A serial-killer obsessed woman from Hampshire has been jailed for life after murdering her boyfriend. Shaye Groves, 27, will serve at least 23 years in prison after slitting Frankie Fitzgerald's throat and stabbing him seventeen times in the chest in July 2022. Groves killed Fitzgerald after she discovered that he'd been contacting someone else. She was sentenced at Winchester Crown Court on February 22 this year.
The five-week trial heard that Groves had tried to portray herself as his 'victim' and that she used tips from true crime documentaries to plan her alibi. The jury were told the pair shared a mutual interest in BDSM, and a camera was set up in Groves' bedroom at her home in Havant to record them having sex.
Prosecutors said Groves edited footage to make it appear she had been raped and sent that to a friend to set up a fake narrative of being abused by Fitzgerald. Groves said their on-off relationship had become increasingly ‘volatile’. Messages from Frankie were read to the court including one which read: ‘You’re mine and mine only.’
The body of Frankie, who was described as ‘a shining light’ by his family, was discovered by police at a house on Botley Drive on Sunday 17 July 2022. The court heard how officers were called to the address following a report that a man was believed to be seriously injured at the property. A post-mortem found that the cause of his death was multiple stab wounds. Groves, also of Botley Drive, had previously denied the charge.
In what is clearly a tragedy for Frankie Fitzgerald's family and loved ones, elements in the media made much of Shaye Groves' 'goth' image. Stories such as the goth pair beaten to death in recent years, not to mention the now practically exonerated case of Marilyn Manson in the US, must mitigate against reading too much into Groves' fashion identification. Most people adhering to dramatically dark fashions don't attempt to frame their partners for rape or go on so brutally murder them in an apparent fit of jealousy.
The evident toxicity in this relationship is clear, and the Judge commented on its being a 'crime of passion'. The entitled projection Groves appeared to be displaying is one aspect of the post-MeToo culture this couple found themselves struggling within. Sometimes situations can tip over into grim tragedy, denying a young man of the rest of his life - and his loved ones of sharing in it.
By Sean Bw Parker
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