendant is a manipulative, possessive and jealous woman.
“She stabbed Frankie Fitzgerald multiple times and left him to die without any help.”
He added: “When she stabbed him multiple times, she intended to kill him or at least cause him grievous bodily harm.”
It is very likely that the murder was a crime of passion driven by his jealousy.
The court heard video of Groves calling her friend, Vikki Baitup, after the alleged murder, and “admitted to the murder.”
Police on the scene in Boltley Drive, Havant, after the alleged murder of Mr Fitzgerald
Telling the jury about the call, Mr. Perian continued: “The defendant went to the bedroom three times and showed the body of Frankie Fitzgerald covered with a duvet.
He said that they were lying in bed together and that Frankie Fitzgerald was asleep.
“The defendant was checking his messages and saw that he had been talking to a 13-year-old girl. Then, while Mr. Fitzgerald slept, she put a dagger to his throat and woke him up. She moved and they began to fight.
Groves told Ms Baitup that she “just went crazy” and “stabbed him in the neck”.
He continued: ‘While the defendant was on video chat, she could be seen wiping down the bloody bookshelf. She showed a book and it showed blood stains.
Reporting the incident to the police, Ms Baitup said: “I see crime scenes but this is all too real – I had a huge wound on my neck.”
“Ms. Baitup recalls at some point during the video chat hearing Lauren White, a lady who lives with the defendant, say ‘I’m going to break,'” he added.
“The defendant told Ms. White: ‘You can’t figure out you’re an accessory, you put the garbage bags under her body.'”
The court heard that Groves had sent a message to Ms Baitup to create a ‘false alibi’ in order to ‘cover her ass’ where she claimed that Mr Fitzgerald had ‘abandoned’ her and that it was all ‘over’ between the two of them.
The court heard that in the phone call with Ms Baitup, Groves explained his logic, saying that Mr Fitzgerald had been “suicidal anyway” and that “it was fine, they’ll just assume he went off and killed himself”.
“When asked what she was going to do with the body, the defendant replied ‘okay, we’ll bury it in the back garden,'” Perian said.
Reporting the incident to the police, Ms Baitup said: “I see crime scenes but this is all too real – I had a huge wound on my neck.”
Jurors listened to a pathologist’s report, explaining that Mr. Fitzgerald was stabbed 17 times in the front of the chest, twice in other areas of the chest, and three times in the neck, resulting in his death after “multiple perforations to the heart and lungs” and “catastrophic blood.” loss’.
Footage of officers arriving on scene was played to the court, who reported an “incredibly strong” bleach odor in the bedroom.
Groves could be heard saying: ‘I was going to call you myself. I don’t know what the fuck happened.
She also claimed that he tried to hurt her and said that she had video footage of him raping and attacking her.
‘He is dead. He’s in my room, he’s a mess, he really is a mess.
‘I still took someone’s life. The knife I used is in the sink – the cut on his neck is pretty brutal, when I put it to his neck he turned around.
Jurors were informed that there was a previous event where Mr. Fitzgerald had called Groves by his ex-girlfriend’s name, and Groves had wanted to “pick my dagger straight into her neck.”
The court heard that Groves had also made plans to use an ex-boyfriend and her cousin to ‘beat him up’ and was even willing to ‘ask one of them to kick me’ so that she too would ‘look like a victim’.
“These provide insight into the mind of the defendant to plan an attack on Mr. Fitzgerald and design a situation where he appears to be a victim,” he said.
Explaining how she knew how to ‘engineer’ this situation, she continued: ‘The defendant had a lot of gangster books, like Charles Bronson.
He has framed photos of serial killers on the wall and watches murder documentaries.
‘The Crown says that by reading and viewing this she was familiar: a crime scene, how to create a false narrative and how to create a false alibi.
“When you hear the evidence, you can conclude that she created a false narrative that: she was abused, she created a false alibi that she sent to Vikki Baitup, and she cleaned up the crime scene by watching the documentaries.”
Groves denies the murder, claiming he acted in self-defense. The trial, which is expected to last four weeks, continues.