(Ashland, OH) -- Suspected Ashland serial killer Shawn Grate's trial is being delayed. An Ashland County judge moved the start of jury selection yesterday from November 6, to April 9, to give defense experts more time to prepare.
Grate, 41, is charged with 23 counts is facing the death penalty for the kidnapping, rape and murder of two women and the rape of a third in an Ashland home last year.
The bodies of Stacey Stanley, 43, and Elizabeth Griffith, 29, were recovered Sept. 13 in an abandoned house at 363 Covert Court near downtown Ashland.
Autopsy reports indicate both women were strangled.
Grate also faces kidnapping and rape charges connected to a third woman who called 911 from the house, saying she had been abducted.
He's also linked to murders in Richland and Marion counties.
Police say he is suspected in the 2015 death of Rebekah Leicy, of Mansfield, whose body was found in Ashland County woods, and the death of an unidentified woman whose body was discovered in Marion County in 2007.
Grate has been in jail for nearly a year.