In 2016, Grayden Denham was given four life sentences plus an extra 115 years in prison for k*illing his grandparents, sister, and three-month-old nephew.
When firefighters arrived at a fire in Edgerton, Missouri, on February 19, 2016, they found four bodies. Each of them had a penny on or near their eye in a copy of scenes from the movie The Boondock Saints. A family member named Grayden Denham had shot and burned each of them.
Russell and Shirley Denham, his sister Heather Ager, and her three-month-old son Mason Schiavoni were all ki*lled by Denham. He has now been given four life sentences plus 115 years in prison. He also shot Jack, the family dog, in the head and k*illed him.
Eric Zahnd, the prosecutor for Platte County, said, “This defendant kil*led his whole family, including the family dog.” “”I think this is the first and only quadruple mu*rder in Platte County.” Let’s hope it’s the last one. But it is right and proper that the person who did these horrible things die in jail.
On December 20, 2021, Denham was found guilty of four counts of first-degree mur*der, four counts of armed criminal action, mistreatment of animals, second-degree arson, and theft.
During the trial, Denham’s lawyer, Patrick Berrigan, tried to convince the judges that he was having mental health issues. “These aren’t first-degree mur*ders,” he said to make it clear why Denham was hearing voices.
What the prosecution said, on the other hand, was that Grayden Denham’s attack on his family was planned and planned out.
Denham had told a neighbor two weeks before the mu*rder, “Grandma and Grandpa don’t have much longer to live anymore,” which Zahnd said was a scary message.
Denham also bought three gas cans at a nearby Walmart on the day of the m*urder, February 19, 2016, and filled them up at a truck stop nearby. After that, he went to the house of his grandparents at 4170 Buena Vista Road.
As the “horrific night” went on, Zahnd said Denham shot his grandmother, sister, three-month-old nephew, and family dog in the head. He shot some of his victims more than once before setting the whole area on fire.
Vince Roberts, a neighbor who saw the fire at 11:30 p.m., said, “It was pretty scary.” Roberts went over to look into it and saw several “mannequins” in the yard. These he recognized as Denham’s victims. To the east of the house, Russell Denham was found. In the front yard, Shirley Denham, Heather Ager, and Mason Schiavoni were found.
A penny was also found on or near the eyes of the victims, including Jack the dog. At Grayden Denham’s trial, his ex-girlfriend said that he was crazy about the movie The Boondock Saints, in which characters put pennies in the eyes of their victims.
After the kil*lings, Grayden Denham drove off in his grandmother’s car. He drove almost 1,000 miles to Arizona, where police found him walking around naked near an elementary school. Later, witnesses said that he was having more and more problems with his family, including a fight with his grandfather the day before the m*urders, and that he was also using methamphetamine.
In 2016, his mother, Shelly, said she didn’t think her son was guilty.
“I’m still sure he had nothing to do with anything,” she said at the time. “I want people to know that he’s not the monster that they’re making him out to be… “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
“Nobody can understand what it’s like to lose your whole family at once,” she said after he was recently sentenced. Before, my house was always full of people and things… February 19th.”
Zahnd said he was happy with how the case turned out. Zahnd thinks Denham will spend the rest of his life in prison, but Denham plans to appeal his sentence.
“For these truly awful mur*ders, that’s a just and reasonable consequence,” he stated.
“I’m happy for the family members, especially the family members of that three-month-old infant, Mason Schiavoni, that justice has been served and Grayden Denham will spend his final days in a Missouri state prison.”
