S02E04: THE TARA GRINSTEAD CASE

When high school teacher Tara Grinstead vanishes without a trace in October 2005, nobody could have anticipated the years-long mystery that would surround her disappearance. After leaving a friend’s barbecue on the evening of October 22, Tara was never seen or heard from again. With every discovery in the case only leading to more questions than answers, a slew of clues, tips and possible suspects makes for a missing persons case unlike any other. This wild story has a ton of twists and turns (even a few red herrings!) and highlights the power of a podcast- an investigation into the case in season one of the acclaimed “Up and Vanished” podcast led to a break in the investigation 12 years later, and ultimately an arrest.

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EPISODE RESOURCES:

Up and Vanished podcast. Host: Payne Lindsay. Season One. https://season1.upandvanished.com/

Court TV: 6/29/21 On The Docket: Beauty Queen Murder Case

https://www.courttv.com/title/6-29-21-on-the-docket-beauty-queen-murder-case/

CBS News:
Tara Grinstead murder: Did authorities miss leads that could have potentially solved the case over a decade ago?  By Peter Van Sant, September 4, 2021 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tara-grinstead-ryan-duke-authorities-leads-in-case/

Transcript

 Coming up on this episode of crime family. So, this is like a super creepy thing that is happening. This guy's obviously like freaked out. , the "catch me killer," and he claims that he has killed 16 females.  he's like crawling on his hands and knees with these people under the crawl space of their house

what is this case? 

Why would somebody do that?     

There's a lot to unpack here. So settle in.

 Hey everyone. Welcome to crime family. So today I'm going to talk about the Tara Grinstead case. And if you want like a really in-depth telling of this case, check out the  Up and  Vanished podcast, season one with Payne Lindsey, if you haven't already. I'm going to summarize a lot of what was uncovered in that podcast here.

So Payne Lindsey was a documentary filmmaker, turned podcaster. and so  his  whole first season is based on Tara's case. 

And what's really interesting about this podcast is that he has  the private investigator named Maurice Godwin that worked Tara's case involved with him, allowing him to get some inside information and explore deeper into the case than would be possible with just typical research.

So when the Up and Vanished podcast first started, there was no suspects and no leads in this case, it had basically gone cold. And Maurice the private investigator said that this case is the largest case file in Georgia's history. So I think this is like a really good example of why some investigations take so long to solve or why some gets solved.

The police get pulled in so many directions and often in the wrong direction, unintentionally sometimes intentionally as well. I'm going to go into some multiple, theories that were brought forward. Some red herrings situations that come up in this case, kind of throwing everyone off, but maybe overall were necessary to eventually finding out the truth.

So the story goes back and forth before Tara disappeared to the initial investigation. And then more recently to Payne's investigation, which started in early 2016. So whenever I talk about Payne and his podcast and  his investigation, remember that this is all information coming from like 11 or 12 years after Tara disappeared.

So do you guys know anything about this case at all before I dive in?

Not really. Uh, like I think the name is kind of familiar and maybe when you get into some of the details, it'll like trigger a memory of it or something, but no, I don't really know. And definitely not like extensively. I'm excited to listen.

Yeah. The name doesn't sound familiar and neither does the case. Like I have no idea what this case is about, so I'm very interested to hear, to hear it and see what it's about.

 Okay. So I'll get right into it. There's a lot to unpack here. So settle in. Okay. So Tara Grinstead lived in Ocilla, Georgia and the population of that town was about 3,500 people.

So that's like really similar in size to where we grew up  . I can imagine it was probably like a really close knit community. Everybody knew each other had that kind of like small town dynamic.  Tara was a high school teacher and she was 30 years old and she lived alone at the time of her disappearance.

So everything starts on Saturday, October 22nd, 2005. Tara went to a local beauty pageant during the day. So Tara was a former beauty queen herself. She had entered pageants to try and raise money for college. And so she stayed involved with that scene as she really enjoyed it. She was a pageant coach to many of the other girls in Ocilla.

She helped them get rid of her pageants, did their makeup, that kind of thing. On this particular day after the pageant, Tara went to a barbecue, get together with some of her friends.  This was just about like eight blocks away from her own home. After hanging out for a few hours after 11:00 PM, she heads home on her own. People at the party said there was nothing unusual about Tara's behavior at all.

Everything seemed normal. That Monday, so October 24th, Tara was absent from work. So she worked at the high school as a history teacher. And this is the first red flag it seems for almost everyone in Tara's life, as it is in many cases, like we see this a lot, people don't show up and that's kind of where everyone gets alarmed.

Um, so this is not typical behavior for Tara. And so her colleagues call the police that same day. So I think even before 9:00 AM that morning, the police are called. But before the police were called, a couple of Tara's colleagues reportedly went over to her house to check on her. And one of her neighbours, Joe had a spare key to her house and he let them in.

And when they didn't find Tara, Joe called the police  . They saw her car parked in the driveway. They go into her house, take a look around. There was no sign of Tara or any indication of where she might've been. The neighbours were an elderly couple.

So there was Joe and his wife and they were pretty close to Tara. They kind of like watched over her. They said that every night they noticed that Tara's little lamp by the window would come on. And that's how they knew that she was home. And they kind of looked for that lamp light every night to know that she was safe and sound at home.

But that Saturday night they noticed that her lamp never got turned on. So officer, Bill Hancock was the first one on the scene and there's very subtle things that caught his eye inside her house. The house was almost like pristine, basically. I guess Tara was one of those people that kept like a really neat and tidy house.

And on this day, there was nothing really different about that. Except for like a few little things. They noticed that the lampshade in her room was askew, like as if it had fallen off the table and someone put it back up. Some sources say that this lamp was actually broken. Her alarm clock, which was usually on her nightstand was on the floor.

Her cell phone was still in a room in the charger. Her purse and keys were missing and her car was unlocked and the driver's seat was pushed back as if someone taller than Tara had like been in that seat and had to push it back to make it comfortable for them to drive. They also found beads from a necklace all over the floor.

And probably the strangest thing though, with the lead investigator, Bill Hancock also noticed a latex glove that was found outside near her front step. And there was a business card that was wedged in her front door. So of course they take the glove and they test it for DNA. And there is Tara's DNA found on the glove and there's also a profile of a white male, but it didn't match anyone in their database.

And according to Maurice, that private investigator, they swabbed over 200 people in addition to putting it into CODUS so like the national database and there was no match. But the thing in Georgia, I guess apparently, you have to be convicted of a felony to be swabbed. Or you have to give them permission to swab you for DNA.

And if you don't give them permission then they actually need to have probable cause enough to get a search warrant or a warrant to be able to obtain a swab. So I guess they can't use some of those tactics that we often hear, like the police would be like stalking somebody, watching them go out to like fast food steal their fork or their straw once they throw it out.

Like, I guess they're not allowed to do that in Georgia because it has to be consentual. So they have all these people in the database, but it doesn't match anybody. And,  they swab over 200 people, like I said, so just backing up a little bit, the day before Tara was reported missing. So this is Sunday, October 23rd.

Tara's mom had called a family friend named Heath Dykes to go and check on Tara, because Tara was supposed to meet up with her for lunch that day, but she didn't show up. And then Tara wasn't answering any of her calls or responding to her messages. So Heath who was actually a police officer in a nearby town called Perry, goes to check on Tara that night or early morning of the 24th.

So probably around midnight before Tara was reported missing. There's no answer from Tara and he leaves his business card wedged in her front door. So that explains where that business card comes from. So Perry is about like an hour, an hour and a half drive. So he drove an hour and a half to go check on Tara.

Doesn't find her, leaves, his business card wedged in the front door and then drives back home. 

Wait, who is this person again? 

 So his name is Heath Dykes and he was a family friend of Tara and her family. And, but he was a police officer who worked in a nearby town called Perry. So he was like, he was like, unofficially, just doing a favor for Tara's mom to go check on her, but doesn't find her knock on the door. She doesn't answer. And then just like leaves his business card and bails, which is weird for a police officer. 

So after searching Tara's house, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations or the GBI concludes that there was no sign of a struggle at Tara's house, or there wasn't any like prominent signs of a struggle.

But that's not what Maurice, the private investigator thinks. So Maurice was actually, wasn't hired until March of 2006. So that's like five months after Tara disappeared. So he's like coming in at a little bit of a disadvantage for sure. Maurice, when he's hired, spends like two days just searching the whole house.

And he explains that Tara's house has really old wooden floors and they have like those spaces in between the floorboards and he's looking through there and he finds a clasp from a necklace. So those beads that I had mentioned earlier that were collected from the GBI for evidence, they didn't find this clasp obviously.

And so they couldn't conclude whether like the necklace just broke accidentally or if it had ripped off or something like, or just came apart. But Maurice describes that this class had been pulled apart by force though. He also finds pieces of broken plastic from the headboard of her bed. And the bedpost was split into  two with pieces found under the bed. He also lifts a rug up by her bed that he says was still stuck to the floor. So it was clear that the GBI had like never even lifted that rug to check if there was any evidence underneath it or anything. So Maurice concludes that the GBI did like a really awful search of Tara's house. Cause he searched the house and found all these things that they had missed.

 I'm going to back up a little bit more to talk about Tara's state of mind leading up to her disappearance. So earlier I had mentioned that people reported that at the night of the barbecue, after the pageant, Tara was acting normal and there was nothing alarming going on, but reportedly just eight days before she disappeared, she had a falling out with her ex-boyfriend named Marcus Harper and she reportedly had almost like a mental breakdown. She couldn't even walk and she had to get a doctor to carry her from her car, into her house. She had written multiple emails to Marcus's mother and to her stepmother Connie during this time leading up to her disappearance.

So from like the end of September, until like into the middle of October, she was writing emails saying I don't understand what I did to make Marcus hate me. She was saying she was so depressed, she's getting weaker. And she quotes, just remind Marcus what I said about something happening to me or even him. If he leaves it like this, something may happen to me. End quote. 

And so she seems really distraught about her kind of break up with Marcus. So one girl who attended the pageant that night of the barbecue was close to Tara because Tara was her pageant coach and she knew Tara was always like really bubbly and positive, but she noticed that there was something not normal about her that night at the pageant. She was acting really odd and out of it . She remembers asking Tara, if there was anything wrong and Tara was just like, no, everything's fine.

But this person also said that Tara had like a new guy at the parade a couple of weeks prior. And her ex boyfriend wasn't happy about it at all. So there's like mixed reports here about, you know, Tara being upset, her boyfriend being upset and kind of her state of mind, all of these mixed reports about the circumstances leading up to her disappearance.

So I can imagine how it'd be hard to like figure out what's true, what's speculation, what people think they heard people think they saw leading up to all this happening. So Payne Lindsey who was doing this podcast is finding out about all of this as he continues  to  talk to  people in the town, during his investigation. When Payne first starts investigating, he just starts like cold calling anyone and everyone that he can think of who may know anything about this case.

And everyone, he gets a hold of hangs up on him right away, as soon as he mentions Tara's name. And Maurice also mentions that when he started investigating everyone in the town kind of clammed up right away and didn't want to talk to him either. So right away, you get this like sketchy vibe. I don't know if it's sketchy, but this vibe that people are just like scared to talk. You know, don't want to talk. They want to keep things private. Don't want to dig things up from the past. So just remember when Payne's talking to these people, it's like 11 years after everything happened with Tara.

 At this point, the case is cold. So maybe people just, you know, are don't want to talk about it. They just want to move on. But word around town does get out that Payne is making a podcast about the case and people start to get a little bit more talkative and it leads to kind of like a slew of like weird unfounded stories, situations coming out.

A man named Dusty Vassey, he was a reporter that was involved when Tara went missing. He comes forward to talk to Payne and he takes him to this like rundown building, where the roof is leaking and there's like buckets to catch the water coming through the roof. And that's where a bunch of news archives are kept.

They find Tara's news articles from when she went missing and they find like a bunch of her old missing posters, but the posters are all cut up. And so Dusty and Payne like feel a little chill when they see all these posters chopped up. They feel like there's nothing to worry about about it, but it's just like that weird feeling. Like why is this happening kind of thing? So that was kind of sketchy vibe. 

It feels like it's like a movie plot, like, oh, like this detective comes to town 12 years later to like dig up an old cold case. Like, it just sounds like a movie plot. 

I know, and that the way he does the podcast, it does feel like that you're like, what is actually happening?

It's like, it's, it's a really interesting podcast.

 I'm like intrigued. I'm like at the edge of my seat, I'm like what? 

So someone else also comes forward and claims that Tara's remains are buried in Cubee park in Ocilla. And she's claiming that this park was overlooked and not searched back in 2005.

This woman says that she had a revelation from God telling her that the remains were there and that's why she's coming forward now. Of course, nothing comes from this. This is just like an, a red herring. Yeah. People want to talk, they're coming forward now. 

Now they want to be on the podcast. 

So during Payne's investigation Maurice gets a tip that Tara's body may have been, or is still buried under a house that had recently put in a service call about a broken air conditioning.

So the people, um, onsite said they came across a mound that looks like something had been buried in the crawl space under their house. So Payne actually goes onsite and he's like crawling on his hands and knees with these people under the crawl space of their house to get soil samples from this mound of dirt.

And he says the mound was like six feet long and three feet wide. So like perfect size to bury a body. They find what looks like lime in the soil samples, which, and people will like use lime because they think it will help decompose a body faster. But actually doesn't do that. Apparently it actually like preserves the body anyway.

That's what they think it is. But once the police hear about this, the police go and like do their own little dig to see what's going on. And they actually find five bones and a pair of women's underwear buried under this house. So the GBI later determined though that these are just animal bones. And they never mentioned the underwear after that.

Like it never comes up. And during the podcast,

that's just weird.

Yeah but, like who buries their pet underneath their house in their crawl space. And they're like, oh, maybe like someone buried their pet there, and the house was built on top of it, but like, why would this look like a fresh mound of dirt anyway, it's just really weird. That's the end of that. Nothing ever comes from that either.

So weird. 

Yeah. Payne also talks about February of 2009, a video surfaces on YouTube,  or just on the internet in general. And so it's a man and his voice and his face are disguised and   he gives himself the name, the "catch me killer," and he claims that he has killed 16 females. And one of them, is Tara. And he went on to say that he wanted to play a game and he would release clues about his different murders, depending on like how many people respond or watch his videos like that kind of thing. The police of course look into this and they trace his IP address and they find out that it's just like the sick hoax by a man named Andrew Haley.

He's a 27 year old man from Georgia. For whatever reason, he made this up. And he's actually charged and convicted with tampering with police evidence. So this throws police off -waste of time. Just another thing that comes up in this case, the people are just like what the hell? 

Why would somebody do that? We've seen it in, well, not a lot of our cases, but where people just want to like throw off the police. I don't understand what the, what the thrill is. 

I dunno. 

Some people are just like that. 

Like weird to me.

 Like, I just want to like be infamous or just want attention. I don't know. 

Really. And he got charged for it.

Yeah. And his YouTube video was like, he's like, you're not going to be able to trace my IP address. And then the police trace his IP address. They're like, nice try.

Was this some guy in his mother's basement or something? 

Yeah, basically. Yeah, because they're just some guy who's bored. I don't know, just trying to get lots of likes on his YouTube videos.

Um, Payne talks about another man he's in New York. He was walking through the woods one day and he comes across two dozen trees that were covered in missing persons posters. And one of them was Tara's missing persons poster. So, this is like a super creepy thing that is happening. This guy's obviously like freaked out.

He takes some video footage and he eventually calls the police who do go and investigate. They determined that a nearby house was decorating the woods for an upcoming Halloween party. There was nothing like malicious about it. Just another red herring waste of time, kind of like throw a wrench into this 

is seriously like a movie plot.

When you think about why it's taking so long for police to figure out what's going on, like you have so many directions they're going into and they have to follow up on all these leads when they turn out to be nothing. Like, I understand why, like sometimes it gets, it takes them so long. These are just some of the examples.

If you listen to this podcast, like it goes on forever, about these kinds of things. 

I mean, I will be honest. So like that like haunted house thing or whatever those people were planning with the creepy missing poster. That's I want to go to that. It sounds creepy. 

I know. Creepy. Out in the woods.  I'd be freaked out too if I came across that, to be honest.

 Okay. So now I'm going to go back into like actual facts of the case. So back on track here. So I'm going to talk about some of the persons of interest or some of the like backstories of some of the people that were involved or were in Tara's life. During this time. So backing up a little bit to two weeks after Tara goes missing. Anita, who is Tara's sister does an interview with a news station and she talks about one of Tara's ex-boyfriends. Like I'd mentioned Marcus Harper and Tara and Marcus had dated for about five years. Marcus admits though that even though Tara broke up with him, she did want to rekindle their relationship.

It was kind of his turn to reject her, I guess, because he told her like, no, it's over. He says that the last time he ever saw Tara was October 14th, 2005, when she turned up at his house, like visibly upset and wanting to talk to him. So Marcus was 30 years old at this time when Tara went missing and he allegedly had started dating an 18 year old.

So Tara found out about this. And she thought that the girl's parents would not approve of her dating a 30 year old that apparently Tara and Marcus had gotten into like a huge argument about this. And she allegedly had threatened to tell this girl's parents about their relationship. Tara was like really distraught over their breakup.

So maybe this was her way of maybe like getting back at him or a desperate attempt for him to like break up with this girl. I don't know. A little bit about Marcus. He was a former police officer at the Ocilla police department, and then he joined the army back in 2001. And he was serving overseas in September of 2005.

In October, 2005, he had returned home for three weeks to Ocilla and Tara happened to disappear during these three weeks that he was home. Marcus was questioned multiple times about her disappearance. He obtained a lawyer, et cetera, and he was really cooperative during the whole investigation, but he did have a solid alibi.

So he was ultimately cleared. During the time Tara went missing and the investigation was like fresh and active, there was an unoccupied house that was completely burned down to the ground. There were cadaver dogs out there and they did hit on a spot right in front of where the fireplace of the house would have been.

So the chimney was like the only recognizable structure left. In front of that fireplace was determined to be at the hottest point of the fire. So that would have been the point of ignition. It was so badly burned that the cause of the fire could not be determined. There was also a car that was parked really close to the house as well that was also burned, but there was no like burn trail from the car to the house. There was no bushes around the house that were burned. So it was suggested that like   the house didn't catch the car on fire the car, didn't catch the house on fire. So it looks like they were burned separately, suggesting arson, suggesting that someone had set two separate fires on purpose to these two separate things. It was said in Payne's podcast that it seemed like maybe there was a body in the house at one point, and then the house was burned to destroy the evidence.

It seemed like somebody knew how to destroy evidence. And they also seem to suggest that they believed a body was in that house, but there was no way to determine for sure who it may have been. And the burned car that was found in the driveway, it didn't belong to the owners of the house. It belonged to a man named Mike who was a police officer who worked for the Ocilla police department. And he was also a friend of Marcus's.

 A couple of other people in the story. Um, one name is Bo Dukes and the other is Ryan Duke. So Bo Dukes with an S Ryan Duke without an S they're not related to they, they were friends went to high school together. Ryan and Bo were both former students of Tara's. People who knew them, described Ryan as being like really quiet and reserved.

And Bo was more known for being like over the top unfiltered. He liked to talk a big talk show off and like run his mouth. That kind of person. They were 20 years old at the time Tara disappeared, but there really isn't much info on them that came out when Tara first went missing. It was reported by 48 hours that a man named John had come forward in 2007.

So it was like two years after Tara disappeared saying that his friend Bo had told him that he knew what happened to Tara. He said, Bo said his friend, Ryan had accidentally strangled her and then Bo helped dump her body in his family's pecan orchard. And then he burned her body. In 2005, Bo was interviewed , shortly after Tara went missing. There was a search at the pecan orchard done by the Sheriff's office, but they didn't find anything. And they never informed the GBI of the investigation that they did. 

Another person of interest was another former student of Tara's and his name was Anthony Vickers. People say that he was stalking Tara. So the story with Anthony is that tara taught him when he was in the ninth grade. And he had since graduated. Now Tara's sister offers up that maybe since he knew that Tara had just broken up with Marcus, maybe he thought  this was his chance to be with her.

But she says that Tara would never  ever, ever date a former student. Allegedly though, Anthony tried to break into Tara's house once. And he was arrested about six months before she goes missing. So Payne Lindsey was able to get ahold of Anthony and talked to him and his podcast about the situation. And Anthony himself explains the whole thing by saying that he actually did have a sexual relationship with Tara that lasted for about a year.

And he says they kept the relationship on the down-low because he had just gotten out of high school and she didn't want anyone to know about it. And so the day he got arrested, he was actually at Tara's house with her. And they had gotten into an argument. He left and the neighbours called the cops and the cops stopped him while he was in his car in her driveway.

And I guess, because Tara wanted to keep the relationship a secret, she never mentioned their relationship to the police, but she did tell them that Anthony was being really violent and was scaring her when he was arrested. Family members say that Tara's relationship with Anthony was more like her mentoring him.

 He was a troubled kid. And so she  had reached out to kind of help him get his life together. Like that's just the kind of person she was. On that day that Anthony was arrested at Tara's house. So Heath Dykes remember him. He was actually at Tara's house as well, that day. And so. Even though Anthony says that he was with Tara, that day some people think that maybe he drove up to her house, saw someone else's car there. So saw Heath's car, and then he went into like a jealous rage and was pounding on her door. She wouldn't answer. And then, you know, somebody calls the cops on him. Apparently the next day though, Tara does try to get a restraining order against Anthony and the officer she talks to is Marcus's friend Sean, from the Ocilla police department.

He won't give her the restraining order until Tara tells him who was at her house that day. But Tara didn't want to tell him because she didn't want Sean to tell Marcus. Sean says he won't tell Marcus, Tara tell Sean it was Heath Dykes at her house. And then of course, Sean tells Marcus who's in Afghanistan at the time, but Marcus comes back and he's like furious with Tara.

And he tells her that Sean told him everything. Tara files a complaint against Sean for this. And Sean is actually suspended from the police force and he's almost fired over this. There's a lot of cops involved. 

There's way too many people involved in this story. Like it's like, uh, trying to figure it out. Keep track of them all. 

That's what I mean. That's why I said it's like a lot. It was like a lot to figure out and like get straight for the story. But yeah, you guys still with  me , so far?

  Marcus is the person that she was dating for a while. So, so was someone, some other guy was at her house while he was in Afghanistan?.

She didn't want that police that she was talking to, to tell Marcus, obviously, because obviously he'd be pissed, but he did tell Marcus and then Marcus was pissed and then she files a complaint against the officer who told Marcus? Is that correct? 

Yeah. See, I don't know exactly when Marcus and Tara broke up.

 Apparently, like she didn't want to live  the, the army lifestyle. Like she didn't want to travel around, but then she realized, well, you know, she wanted Marcus, but so I don't know if they were together still. Maybe she just didn't want him to know that she was like potentially, you know, seeing other people cause she wanted him back.

So I don't know the whole timeline, but anyway, she didn't want Marcus to find out. 

So the guy who was stalking her? Austin? That's his name?

 Anthony. 

Anthony. Um, so where did he fit in to that part?

 Yeah, so Anthony was a former student of hers and he, yeah, people, people say that he was stalking her and he showed up at her house that day.

It was like banging on the door. Wouldn't let him in. And that's why she called the police. But people say, because Anthony went into a jealous rage because he saw Heath's car in the driveway. 

 And Heath was another student of hers? 

No. Heath was that police officer in Perry.  The family friend that came to like check on her that day she disappeared. 

All right. Okay.

 Yeah. All right. So we got all the people straight. It's a lot.

I know it's a lot. Okay. So going back to that welfare check that Heath did on that Sunday before Tara was reported missing. Maurice, the private investigator talks about how, like, Heath obviously did a terrible welfare check because as a police officer and a family friend of Tara's like, why would he just leave a business card and not try to go into the house and then she's not there.

He can't find her. So we just like leaves, especially since her car's in the driveway and she's not answering the door. So like I, I mentioned this earlier, just seems kind of like you didn't do a very good job and he drove like an hour and a half to get there and then drove an hour and a half. It also comes out that Heath had called Tara numerous times, like upwards of 20 the day she disappeared leaving multiple messages.

Again, the timeline, like I don't know if it was after Tara's mom called him to say she was worried about her. I don't know if it was before that after maybe both. But he was suspected of having a relationship with Tara as well. And apparently he had backed out of a promise to leave his wife for her. Now this information was reported in the National Inquirer.

So take it with a grain of salt, but it was talked about in Up and Vanished. And apparently the writer of that article said all that information had come from Marcus's lawyer. So take that as you will. There were theories out there as well that maybe Tara was having affairs with more than one married police officer.

And they have all kinds of like banded together to get rid of her before she could like spill the beans on all of them. This is all just gossip and theories. Like nothing was ever confirmed like this. Nobody ever said, this is true. This was just people talking like, maybe this happened. 

I'm very invested in this story.

I need to know who did this. 

I know I was listening...

 This is so many people.

 I know. I was listening to this podcast and just like for hours. And I was like, oh my God, like, I just got to keep listening, but yeah, we'll see. Just keep listening. Okay. So there were questions surrounding why Heath would not have seen that latex glove on the ground that day when he left his business card.

So he was there like around midnight. People saying, well, maybe it was too dark. He just didn't see it, but he was like a seasoned investigator that was going to her house to check on her because her mother was worried. So like, how did he miss it? Was he not looking? Did he ignore it? Maybe it wasn't even there at the time he showed up.

Other theories came out was like maybe Tara went willingly with someone.  And then that person had come back later with gloves to clean up the evidence that they were even there at all. And  maybe they had come after Heath was there. So Heath probably left around 12:30 midnight. This person could have come back between 1:00 AM and 8:30 AM the next morning, before she was reported missing.

And they could have just like dropped that glove as they were cleaning up. Because it makes me think, like her door was locked and her purse keys were gone. So it was kind of like she was leaving with somebody like locked her door. Then you got to remember her cell phone was still there. So why did  leave 

Her cell phone was in the house 

on the charger.

I was thinking maybe her phone was dead, so she just left her phone. Cause it was dead. Anyway. And it was just, she was 

gonna come back. Like she didn't expect to be out long. She was going to come back.  Weird, but maybe she didn't make it home. Oh wait. No, she was, cause you said she was at that barbecue is the last time she was last seen.

So maybe she didn't even get it, but her phone was in the house. So obviously she was in the house. 

Yeah. 

Cause that was right? Right? You said you went to a barbecue the night before? 

And she left at 11 o'clock at that barbecue. 

And never  was seen again.

 So she was obviously in the house cause her phone was. So I was thinking, well, maybe she didn't even get home with the door was locked, but.

 Yeah and I mean, and like her neighbour said that Saturday night though, they didn't see her little lamp come on either, but I'm thinking maybe she got home later than normal.

And her neighbours were like old so they could have been asleep by that time. So another potential lead that comes up that Maurice talks about in this podcast. So there was another man who, um, was never named out of respect for his family. This man wrote a letter and he said that he knew what had happened to Tara and he couldn't live with himself anymore.

He couldn't take the guilt of knowing what happened and this man actually killed himself . Maurice says that he certain that this man didn't kill Tara, but he thought that maybe that this guy was being threatened because he saw something that he shouldn't have seen that night. This man that killed himself left behind a note that listed 12 people that he knew needed to be interviewed in relation to Tara's disappearance.

There's 12 people involved? 

There's 12 people on this list that this guy left. Now 

But if he knew who did it why wouldn't you just say the person, if I were to give you a list of 12 people that's possible, people? 

This I convoluted like note, why don't you explain what happened? Who did it like where happened? But I'll explain a little bit, you'll maybe understand a little bit more of why that didn't happen.

It's sad the he had so much guilt that he just killed himself though.

 Is that even true though? 

I know. He did kill himself. It actually happened.

 Oh. 

What was it because he had so much guilt about the death.  

 That's what he, I mean, that's what he said in the letter 

and they confirm, oh, that's what the letter. Okay. 

Yeah. But that's what this letter said. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So he left behind that note that listed 12 people that he knew needed to be interviewed in relation to Tara's disappearance. So all those 12 people were brought in by police in question and they were all swabbed. None of their DNA matched the DNA on the glove.

But Maurice points out that even if there was like a group of people there when she was taken or killed, like just like standing around or watching, or, you know, happened to be there then of course, like their DNA wouldn't be on that glove, but they might know what happened or be involved in some other way.

So Maurice didn't have that letter with him when he was talking to Payne with they never, they never released any of those names, but he said he knew at least five names on that list and they were all former students of Tara's. Maurice talked to one of those people on the list. And he said he had no idea why his name's on the list.

Payne reached out to the other four people who they knew were on the list, but none of them would talk to him at all. So pain starts looking into the background of the man who killed himself, just like trying to find some information. And he discovers that this man's brother is actually friends with Dusty Vassey. 

So I mentioned dusty Vassey earlier. He was that reporter that came forward and started talking to Payne and took him to like the archives and stuff. So this, yeah. So this guy Dusty says that back in 2007, a friend had called him and said that another friend of theirs, their brother was freaking out because the people who killed Tara were now after him. Dusty said that he said that he tells the cops about it.

But nothing really happens. As, you know, as the police thought that he was just like a disturbed guy and there was no truth to it at all. And then three years later is when this man kills himself. So Dusty goes into like disturbing details about what he was told from multiple people about what happened that night.

So he says that this man who killed himself told him that he and a friend encountered somebody on a dirt road. There was more than one person. They were somehow connected to the death of Tara so the supposed killers, there was two guys, um, and they were with a girl and they made him and this other guy like carved their initials and put their DNA on Tara so that they couldn't rat the others out. So, I mean, that's yeah. That's like disturbing, if it's true. Dusty explains that the man who took his own life was in a car accident though on a dirt road. And after this is when he started making all these claims. So some people were speculating that this car accident actually caused some kind of damage to his brain.

And that's where these stories were coming from. Like he started acting really withdrawn from his friends and family. And, you know, that's when he started saying all this stuff happened to Tara or that he knew what happened to Tara.

 What is this case? 

I know. 

It's crazy. 

It's a lot to unpack and it really is.

 Not how I thought this case was gonna go.

No, I didn't expect it was like something out of a movie.

 I know. It's so interesting to follow, like all these paths, like yeah, no wonder it takes police forever sometimes, like I said.  So Payne actually talks to a doctor on his podcast and he asks,  if like any type of injury that could alter a person's personality like that.

  And this doctor says  that if a certain part of the brain is affected, there are examples of this happening where a person's personality just changes dramatically, but it's more common to happen in someone that has like multiple concussions, like that kind of brain injury, or like an injury straight to the brain, not like a car accident.

And this car accident wasn't even that bad.  There was no broken bones or anything. But he says  maybe after this car accident, this person was kind of like contemplating life more. And you're just kind of more willing to tell the truth, not hold things back rather than a brain injury. He was just like, thinking about life more, but he said, it's not impossible that this could have happened to his brain and kind of like made him go off the rails.  Payne also talks to a clinical psychologist who discusses that it is really difficult to tell what could have been happening, especially since the person killed themselves. And they can't actually look at his brain.  It's possible that he could have been reiterating what had happened during his accident on that dirt road. Cause like he did have an accident on the dirt road and his story was about a dirt road.

It's possible that he could just be manifesting details that didn't happen. It could be making it up or it could be true. And he's just remembering it now, or he's more willing to talk about it. He could be paranoid though. You know, sometimes that happens from a brain injury and she said  also because of his age, this guy was like only in his early twenties that maybe it was a coincidence that like something like schizophrenia was developing at the same time, which makes you see and hear things that aren't happening.

So it could be anything. 

Yeah, no explanation. This really doesn't help. I mean, yeah, like, come on. So after all this investigation,  there's  finally a break in the case and Payne Lindsey is credited with bringing new life to this case. He's credited with getting people talking again, getting like a whole new audience captivated with Tara's story and just getting new information out there.

So in 2017, there was actually an arrest in this case for the first time. So. What do you guys think is going to come into this arrest? Like who do you think it is? What are your theories?

  I'm going to go with Marcus.

 I'm going to go with Marcus was the...

Marcus was her ex-boyfriend. 

Okay. I'm going to go with Anthony. 

 So on the day that this person gets arrested, Marcus Harper gets a phone call. And on the other end of the phone, it says, quote, brother you're 12 years of hell is over. We have made an arrest End quote. It's not Marcus.

Okay. So January 10th, 2017, a woman named Brooke comes forward to tell the authorities about what her boyfriend had confessed to her.  He had told her that he knew what happened to Tara and,  kind of confess the story. This woman's boyfriend name was. Bo Dukes. 

      Yep.  So, Brooke says that Bo told her that  he says his roommate had killed her and his roommate was  Ryan Duke .Bo also confessed that he had helped burn her body.  Bo told Brooke that Ryan had stolen his pickup truck that night, and he used it to transport Tara's body to a remote part of the pecan orchard that was owned by Bo's family.

And so Bo kind of felt that Ryan was threatening him in a way, because he was like, her body was in your truck and now she's on your family's land. So I guess Bo kind of like, yeah,  felt implicated and needed to cover it up and help him burn the body, destroy the evidence.  And Bo had actually been interviewed again by the GBI back in 2016, but there was no hard evidence at that time.

He denied any involvement. So nothing ever came from that back in  2016.  February 23rd, 2017, Ryan Duke is arrested and he pled not guilty.  And this is his explanation of what happened. He says that he was a drug addict. He broke into Tara's house and he was attempting to steal from her purse.   And then he thinks that she came up behind him and then he was startled and just kind of like struck her in the face with his fist.

He said he didn't mean to, but that was like this, his reaction. And he said from that hit Tara died.  And then of course, they take Ryan's DNA and they compare it with that latex glove, and it's a hundred percent match.   There was also evidence that led to speculation that there was like a party, like a week after Tara disappeared in that pecan orchard that Bo's family owned and Bo and Ryan had like a huge bonfire.  They were burning Tara's remains at that party with everybody there.

Apparently there was like eight or nine people at that party who often like got in trouble and they were used to covering for each other, like their stories to the police. 

Oh my God, are those the 12 people on the list or nine of those people that was on the list. 

And well, Bo and Ryan had talked about killing Tara at that party.

They were kind of like bragging about it, telling people.  And Bo apparently admitted that a few people knew about the murder and there was speculation that at least 12 people knew the entire time, 12 people. 

That guy  wasn't full of shit.

 Then, I mean, at least one name, they confirmed at least one name on that suicide note that I mentioned earlier was connected to that party.

So someone at the party was actually on that note, the night of the bonfire. They never released the name. So there could have been some connection there, but I don't know about the rest of the people. And I couldn't like, there's nothing else that came out about this.  So the names of the people on that list, their involvement was never confirmed. 

 But  what are the chances like?

He, he has a list of 12 names and then there happens to be what Bo said  12 people who knew? 

 He didn't say 12. He said he knew friends and like friends told friends and somebody else talking about this said at least 12 people knew about this.

And the   thing was multiple people, apparently that were at that party did come forward to police saying like, they knew what had happened.

But I think since police  had already gone and checked out that pecan orchard, and they didn't find anything, they were kind of like, well, these stories aren't true. And they kind of left it at that. That's what I'm thinking, because multiple people came forward with this story. 

12 people knew about this and this case could have been solved like years before. And nobody said anything 

Was that party that they were burning her body at was that actually true or was that just part of his defense story? Like that was, that was actually true. Cause you said that was his story, but what happened? 



Uh, I don't know if that's, I don't know if it's exactly true. Like that was his defense and said that like they had to burn her body for like two days straight. They said they like, they like to make it hot, to completely burn it. They had to build this pit in the ground, put her in, and then for days they were just kind of like put wood in and have this big fire burning for days. And people said that it wasn't suspicious because there was always parties out there with bonfires. So it wasn't like, oh, there's a fire burning up there randomly.

 Wouldn't it smell?

Like burning flesh. I feel like that smells 

You'd think, I don't know. There's just so much other stuff on there that they just, that they just didn't smell it.

And then they said once that she was almost completely burned away after like two or three days of this fire burning, then they just buried the hole. And that that's what fucking happened, I guess. So, I mean, it's crazy that the police went out to that orchard like that like a couple of weeks after it happened and like, they just didn't find anything  and that was the end of it.

But it was like an isolated part of the orchard, right? Like it was probably a huge orchard? 

Oh yeah. It was out in like the woody woods part of this orchard. 

It's possible that no one could smell that because it's really far out. 

That's true. Yeah. 

I'm thinking like that odor would be so foul. 

But there was people at the party. I dunno, hanging out with this party with a bon fire. 

If you're drunk...

... but did they know that they all knew that the body was burning that whole time?

No, they didn't know.. Well...

 The people at the party didn't know at that time.

 I don't think they knew there was a body in there, or maybe they did. I don't know. 

I thought you said 12 people knew or they just knew about what happened? 

The 12 people knew that Ryan apparently had killed her and that Bo like burned the body. Well, maybe they knew it was happening. I don't know.

Like there's so much, like I couldn't figure out the timelines of all this stuff. And I don't know if they knew when it was happening that it happened or if it came out later, like it's just, yeah,  it's just a lot 

You have to be pretty bold to burn up a body and like a big party with people around.

 But I don't think I don't buy,  so he broke into her house and then she caught him and that's he hit her by accident. Like, is that real story? Like, that's his story, but is that, I don't think that's what happened. It's not a targeted thing. Yeah, 

No. Like they're saying, they're saying they didn't know Tara, but  they were all students at her high school. Um, there's pictures of them in the yearbook.

So they must have maybe they didn't know that was her house, but they did know Tara, like they had to have know who she was, but,  some believe that like Bo did have more to do with Tara's death than he's saying though, because they point out that Ryan said he hit her on the head and then she died.

But then Bo had said that she was strangled in her bed. One of them said that Tara, like wasn't wearing any clothes. And the other one said that she did have clothes on. So it's like their stories don't match, , for whatever reason. And some believe that like,  Bo was a lot smarter than Ryan. So they were thinking that he was just  blaming it on Ryan and like covering for himself by saying that he just helped Ryan get rid of the evidence.

And so Maurice that private investigator says that when he canvased the area, when Tara went missing, he found a witness that said that there was two people standing outside Tara's window that night in the dark. And he speculates that Bo and Ryan were in this together and they planned to attack Tara and sexually assault her.

And then they got rid of her body together to get rid of the evidence. He doesn't think it was just a chance thing that it was Tara, that he feels like both of them went in there to like gang up on her. 

But why wouldn't  Ryan like, say that?

Yeah. Well, I don't know.

 I guess if he's saying he's not guilty, then he can't say that like they both planned it.

 So yeah. I mean, Ryan's lawyers are saying that Ryan is recanting his confession and saying that he was high on drugs that night, and he's going to put all the blame on Bo. So maybe he is going to come forward with the truth, but who's going to believe him, like, what is the truth for real?  In March of 2019, Bo went on trial first.

 And he was actually sentenced to 25 years in prison for his involvement in Tara's case.  And actually in 2019 as well, like Bo was indicted for rape charges. He had allegedly raped a woman at knife point in 2017. So. It wasn't like this came out of nowhere. He had done this. I mean, this was years after Tara died, but he could have been doing stuff like this for a while.

 Clearly like he's not a good person, so like that possibility that he could have done that. 

Yeah. And I mean, as far as I know, like Ryan's trial has not been scheduled yet due to the delays with COVID and everything. But like court TV was discussing that it's likely that Ryan for Ryan to be convicted, they're going to need Bo to testify and they're like, there's going to be reasonable doubt in the jury's mind. Like who's going to believe Bo? Like he's obviously a liar, he's a rapist, probably a killer. Like, I don't know  what's going to come out of that. 

Is Ryan'going to even get charged with anything?

Yeah. He's charged with murder. He charged with felony murder, malice murder. Because apparently he confessed to killing her, but he's recanting that. So I don't know what's going to happen. It's going to be another interesting case to follow. Like follow-ups  but like none of Tara's remains have ever been found.

Like they've never found like, you know, bone fragments or anything. And like in the pit where she was apparently burned. They've never found anything, but at least I got closure after all this. I wanted to point out that's like the power of a podcast like this podcast blew up as it was happening.  They got arrested in the middle of Payne's podcasts.

Like he had an episode that he had an episode planned and then this broke. And then this was his new episode, like the case breaking. And it was because like he was getting people involved and getting people to come forward. I mean, it was crazy. And he said even Bo had like, got himself involved in investigation.

Like he set up on a chat, he set up a username. Some weird username, but it was actually him. And he was hosting like Q and A sessions with people. And he was saying like, oh, the Ocilla police department are doing a really good job. And like saying stuff like that, even though he knew exactly what was happening.

So it was like a crazy, crazy time investigating or researching this.

Crazy. . Jesus. 

. I'm really interested in hearing that you hear the, the other podcast. 



. It's called Up and Vanished.. That was season one.  So spoiler alert on everything, but he goes like deeper into things  he talks to people and before they find out all this, and there's like other theories that they chase and stuff.

So it's like, it's cool that he's really interested talk to those people. 

 He just kind of like Googled, like open, missing persons cases, like cold cases. And he came across this one and just started, and this is what came of it.

They fucking arrested the people. 

Wow. That's crazy. 

Yeah. 

 I thought it 

was, like I said, it was gonna, it was gonna turn out to be like a police conspiracy. Like the whole police department had like covered. I was, I knew that it was one of the police officers and they were all protecting that one or something.

 I know. Yeah. 

Wow. That's crazy.

. So that's all for this case. We'll keep you updated if there's any new updates.  You can find us on Instagram at crime family podcast. We have a Facebook page.

Crime family podcast. You can follow us on Twitter at crime family pod one. And we also have a Gmail account. If you want to get in touch with us, maybe, um, give us some tips on some cases.  Our email is crime family podcasts@gmail.com. So hope to see you next time. Bye

 bye.