Platte County man found guilty of murdering 4 family members, burning house to the ground
A Platte County jury on Tuesday found 30-year-old Grayden Lane Denham guilty in the 2016 quadruple homicide of four family members, including a baby.
The jury found Denham guilty of four counts each of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the shooting deaths of his grandparents Russell Denham, 82, and Shirley Denham, 81; his sister Heather Ager, 32; and her 3-month-old son, Mason Schiavoni. Their burned bodies were found outside a home near Edgerton, Missouri, on February 19, 2016.
The jury, after deliberating for about two hours, also found him guilty of second-degree arson for setting fire to the family’s home at 4170 Buena Vista Road in rural Platte County; animal abuse for shooting the family dog and stealing his grandmother’s car and driving it to Arizona, where police arrested him as he walked around naked, according to court documents.
Sentencing was set for 9 a.m. Feb. 25.
Prosecutors alleged that Denham murdered them all and set their bodies and the family home near Edgerton, Missouri, on fire on the night of Feb. 19, 2016. The victims had been shot in the head, some multiple times.
Denham fled in his grandmother’s car, changing the license plates twice along the way, before stopping at motel in Seligman, Arizona, where here he stripped out of his clothes that had fuel and gunshot residue on them, prosecutors alleged.
This story was originally published December 15, 2021 at 7:04 AM.
