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Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and
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with me as always is a man that drops it like it's hot and picks it up when it's
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cold. He is the Captain. It's good to be seen and it's good to see you. Thanks for listening and thanks
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beautiful and what a great sports city as well, Atlanta, Georgia. What is not sneaky about this wheat beer is the
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you, but especially this garage crew. Let's go out to Minnesota and give a cheers to Kevin from Inver Grove
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Heights. It's very sneaky. And a big shout out to Lauren in Vancouver. Here's a cheers to Allison the blonde
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terror from Braceville, Illinois. And a big shout out to Jane in Spain. Next, a huge, huge thank you and long
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those out. All right, that's enough of the business. Everybody gather around, grab
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a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. Her courage, her smile, just the way
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she's so happy. And the way she interacts with people, it's just it's amazing. Tara Grinstead, Irwin County High School
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teacher and former beauty pageant contestant, had a huge impact on the tiny town of Ocilla, population 3,300.
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So much so that her disappearance almost 2 weeks ago has galvanized this community. Tara's older sister, Anita.
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I cannot even express how my family and our friends, I mean, the outpouring of love for Tara. We knew they loved her.
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30-year-old Tara Grinstead was last seen October 22nd when she attended a local pageant. Her home sits locked, car in
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driveway, even her dog left outside. Only her purse and keys are missing, leading many to suspect she left with
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someone she knew. The GBI has interviewed Tara's ex-boyfriend of 6 years, as well as a former student who
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broke into her home recently. Yes, they've talked to these people and and you know, they're talking to several
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people. All the friends, uh families, uh work acquaintances. But those who knew the beautiful,
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generous young woman say if someone did snatch Tara, it could be almost anyone. All the guys in our school liked Miss
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Tara. And she is beautiful. She is somebody everybody wants to be like, so that might have something to do with
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her. If someone had come there and said one of your students is in trouble, or one
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of your teachers needs your help, she would have gone. Tara Faye Grinstead was born in
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Hawkinsville, Georgia on November 14th, 1974. From an early age, Tara was involved in
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the beauty pageant circuit. She was Miss Tifton in 1999, and one year she made it
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all the way to the Miss Georgia pageant. Her talent for these shows was singing.
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Tara's parents were separated at the time of her disappearance, which took place in 2005.
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Tara's mother, who still lived in Hawkinsville, was suffering from an illness. Tara was very close with her sister
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Anita and her sister's husband Larry. She was also very close to her father Bill and stepmother Connie. She was a
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family person. And although she was from Hawkinsville, Tara lived and worked in Ocilla, a small
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town of about 3,000 people. Ocilla is about an hour's drive from her hometown of Hawkinsville. Despite her
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love for the pageant life, Tara was not satisfied with being a beauty queen. She
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had goals. She had career goals. And she used her pageant winnings to fund her quest for a higher education.
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Tara earned her bachelor's and then she's eventually going to go on to earn her master's at Valdosta University.
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She moved to Ocilla as a student teacher and fell in love with the town. In 2005,
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Tara was an 11th grade history teacher at Irwin County High School, where she had taught for 8 years and by all
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accounts she was well-liked by her students. In addition, she was attending night
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school four nights a week to get her PhD in history and administration. Mhm. She attended night classes at various
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campuses of VSU, including campuses in the towns of Waycross and Tifton. Her ambition, according to friends and
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family, was to work her way up to high school principal or to be a college history professor.
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Tara loved being an educator. She was known to go above and beyond for her students. And on occasion, she helped
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pay for prom dresses or yearbooks for some of the students who could not afford such things.
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What which is very nice and also we know that teachers do not make what what they
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should make. So, she's doing this on a teacher salary. She also had a supplemental job at a
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makeup counter at a local department store. And she also volunteered in the pageant circuit and at homecoming to
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help students and their friends get ready for competitions or dances by doing hair and makeup.
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time of her disappearance, Tara lived in a meticulously decorated small rental house on Park Street. She had a dog
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named Dolly and a cat named Herman. Tara was close with her neighbors and enjoyed gardening when she could find
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the time in her busy schedule. Tara also attended church regularly and she was incredibly social, but she did not
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drink. She also took self-defense classes. By all accounts, Tara was a wonderful, outgoing, giving person who
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stood out in the small town of Ocilla. Now, let's get to the day of her disappearance. This was a Saturday. The
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date, October 22nd, 2005. Tara had some students over to her house to help them prepare for the Miss Sweet
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Potato Pageant, which was taking place in Fitzgerald, a nearby town. This was around 3:00 p.m. that afternoon.
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According to one of the students who was there, Dana Wilder, Tara was in a great
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mood. Nothing about Tara's behavior seemed odd. Then Tara attended the pageant. After attending the pageant
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that evening, Tara stopped by a neighbor's house to visit for about half an hour.
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Now, the name of this neighbor has not been released, and this would have been around 8:00 p.m.
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She then went to a barbecue at the home of the former school superintendent. This is Dr. Troy Davis and his wife,
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Missy. This was a party. I don't know how many people were in attendance, but a get-together nonetheless. On the menu
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for that evening, watching the mighty Georgia Bulldogs football game, socializing, and enjoying some good old
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southern barbecue. Her friend, Maria Hewlett, is going to be able to confirm that not only did
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they watch the game, but they also had dinner that evening. Friends later told police that Tara had
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received several cell phone calls while she was at the party. At approximately 11:00 p.m., Dr. Davis walks Tara to the
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door as she gets ready to leave. She tells Dr. Davis that she is going home for the evening. In fact, she said she
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was going to go home and watch a video of the pageant from earlier that day. That is the last known sighting of Tara
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Grinstead. Now, Tara was really close with her neighbors. Well, specifically, Myrtle and Joe
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Portier. Mhm. So much so with the Portiers that they had a key to Tara's home. And Tara's
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family knew that the Portiers looked out for Tara. Joe and Myrtle knowing that Tara lived alone and having to drive
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long distances many nights a week to attend her night classes, they had established some kind of system with
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Tara to make sure that she had arrived home safely in the evenings. They would look for her bedroom lamp to come on and
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seeing it they would know that she was home safe and sound. This system didn't seem to apply on the weekends though
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because Joe and Myrtle were often they often left town to go to their weekend home.
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Right. And on Sunday, October 23rd, this is around midnight, Tara's mother called
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the Portiers at their home. This is roughly 24 hours after the last sighting of Tara. Her mother had told them that
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she was unable to reach her daughter and asked them if they had seen her that day. They said that they had not seen
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her, however, because they were out of town, this wouldn't have been unusual. Right.
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But that her car, Tara's car, which is a pearl colored Mitsubishi 3000 GT, it was
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parked in the carport at Tara's house when they had returned from their out-of-town stay.
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The next day on Monday morning, October 24th, Joe Portier noticed that Tara's car was still at her house, but there
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didn't seem to be any sign of Tara herself. He walked to Tara's house, knocked on
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the door. There was no answer. He knocked several more times. He checked the door, the door was locked. Joe was
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concerned. He called the high school and he asked about Tara. Had they seen her?
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Had they heard from her? He was told that Tara had not come into work that morning, which was extremely rare, and
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they had not even heard from the young woman. Joe then decided to use his key to open
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the door and enter the home. Inside he found no one. Tara was not there. There were some things that caused concern.
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Joe noted that Tara's bedroom lamp was broken and propped up in two pieces and her alarm clock was lying on the floor.
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The alarm clock they found is not the right time. It's actually off by 6 hours. And strangely Tara's cell phone was in
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the house. This is odd because obviously this is something you would expect for her to take with her, but it was at the
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house and it was still resting on the charger. Right. Joe who had entered the home is an
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Ocilla city councilman. So he had the chief of police's phone number at his disposal and he decided to call chief
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This is Mr. Billy Hancock directly and told him that he had spoken to Tara's mother and to her work. No one had seen
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or heard from Tara. Her car was parked at her house, her cell phone was inside and Tara was nowhere to be found. Joe
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believes something could have happened to her at the very least. Tara was missing.
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So a missing person's report was filed at that time and at 8:50 a.m. police arrived at the scene at Tara's home. By
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11:00 a.m. police had called in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Investigators noted a few things right
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away. The house had been found by Joe to be locked. So there was no signs of forced entry.
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Although Tara's cell phone was still at the house, her purse and car keys were nowhere to be found.
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There are conflicting reports about Tara's car. This is whether or not it was locked or unlocked at the time that
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the authorities found it. Right. Tara's sister Anita says that the vehicle was unlocked which she also goes
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on to say was completely out of character for her sister. Another curious thing about the car,
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investigators noted that the driver side seat was pushed all the way back as though a
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tall person had been driving it. Although Tara was only about 5 ft 3 in tall. So, on a good day, Captain, I'm 6-ft
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1-in, and I have never driven a Mitsubishi 3000 GT, but in most cars, uh specifically cars, not like big
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trucks or anything, practically all of them, when it comes to cars, I'm an all the way back seat guy. So, there
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you're a suspect. I'm Yes, and not only am I a suspect, but I'm guilty. So, unless there was some other reason
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for this, Well, that's shocking. you know, unless maybe she moved the seat to look for something or
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Right. I I can't think of why the seat would have been moved other than I would be expecting a person to have
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been operating this vehicle to have been about 6-ft or maybe taller. Well, I think you lean more towards
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somebody operating this vehicle because the keys are gone. Yeah, and furthermore, there was $100 in
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cash on the dashboard or console of the car, and I say dashboard or console because it's been reported both ways.
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Right. There was also found to be clay or mud on the tires of the vehicle. And this
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would be as if someone had driven it off-road at some point. we did talk about her going to a
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barbecue earlier, so is it possible that she parked in somebody's grass and maybe
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got a little bit of mud on her tires there. Yeah, you and I specifically talked about that, meaning that it could it
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could have nothing to do with her disappearance. It could be from the events of that evening before she went
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missing. I mean, you know, there's a a bonfire that you and I used to go to regular attendance. It was once or twice
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a year, and people were instructed to park in the person's yard. You know, the person
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lived out in the country, and you only have so much driveway. They would say, "Just park in the yard."
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Right. And so, you would leave there, and you might have mud on the tires or or in
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this situation clay on the tires. I did look up, you know, we talked about the barbecue. I did look up to find where
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that person, the host of the barbecue, lived. Right. And it didn't seem to me to be like out
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in the country, out in the sticks. It looked to be to be more of a traditional neighborhood. Now, that's not to say
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that she didn't park on the street and end up with two tires in somebody's yard.
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Well, and then to go back to, she did go to this pageant and I I know sometimes when a high high school or school or or
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any place would like host a big event, you know, such as possibly this um pageant would be, maybe she parked her
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car in the grass during that as well. So, again, don't know, but to me I'm leaning more towards it has something to
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do with her disappearance because car keys are gone. This was the sweet Miss Sweet Potato
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Pageant. Yeah, I won in 1996. That's funny because in 2006, Columbus named me Mr. Potato Head.
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There is some There's also some confusion as to the whereabouts of Tara's dog, Dolly. Now,
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Dolly was a from my understanding, like a large German Shepherd. This was not a small
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dog. Uh not like Frank. Yeah. Uh some articles say that the dog was found outside in the backyard and
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then other articles just say that the dog and cat were found, but no specifics as to where they were found.
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Yeah, you'd think that maybe the neighbors would report seeing the dog outside for multiple days.
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I don't know how the Portiers So, from the Portiers' house, you can see Tara's home. And you can see most of her yard
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because the way that they're situated, you you should be able to see the front and backyard of her home from some of
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their windows. Right, but they wouldn't know this because they were out of town. I'm just
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wondering if there was other neighbors that would have noticed the dog being out for multiple days.
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It seems to me that people just lean towards the idea that the dog was outside. If the dog were to be outside, though,
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that's where I question what's going on with the poor Tiers because they are made aware that Tara has not been heard
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from on Sunday evening. They would have seen the dog outside. They don't report that to her mother. Hey, we saw the
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vehicle outside. Right. But they don't state that hey, we everything must be fine. She's clearly
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let the dog out. But by this time, by the time she was found on Monday morning, then that dog would have been
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out all night long, which would have seemed suspicious to me unless that was a regular thing for her. Who knows? I
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mean, every it was a fenced in area, I'm guessing. Everybody lives different lives.
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Um the important thing here, though, Captain, is that would Tara's abductor or would-be
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abductor put the dog outside to, you know, because German Shepherds are by nature aggressive dogs.
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Right. This is a dog that probably would have eagerly protected her should she have
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been attacked or abducted from inside the home or near the home. Finally, the other strange thing about
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the crime scene is a business card was found tucked into Tara's front door with the name Heath Dykes on it.
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Now, police were quick to state that they did not suspect foul play saying that nothing they had found
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uh led them to the conclusion that something had happened to Tara. Her disappearance would continue to be
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investigated as a missing person's case. Tara's family, however, disagreed with this. Tara's sister, Anita, said Tara
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would have never gone anywhere without her phone, would never leave her pets alone for a long period of time,
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presumably over 30 hours or so by the time Joe entered the home, and she would have never just not have shown up to
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work. It was just totally out of character for her sister. Now, Anita said it looked like someone had
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attempted to make Tara's bed. Apparently, Tara was quite particular about how she made the bed or how the
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bed was made and it was not found in the manner that her sister would have expected to find
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her bed. And there were clothes on her bedroom floor. Anita said that Tara made the Had she made the bed, she would have
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never left the clothes on the floor. Now, the clothing that was found on the floor, this is the clothes that Tara was
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seen wearing on that Saturday evening at the barbecue. Anita also identified a few more missing things. There were
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earrings Tara was wearing that day which her friend Miss Davis recalled having seen Tara wearing them at the barbecue.
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These earrings were not found. Uh also missing were a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. These are
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items that are believed that Tara would usually wear to bed and had slept in. Also, after further searching the house,
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pieces of a necklace Tara had been wearing on that Saturday were found under the bed.
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Anita later went on Fox News and the CBS Early Show to bring attention to her sister's disappearance and ask the
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public for help. All right, so it seems to me that she Tara went to this barbecue.
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She comes home. She possibly lets her dog out. Changes her clothes, gets out of the
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barbecue clothes, the daytime clothes, and she's going to slip into something more comfortable, but maybe she leaves
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the hoop earrings on cuz those are not found. At some point this we think that she was possibly wearing
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that that necklace this day and so that somehow came off and it's broken. Yeah, there were pieces of it found
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underneath her bed. So then we have this alarm clock that is 6 hours off. So does that tell us
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something? Is there was there a attack that happened and then the power went out on the clock and
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then it was plugged back in and and does that give us a time frame of when possibly she was attacked?
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It should, but there's no report on what time the clock was reading when found. Just that it was 6 hours difference.
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Yeah, I mean it could be 6 hours earlier or after Right. you would expect to find it. Tara's
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sister's theory in the early days was that Tara had got home from the barbecue and she was getting ready for bed and
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had been interrupted by someone possibly that she knew perhaps a friend, student,
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or another teacher had possibly knocked on the door interrupting her and then at
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some course she is abducted during that evening. Well, the investigators are going to
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look at all possible angles of this and it seems, you know, one did somebody, you know, there's no
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sign of breaking and entering so so it's like did somebody do that or did she leave on her own?
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Yeah, the possibility of could she have just left? And this comes up because in the course of some interviews with
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people close to Tara, police discovered that Tara was in a fragile emotional state after the breakup of a very
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long-term relationship with her boyfriend. This is Marcus Harper. Right. Tara had apparently been distraught over
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aspects of this emotionally charged situation. One day becoming so overcome while driving that she had to pull over
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and call a friend for help. The next day she called in sick to work, which was unusual for Tara.
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We'll discuss the former boyfriend Marcus Harper and their relationship in just a bit.
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But it was so widely believed that Tara was under a lot of stress. I mean she's working two jobs and studying for a very
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demanding degree. Right. Her mother was ill. Perhaps the theory went it was all just too much for her
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and she wanted to escape. Well, and on top of that, she's a family person and she's a sociable person and
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she tried to be a a pillar of the community. So, you're talking about a lot of things that are weighing on her
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shoulders. Well, Tara's family would call BS on this theory. As we said, Anita pointed
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out that Tara would never go anywhere without her phone. She would never leave Dolly and Herman to fend for themselves.
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And it looks like she was just weeks away from completing her studies for another graduate degree, which would
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have meant a bump in salary of up to 10 grand for her. So, why would she abandon
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all of her hard work? And furthermore, her family questioned, how would she have left in the middle of the night
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without her car in a town with little to no public transportation? It just It just didn't make any sense.
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Police quickly began to receive tips about the missing person's case, but nothing panned out. Investigators said
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they weren't ruling out the possibility that Tara had been abducted or had voluntarily took off with someone she
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knew. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation or GBI was brought in very early in this case and within days a
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massive search operation was underway. Hundreds of searchers and volunteers conducted daily searches of Ocilla and
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more remote areas of the 358 square mile Irwin County looking for signs of Tara or clues as to what may have happened.
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Searchers used horses, ATVs, helicopters, and underwater scanning equipment. A week after the disappearance of Tara,
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there's going to be a bombshell that drops in the news. The neighbor, Joe Portier, he had found
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a latex glove in Tara's front yard on the day that he had went over to check on her. Police tried to keep the
00:25:01
discovery of this glove a secret, presumably in order to keep some evidence under wraps so they could use
00:25:08
the information as they saw fit down the road. Nevertheless, Ocilla was a small town and word had got out about the
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glove. Joe Portier told Nancy Grace that the glove was the type used in a medical
00:25:22
setting and not a glove that would be typically used for things like dishwashing or gardening.
00:25:28
Right. Reports conflict as to whether the glove was white or whether it was blue in
00:25:33
color. But of course, either way the presence of a latex glove at the scene of a possible abduction made Tara's
00:25:40
friends and family very concerned. All right, we're back. Cheers, mates. I got a
00:26:05
mouthful of chips Golden Crisp from Massillon, Ohio. Yeah, cheers to Jesse and Mary, our
00:26:14
friends over at Golden Crisp. You know what they say, Captain, the old the old famous saying? The best potatoes come
00:26:20
from Idaho. The best potato chips come from Ohio. Well, all I know is they're good with
00:26:24
beer. Well, back to the search efforts, Captain. Tara Grinstead's family set up a command center in downtown Ocilla to
00:26:32
help coordinate volunteers and disseminate flyers and posters. Within 2 weeks, there was a reward for
00:26:39
information in the case. This was of $30,000. One thing that was not addressed at all
00:26:45
was whether police used scent dogs to try to track Tara's scent to determine whether she had left the
00:26:53
house. What we do know is that search and rescue dogs were brought in about a week after Tara disappeared and searched
00:27:00
areas near her home. This including ponds and wooded areas. Presumably nothing was found. A woman's t-shirt was
00:27:10
found during a search, but investigators ruled this out saying it had nothing to
00:27:15
do with Tara's disappearance. So, 2 weeks after the last known sighting of Tara, news reports revealed that the
00:27:21
police had interviewed scores of people who knew or who were connected to Tara. They were pouring over Tara's phone
00:27:29
records and checking her home and school computers. And by this point they had polygraphed at least one person and were
00:27:37
following up on undisclosed leads. But police still refused to categorize Tara's disappearance as the result of
00:27:44
foul play. Tara's friends and family were beginning to give up hope that she would ever return home safely. Tara's
00:27:52
family hired a private detective to look into the case. This investigator believed the car seat being found pushed
00:27:59
back was a big red flag. As do I, as do you. Mhm. Fears began to arise that Tara had been
00:28:07
the victim of some inexplicable random attack by a stranger and that she was dead. Even so, the Grinstead family
00:28:14
persisted and manned the Tara command center, pushing the Ocilla PD and the GBI for more searches.
00:28:21
Mhm. They were also passing out buttons with Tara's picture on them and they even
00:28:26
decorated Tara's house as if she were coming home. They decorated for Halloween and they put up a happy
00:28:33
birthday banner for Tara's 31st birthday, which took place in November of 2005. Yeah, and by December 2005, law
00:28:42
enforcement's going to have all their ground searches. They're going to declare those done.
00:28:46
Yeah, and this would still have no signs of Tara. A press conference was held around that same time revealing that the
00:28:53
reward money in Tara's case had jumped up to $200,000. A large portion of this amount of money
00:29:00
was donated anonymously. Then in January of 2006 with Tara having been missing for 3 months, her family helped organize
00:29:08
a large-scale search conducted by Texas EquuSearch and 150 volunteers. The focus
00:29:15
of the ground search in Irwin and surrounding counties was the hundreds of wells sprinkled throughout the marshy
00:29:21
countryside. Searchers also used boats to access shallow swamps. As Tara's colleague and friend Wendy
00:29:29
McFarland put it, "On one hand, you pray to God to find her. On the other hand, you pray to God
00:29:36
you don't find her." Yeah. In February of 2006, the Ocilla police told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
00:29:43
quote, "It does seem to be kind of an overwhelming and baffling case. We've had missing persons before, but usually
00:29:51
those turn up in a few days. Usually juveniles who come back to their homes. Nevertheless, the GBI claimed that the
00:29:59
Grinstead case was still a very active investigation with active leads being pursued. Tara's family was increasingly
00:30:07
frustrated by the lack of progress in the case. They brought in an investigative psychologist. This is Dr.
00:30:14
Maurice Godwin. With Godwin's help, the family concluded that Tara had been the victim of foul play and was likely dead.
00:30:22
The family also became publicly critical of the Irwin County Sheriff's Department
00:30:27
and its handling of the investigation. So now, Captain, we see the family begin to take matters into their own hands and
00:30:34
at one point even attempting to conduct a search on private property. Well, okay. So, I agree why they'd be
00:30:43
frustrated. But, as far as law enforcement goes, this is a frustrating case because
00:30:48
if somebody is responsible for her going missing, if this is foul play, let's look at a couple things. One,
00:30:56
she's a teacher. Now, the graduating class is it's a small town. It's under normally 100, but she taught for some
00:31:04
years. So, now you have all the students that she's come in contact with, all the
00:31:08
people through the beauty pageants that she's come in contact with. She's in night classes, so all the people that
00:31:14
she's taken night classes with. This is somebody that is um heavily involved in her um
00:31:21
in in her local community, and there's going to be a lot of people that you have to question. So, as much as it's
00:31:27
frustrating for the family, I can see where it's frustrating for law enforcement as well.
00:31:32
This is my my head kind of goes back to the Barry Sherman and Honey Sherman case
00:31:37
that we recently covered. And I'm going to kind of just echo something today that I said when we covered that case. I
00:31:43
don't I've never understood why a police officer or a detective or police chief will come out so early on when they have
00:31:52
no clue what happened. Right. And go, "Well, we don't see any signs of foul play. We're going to investigate this as
00:31:58
a missing person's case." Why even bother to say that? You're just you're you're throwing yourself to the fire
00:32:05
there. Well, I I think it's a ignorance as far as an investigative uh tactic. I mean,
00:32:10
you have to basically have no blinders, right? You have to be open to any possibility. And I think when somebody
00:32:17
comes out and makes statements like that, I question their ability to investigate any crime because you can't
00:32:23
come up with a theory and then try to make that theory stick. You need to be letting the evidence, you know, it's
00:32:28
almost like a funnel. Let the evidence lead you down the path to the truth. I think what happens is when when when
00:32:35
the cameras turn on and they have to stand in front of people and give some kind of explanation as to what's going
00:32:41
on or the direction of the investigation. Mhm. I think they get nervous and I think
00:32:47
that maybe they say things that had they taken some time to think it through, they would have said something
00:32:52
differently and I think it's maybe a portion of of the investigation part, but more so the the public appeal or or
00:33:00
appealing to the public, I should say. What what I'm getting at is just with the just like with the Sherman case.
00:33:06
Mhm. Here's the thing. You and I both know that so many cases get solved because of
00:33:12
of a confession. If somebody out there is feeling super guilty or if they're super scared that law enforcement are on
00:33:18
to them or somebody knows what they did, they may come forward to try to save their own butt.
00:33:23
Well, more likely if they feel there's some heat on them, yes. Right. And if I'm at the crime scene and
00:33:28
I'm the chief the chief of police and I'm going, "We don't see any foul play." and I'm watching that on TV, I'm going,
00:33:33
"Shit, they don't they don't have anything on me. They don't even know that a crime's been committed."
00:33:37
Right. Just keep my mouth shut. So, again again, I would have the same statement for every situation. When
00:33:44
approached by the media, I would say, "Look, we have a lot of evidence to sort through.
00:33:49
Mhm. We will let the investigation and the leads take us where it may." We have a lot of eyewitnesses.
00:33:56
We have witnesses to statements to go through and we are going to work this case morning, noon, and night until it's
00:34:04
solved." And I just leave it at that. We're not stating that any foul play happened. We're not stating that any
00:34:09
foul play did not happen. Yeah, but I'd also throw in there as well, "We're getting closer to knowing
00:34:15
the truth." And just saying that that's not a wrong statement even if you're in the dark about whatever is happening.
00:34:23
Yeah, the more the more work you're going to do, the closer you're going to get to the truth is and I think by
00:34:27
making those statements like you said, you give yourself a chance of somebody coming forward and and and confessing to
00:34:33
this. Yeah, if I am if I'm watching the news and I hear the Sheriff Department or the
00:34:38
Police Chief state to the news, we have a lot of evidence to go through, a lot of witnesses to talk to.
00:34:45
I'm sitting at home going, [ __ ] what did I leave at the crime scene? Who saw me? Somebody must have saw me. And then
00:34:52
you start getting scared and then you do things that don't make sense. If you don't decide to come forward and
00:34:57
confess, maybe those around you are going, wait a second, this guy's not acting right. He could have been
00:35:02
involved and point the police in his direction. Now, I do understand the Grinstead family's frustration here
00:35:09
because you know, while they're not investigators, I I get where they're coming from. They're
00:35:15
they are going to the Sheriff's Department and they're saying, look, the things that we saw at her home just
00:35:20
don't add up to us. All right. We're telling you it doesn't make sense to us that she just walked away. And now
00:35:25
months into this, that's that's going to back up their gut feeling. Well, no, and it's also a small town, so
00:35:33
what rumors are they hearing uh from people in the community? Well, we know this, that Tara's sister
00:35:39
Anita told the media that the Sheriff's Office had failed to convey important leads to the GBI. And this she was
00:35:46
citing two witness reports of a black pickup truck, likely a Chevy, Mhm. parked outside of Tara's home around
00:35:54
5:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, October 23rd. So, she is last seen late Saturday night and
00:36:02
then there's a possible black pickup seen at her home very early Sunday morning. Actually, this takes place
00:36:09
under the cover of darkness. Mhm. We won't start to see the rise of of the sun there till just after 6:00 a.m. on
00:36:17
this day. So, at roughly at 5:00 a.m., this is under the cover of night. Now, another witness came forward, too,
00:36:25
stating that they had seen a similar truck not so much at her home or park near her home but in the area around
00:36:33
this same time and said that they had had some kind of verbal exchange with a man that was either standing next to the
00:36:40
truck or possibly driving the truck. So, we have two separate witnesses coming forward regarding this strange black
00:36:48
pickup truck possibly a Chevy. Yeah, but Tara's sister is also going to state in this interview that the family
00:36:53
believes that whoever was responsible for taking Tara probably returned the following day or at some point to kind
00:37:02
of clean up the scene and try to take care of whatever evidence was left. This could be when the latex glove was
00:37:09
dropped. So, the abductor or abductors returned to the home and at some point drops the latex glove. The weird thing
00:37:17
here, too, is that the glove had not been seen by two people who had who had stopped by Tara's house
00:37:24
Right. on that Sunday looking for her even though later we learn it was found in
00:37:29
plain sight. So, the glove was found in the front yard near the front stoop but not until
00:37:36
Monday when the police were on the scene. Yeah, but some sometimes people just don't pay attention. So,
00:37:43
Well, also I guess you know, this would lead the family to believe that this meant that the person who took Tara
00:37:50
that they returned not only did they return but it was probably possibly Sunday night because people had
00:37:56
been there through the course of Sunday and not seen this glove. In May of 2006, the media began to
00:38:03
report that investigators had recovered a DNA sample from the Grinstead crime scene. Nearly 150 people connected to
00:38:12
Tara had been swabbed in a search for a match to the DNA sample. The GBI refused
00:38:18
to confirm the existence of the DNA or address this part of the investigation at all. But by 2008,
00:38:26
as the case was in danger of growing cold, they were desperate for a break. GBI special agent Gary Rothwell revealed
00:38:34
on CBS's 48 Hours that the DNA sample was found on the latex glove. And the sample belonged to a male. And he I I
00:38:45
question my notes here, but I do have in my notes that at some point it's reported that the DNA belonged to an
00:38:50
unknown white male. But no match to anyone who knew Tara had been made at this point, and the sample
00:38:58
received no hits from the Georgia or the national DNA databases. And you're probably thinking that
00:39:05
they're testing the ex-boyfriend at this point. I would imagine anyone that's willing to
00:39:10
participate, uh, unless they go and get a court order. After a very intense investigation and a
00:39:17
lot of rumors in the community, there's going to become three major suspects. Through the course of the investigation,
00:39:24
authorities were obviously looking into Tara's personal life for any indication that anyone that she knew or was
00:39:32
involved with could be a suspect in this case of her disappearance. And there were some suspects, and few Here's the
00:39:40
thing. Few if any that they looked at had a concrete alibi that covered what the
00:39:46
police believed to be the disappearance window. And the problem with that is this window
00:39:51
is it's large. The the the time frame here is large. It starts from Saturday night Saturday night after 11:00 p.m.
00:40:00
And it goes through all day Sunday. Right. So, there are the lives of several of
00:40:06
these men, and they're they're all men that were considered to be the top three suspects, whether it be in the eyes of
00:40:12
the public or through investigators. And I say they're all men because there seems to be no indication that at any
00:40:18
point investigators ever seriously considered that a woman could have been responsible. This probably from the DNA
00:40:26
sample that they were they found on the glove. So, the first person of interest that I think we should discuss, Captain,
00:40:32
is somebody that I've referenced and that you've mentioned as well. And this is Marcus Harper. Marcus Harper was an
00:40:38
ex-Ocilla police officer who had been Tara's boyfriend for um about 5 to 6 years. There's some kind
00:40:47
of conflicting reports on how long or how strong, let's say, the relationship was for over the course of that time
00:40:55
frame. But, Marcus and Tara were by some by some accounts inseparable. Uh they were a typical small-town love story.
00:41:04
And I guess Tara assumed that one day they might get married, according to her friends, anyway.
00:41:10
Some people have stated that Marcus had a key to her home. Mhm. But, after So, okay. So, the two of
00:41:17
them, from what I can gather, is this. Their their relationship is a strange one from somebody looking this
00:41:25
from the outside in this far away, right? And somebody who's had some strange relationships, yeah.
00:41:30
From what is reported is that the two of them, Marcus and Tara, they were very much in love. But, after 9/11, Marcus
00:41:38
joined the mili- military and served in Afghanistan and Iraq in the Rangers. After his tour, Marcus became an
00:41:46
independent contractor in Iraq. Because of this job, Marcus didn't spend much time in Ocilla, obviously. Now, Tara was
00:41:55
not happy about Marcus's decision to continue in the independent contractor role.
00:42:00
Yeah. But, those guys make a lot of money, though. She became increasingly aware that
00:42:05
Marcus was not interested in marriage. So, the two began to bicker and to disagree. Although friends said that
00:42:12
things never got violent at any point. Now Connie Grinstead, this is Tara's stepmother,
00:42:19
who was very close with her, said that the relationship was stormy for the final two years of the relationship and
00:42:25
that they both at times dated other people, but they would always come back to each other.
00:42:31
Uh I guess they broke up in October of 2004, this according to Marcus, but they continued to see each other and in a
00:42:39
brief uh reconciliation, the two vacationed together in Florida. So, a few months before Tara went
00:42:47
missing in 2005, uh their relationship continued to be volatile. Finally, Tara sent Marcus a letter when
00:42:57
he was stationed abroad, essentially breaking things off, but then she appears to have changed her mind and
00:43:04
wanted to rekindle their relationship. Marcus, however, said that they would remain broken up. Tara did not accept
00:43:12
this and by all accounts, she was devastated by Marcus's decision. So, it seems like one thinks they're on
00:43:18
a break and the other doesn't think they're on a break. Somebody might consider there to be a
00:43:22
break, the other one's not on the same page, and then you can flip it and reverse it almost that the the other one
00:43:27
seems to think they're on a break and the other does not seem to agree. I guess she and Marcus continued to go
00:43:32
back and forth about the state of things of their actual relationship and at some
00:43:37
point, Tara even emailed Marcus's mother with some strange comments about something possibly happening to her or
00:43:45
to him because of the breakup. Let me just put this out there. If you're in a relationship, adult adult
00:43:53
relationship, once you start reaching out to friends and family members, uh it's probably
00:44:00
probably past uh past the state of no return. Yeah. Uh I think in the in Tara's defense, it sounds like she might have
00:44:09
been close with Marcus's mother. Mhm. Um, and that they had known each other for years, uh, possibly five or six
00:44:16
years at this point. And I from what I can gather I know, I'm just saying that the chances
00:44:23
of you talking to a guy's mother and then getting things turned back around because of that are probably slim to
00:44:31
none. Oh, no, I 100% agree. I think she was trying to confirm that Marcus had received her communications
00:44:40
because he was not he was not replying to her. He was not saying anything back to her.
00:44:46
People think this is a big red flag because he actually returns to town without any communication to her. And I
00:44:53
kind of wonder if it's one of those situations where they they talked multiple times after she, you know, at
00:45:00
some point broke it off while he's over there. And then there maybe there was a conversation where he's like, "Look,
00:45:05
this is just not going to work out. I'd like to remain friends." And then she's contacted him again going, "Hey, no, I
00:45:11
really want this to work out." And he's like, "Hey, it's not going to work out. I just want to remain friends." And then
00:45:16
when he went back to town, he just thought, "You know what? What's the point of contacting her?" I mean
00:45:24
you wouldn't necessarily disconnect your ex just because you got back because it's technically that's your ex.
00:45:30
Right. Now, I actually though I I'm I'm going to go in a different direction with it.
00:45:35
That's right. I actually think it was weird that he didn't contact her. Why? Because there's like 3,000 people live
00:45:43
in this town. Mhm. You're going to bump into the other person maybe even relatively quick
00:45:50
upon your return. Mhm. You obviously cared for this person for years. In my opinion, I would at least say,
00:45:57
"Hey, look, I'm going to be back in town. I wanted to let you know. I don't really want to see you, but I wanted to
00:46:02
let you know in advance because I don't I don't want things to be weird. Right. So, because in Am I wrong here though?
00:46:09
Because things do get weird because he's back in town and she's unaware of his return.
00:46:15
No, I just think it's a difference of opinion. I mean, I I just don't find it that strange. I mean, if you guys broke
00:46:21
up, then what's the point of contacting your ex when you when you return? At some point Tara found out that he had
00:46:27
in fact returned and he was dating someone. And according to Connie Grinstead, Marcus had told Tara that
00:46:34
they were over for good. And remember, this is what we talked about before. This is when the situation happens that
00:46:41
Tara is so emotionally distraught about the end of their relationship that she had to pull her car over when she was
00:46:48
driving. She called a friend to come pick her up and eventually she called in sick to work the next day. She also left
00:46:55
work early at some point over the course of that week. And her sister Anita, who
00:47:00
spoke uh with her daily and knew all about the situation with Marcus said on CBS's Early Show that Marcus and Tara
00:47:10
had a huge public fight the week before Tara disappeared and this was about the relationship being over and about Marcus
00:47:19
uh apparently seeing someone at that time. There are also some reports that one of
00:47:24
the phone calls that Tara received during the course of the barbecue the night that she had disappeared at at uh
00:47:30
Dr. Davis's house, Mhm. uh this would be around 10:30 p.m. was from a friend of hers who was at a local
00:47:38
bar who had saw Marcus there and was just calling to let Tara know. Yeah. Why do people do that?
00:47:45
Hey, I'm out having a couple drinks and I saw your ex with his new girlfriend and then called the person.
00:47:53
That's a that's a uppity loser. It's just weird in my opinion. I mean I I I don't know. I I feel like that's
00:48:00
like throwing fuel on the fire of her her sadness, you know? Well, it's stirring the pot for both
00:48:07
Marcus and Tara. It's somebody that's sitting at a bar. And And keep in mind, we're going off of just this very simple
00:48:13
statement of I'm sitting at a bar, I see your ex-boyfriend here, I'm going to call you just so you know that he's
00:48:19
here. Right. There could be a lot more involved in this situation. But in my opinion, it's
00:48:24
just somebody stirring the pot, throwing themselves into a situation that at least one of the two that were in the
00:48:31
relationship didn't want to be in a situation where they had to have communication with one another.
00:48:36
Right. So, to jump in there seems to be ill-advised at best. So, this Marcus guy, he doesn't have a
00:48:43
alibi or a solid alibi for the night that Tara went missing? Well, that's that's actually not the
00:48:49
case. Apparently, he has an alibi for that night. Marcus told police, and this was backed up by witnesses, that he was
00:48:57
with his step sister and her boyfriend and some other friends at a local tavern in Fitzgerald, which is 10 miles away,
00:49:05
on the night of September October 22nd. A friends band was playing there that night. Now, we know this is very likely
00:49:14
because one of Tara's friends saw him and then called her and told her, right? Right.
00:49:19
So, sometime after 1:00 a.m., he leaves this bar and he went to the Ocilla Police Department to find his buddy
00:49:26
Shane Fletcher, who was a active Ocilla police officer. The police dispatcher notified Fletcher
00:49:34
that Marcus was there and was looking for him. This was around 1:49 a.m. They met up and Marcus worked Fletcher's beat
00:49:42
with him. During this time, they were seen by and spoke to several other people. Police records of the calls that
00:49:51
came in that evening show that Fletcher and Marcus were responding to calls together including a last call. The last
00:49:57
call of that evening was at a 24-hour gas station which concluded around 4:28 a.m. Apparently,
00:50:06
this I found this to be strange. Apparently in Ocilla, this is a small enough town that ex-cops
00:50:12
can go to a bar and then follow it up with hanging out with a you know, with an active police officer and there's
00:50:21
some reports that state that it almost gives the impression that Marcus was behaving as an active officer that
00:50:29
night. Right. So, after this ride-along Marcus says that he then went home and he it's time
00:50:35
to go to bed, you know, it's it's almost 5:00 in the morning. So, while he can't
00:50:40
account for his time after 5:00 a.m. on October 23rd, investigators have they had no evidence that he was anyway
00:50:49
involved in what happened to Tara. They spoke with nine different witnesses. This included police officers, the
00:50:55
dispatcher, and civilians who all backed up Marcus's story. So, his alibi up until 5:00 a.m. is airtight. Now, his
00:51:06
family, this being his mother and father, told investigators that he was with them on Sunday and according to his
00:51:14
lawyer, Marcus accounted to GBI for every minute of his time during the time from when Tara was last seen until she
00:51:23
was reported missing on Monday morning. Despite the alibi though, Captain, Marcus was the leading suspect in the
00:51:30
eyes of the public. In their eyes, Marcus could have conspired with his police officer buddies to cover up the
00:51:38
murder of Tara. Right, and that would make sense why we found the glove. Well, further, he was trained in stealth
00:51:44
tactics as a member of the special forces. So, one could assume he could likely kill
00:51:51
someone and possibly dispose of them, maybe even permanently. Mhm. Rumors flew that Marcus had been jealous
00:51:59
of Tara dating other men and so that he had killed her. Now, on the advice of his attorney, Marcus appeared on TV as
00:52:07
the subject of interviews. This was to clear up rumors and innuendo being leveled at him on social media and as
00:52:16
the investigation dragged on. Mhm. He was filmed in profile so as not to compromise his security in Iraq. Uh in
00:52:26
one interview, Marcus said that he and Tara never had the huge argument that Tara's sister Anita had referred to.
00:52:33
This being about another woman that Marcus was dating. He said that the last time that he had seen Tara was about
00:52:39
9:00 a.m. on October 14th, so more than a week before she disappeared. This was when Tara had turned up at his house.
00:52:47
Marcus said that Tara had threatened to commit suicide. Though he added that she
00:52:51
had returned later that same day and they seemed to work things out. She asked him for a hug and they both parted
00:52:59
and went their separate ways with the understanding that that would be the last time that they hung out together.
00:53:05
Mhm. according to a report that would that I found in Crime Library, Tara's friends
00:53:11
and family dispute Marcus's allegations that Tara was suicidal. They say that after Tara left Marcus's on the 14th,
00:53:19
she then went to a tanning salon and then hung out with relatives and they state that that behavior
00:53:26
was hardly, in their opinion, that of a suicidal depressive person. Well, I mean, his claims early on were
00:53:33
they're pretty pretty harsh. I mean, he was basically saying she pulled a Gone Girl, you know, that she you know,
00:53:40
that he did not believe that she was dead and they would have to actually, you know, show him a body to
00:53:47
to prove that she was actually murdered. Well, and by all accounts, too, Marcus was helpful and cooperative with the
00:53:54
investigation, even giving police a DNA sample, and it was determined he was not
00:53:59
a match to the sample that they found on the latex glove. And he says he spoke to
00:54:05
GBI four or five times, and he even let them search his truck using Luminol. Now, Marcus not being named a suspect by
00:54:14
authorities did not deter Tara's family from being convinced that he was somehow
00:54:19
involved in her disappearance or murder. Right. According to Marcus, Anita outright
00:54:24
accused him of harming Tara. The search that the Grinstead family members attempted of the private property, this
00:54:32
is what we discussed earlier, was in fact on Marcus's property. This was in March of 2006. Tara's family brought
00:54:40
cadaver dogs and volunteers to search the 100-acre area of land surrounding Marcus's home, which had not been
00:54:48
searched by the sheriff's department. They did not have permission to be there. However, a neighbor of Marcus's
00:54:55
had given searchers some permission to access his property, Right. which butts right up to Marcus's. But
00:55:02
apparently, the the Irwin County Sheriff showed up, and they were threatening to
00:55:08
arrest the searchers. This was in order to them off of Marcus's private property. Marcus did, however, agree to
00:55:16
a subsequent search of his property, but he wanted this to be conducted by actual
00:55:21
law enforcement. This did take place. He later declined to press any charges against the people that were trespassing
00:55:28
onto his land. Now, this is a very tough situation to be in because you have a relationship
00:55:34
that didn't work out. Now, who knows why, right? But you did care about this person at
00:55:39
some point. So, even if they're acting a little distraught or you're not in favor of how they're acting towards
00:55:44
you, you still have feelings towards them and they go missing. But, now it gets a little weird because everybody's
00:55:50
pointing the finger at you. It seems like time and time again, he's at least being cooperative.
00:55:55
Mhm. So, it's it's strange to me how long he was the number one suspect and and seemed like in the public's uh
00:56:04
opinion. Well, I it seems to me like he was always the number one suspect in the
00:56:10
public's opinion. I question how long he was a suspect in the police's opinion. And And because what I mean by that is
00:56:21
his actions, I actually could not see him a way to be more cooperative. Mhm. Okay, I can understand not have wanting
00:56:30
a random group of people showing up searching your property. Mhm. What if somebody were to plant
00:56:35
something? You don't know who these people You don't trust them. Right. And him being former police, I can
00:56:40
understand the Well, he trusted the police and he trusted the system, you know what
00:56:45
And what he's going to do is say, "Look, I don't know who you people are, so you
00:56:48
can't search my property. However, in in the in the course of being fully transparent toward the investigation of
00:56:55
this missing woman, I will allow law enforcement to search my property." The only thing that I There was one
00:57:02
thing that I found weird here. Well, I I should be I should be fair to Marcus because this is This is the shoe on the
00:57:09
other foot kind of thing, right? Mhm. So, he did agree to take a polygraph test, but this was not administered by
00:57:17
uh local law enforcement. This was he had through his attorney hired his own person to administer the test.
00:57:24
Mhm. And that was the test that was submitted to law enforcement. I That seems a
00:57:30
little strange, but saying that, if I were if I were under the microscope, I wouldn't even agree to
00:57:38
Even if I were Somebody asked me this a month ago. Um What What if you were 100%
00:57:43
innocent and you were being looked at in a murder investigation? I said, "Well, first thing first, I would get a lawyer,
00:57:49
and second thing, I would not take a polygraph test." And they said, "Well, why not?" I said,
00:57:54
"Because you have nothing to gain by taking the polygraph test. If you're completely innocent, you have nothing to
00:57:59
gain from taking the polygraph test." Yeah, but some sometimes lawyers will have their clients do it just just so
00:58:06
the lawyer gets a read on the client. Yeah, and gets to charge the client a little extra cashola. Uh one final
00:58:12
element that contributed to the public speculation about Marcus and gave rise to even more conspiracy theories. This
00:58:20
would have been about 2 weeks after Tara's disappearance, there was some kind of strange big fire that took place
00:58:26
on a nearby property. This is on Snapdragon Road. The fire destroyed a home and an SUV. The house, for whatever
00:58:36
reason, was supposedly being caretaken by Marcus's buddy. This is Michael Langford.
00:58:42
Mhm. Uh who was an active Ocilla police officer. Police took cadaver dogs through the burned-out scene. I have
00:58:51
police listed in here, and I I I question if this was police or if it was an outside source. But at some
00:58:57
point, search dogs or cadaver dogs did go to the scene of this fire. Mhm. Um they stated that nothing was found in
00:59:05
relation to Tara. There are reports out there that one of these dogs hit on something.
00:59:12
Um apparently, that was most likely a septic line or some sewage. Um needless to say, this connection
00:59:19
between Marcus and this suspicious fire right after Tara went missing did not improve the
00:59:28
the court of public opinion, right? Right. Right. And then let's go on to suspect number two, shall we?
00:59:35
This is a man named Anthony Vickers. Who is Anthony Vickers? He was a 20-year-old
00:59:40
at the time of Tara's disappearance, 20-year-old former student of Tara's who by all accounts had some kind of
00:59:49
There All right. I I say all accounts, but this is a strange thing because there are some small reports out there
00:59:55
that state he was obsessed with her. There are other reports out there in Anthony Vickers' own words that they
01:00:01
were having an actual relationship at the time of her disappearance or shortly before.
01:00:07
An intimate relationship. Yeah. Right. So and there is actual accounts of them hanging out. So it's weird cuz
01:00:14
you get kind of two sides of the story, but in the middle you do have this scenario where she is hanging out with
01:00:20
one of her former students. Yes. Well, and then you also have this strange thing with Anthony Vickers that
01:00:26
took place in March of 2005 when Anthony was arrested for showing up at Tara's home, and apparently he's
01:00:32
banging on the door demanding to speak with her. She's inside the home at the time, but refusing to answer the door.
01:00:41
Inside the home with Tara was a male visitor, and I guess she finally opened the door.
01:00:47
Right. And at that time Anthony Vickers tried to forcibly enter the home. Let me in. Like fear.
01:00:55
And at one point he grabs her arm. The male visitor at Tara's house was Heath Dykes, who is a Perry County detective.
01:01:03
Mhm. Ocilla PD was called, and Anthony cursed out the arresting officers. Tara pressed charges against Anthony. He
01:01:13
was charged with disorderly conduct. And later the charges were dropped. Now, that's not the story he tells
01:01:21
people. The story he tells people is that he was over there hanging out, they got in an argument, one of the neighbors
01:01:27
calls because they hear that hears them arguing. Mhm. The cops show up, and then he continues,
01:01:34
you know, because he's angry, continues to argue with the police officers, and then they have to arrest him.
01:01:39
I don't know. I must have missed the part where he said that they were hanging out. But what what I recall him
01:01:46
stating to kind of clarify the situation is that he lived relatively close to Okay, so the the police department,
01:01:55
Ocilla Police Department, is relatively close to Tara Grinstead's home that she's renting.
01:02:00
And that at some course the neighbor Like you said, the neighbors called the police. So, he
01:02:07
would be unaware that the police were on their way. Right. But whatever happened while he was
01:02:12
there, according to Anthony Vickers, it was kind of over and done with in his mind. He felt like he had said what he
01:02:19
wanted to say, whether regardless of how loudly he said it, that he was he was preparing to leave her home. That he
01:02:28
wasn't It was not going to escalate further. That he was going to leave her home, and before as he was walking to
01:02:34
his vehicle, the police showed up because they were so close. Right. Had they had she not lived in that close
01:02:41
proximity to the police department, he would have been well on his way, and these charges would have never been
01:02:48
brought in the first place. relatively close in time from when she went missing, right?
01:02:53
No, this was in March of 2005. So, I mean, it's the same year. It's seven seven months before. Authorities did
01:03:02
interview Anthony very quickly after Tara's disappearance. Anthony also agreed to take a polygraph, and the
01:03:08
Vickers family property was searched. Anthony maintained that he and Tara had some type of long-term romantic
01:03:15
relationship. Those are his words. that they were keeping under wraps because it
01:03:20
would damage Tara's career and reputation to be involved with a young ex-student. Keep in mind, at this time,
01:03:28
he would have been one of her students just years before. Right. Now, none of Tara's friends or family
01:03:35
support this thought that the two were involved together. And another wrinkle in this whole case
01:03:42
Mhm. is that regarding that incident of Anthony Vickers being arrested, one of the Ocilla PD officers responding to
01:03:51
that situation at Tara's home was none other than Shawn Fletcher. Remember we said that this Shawn Fletcher was
01:04:00
Marcus Harper's cop buddy. Right. They hung out the night that that she disappeared.
01:04:06
And Tara later filed an official complaint against Fletcher because he violated his duty to protect
01:04:14
her privacy regarding information that he learned during the course of performing his duties as an officer.
01:04:21
So so he told his friend about this uh student. Yes. Well, yeah, he tells Marcus at a
01:04:29
later time yeah. that hey, we showed up to your ex's house one night and there were two
01:04:35
people over there. Heath Dykes was there Mhm. and Two men. and Anthony Vickers was outside and the
01:04:40
result was we arrested Anthony Vickers. I guess now would be the appropriate time to talk about Heath Dykes.
01:04:46
And he's probably the most uh interesting suspect, I think. Yeah, Captain Heath Dykes, he was a
01:04:53
married Perry, Georgia police officer who had dated Tara Grinstead when they were attending Hawkinsville High School
01:05:01
together. So a former relationship with this person. He was also close with Tara's
01:05:08
family. Now, it was Heath who was at Tara's home when Anthony Vickers was arrested for
01:05:14
that disorderly conduct. We know that. In the course of of their investigation, police heard from Tara's neighbors
01:05:22
that Heath was a regular visitor to Tara's home, even though he had lived over an hour away. Some say
01:05:30
uh that Heath would deliberately park He would deliberately not park his vehicle
01:05:36
in Tara's driveway as though trying to avoid people noticing that he was there. Right.
01:05:42
Uh when Tara's mother could not reach her on that Sunday in October 2005, she did call Heath Dykes and asked him to
01:05:50
check on Tara. Heath left Tara many voicemails that day and called her cell phone close to like 30 times over the
01:05:59
course of the day. Eventually, not hearing from Tara, he drives out to Ocilla. He knocks on her
01:06:05
door. I don't know how long he's there for. And we now know, obviously, Tara did
01:06:11
never answer the door. Uh perhaps he Presumably, he saw her car there. And he decided that she was probably not
01:06:19
interested in any visitors or she was not home and didn't want to take his phone calls. So, he then tucks his
01:06:25
business card into her front door and he leaves. And I'm kind of unclear about this.
01:06:31
Maybe you can clear this up. Are they romantic at this time? I I don't think anybody has a clear
01:06:36
picture of what their involvement was together. Okay. What is weird is that he would be
01:06:43
responding to her mother not knowing where she is. And we do know that at least on one occasion, regardless of
01:06:50
what the neighbors say, whether he parked in her driveway or would park down the street and walk over,
01:06:55
regardless of what they say, we know from Ocilla Police Department reports of the Anthony Vickers situation that at
01:07:01
least on one occasion, he was at her home. Right. For an unknown reason. It seems
01:07:08
But they could just be friends. I mean, they could have just Well, by all accounts by his account and
01:07:14
by Tara's family's account, he's described as a friend of the family. Okay. So, like you said, he could be he could
01:07:24
just be friends with her. But of course, you know, regardless the public has a field day with the gossip
01:07:31
surrounding Heath Dykes. Right. Now, his alibi for that Saturday night when she was last seen, he was with his
01:07:38
wife who said that he was at home with her all night long. But he was also one of
01:07:43
the people who had stopped by Tara's on Sunday and yet you know, we don't know what time or
01:07:50
when or why that latex glove was dropped at the scene. Yeah. But if it were to be there when he
01:07:56
arrives to check up on her, well, he doesn't see this glove that's in plain sight.
01:08:01
See, I always wondered that sometimes these law enforcement officers will carry latex gloves in their back pocket. I
01:08:09
always wondered if he, you know, reached out because he left his business card. You know, did he
01:08:15
did he reach into his wallet and accidentally pull out this glove? Mhm. Um so, I thought long and hard about this
01:08:23
Heath Dykes character and what his could his involvement have been. So, my first thought is this, if
01:08:32
he look, he's he's not just a police officer. He's He's He's listed as a captain and a detective. So, he has some
01:08:39
very good inside knowledge of the way that these things work and the way to conduct yourself during the course of an
01:08:46
investigation, especially if you're being looked at. And what I mean by this is I think if he
01:08:53
had been at considered a strong suspect and if he was getting a lot of heat for this
01:09:01
I would have suspected that he would lawyer up very quickly and that he would probably submit DNA and that they could
01:09:09
clear him very quickly in this. I did ask a um detective, he's not active in the sense that he's out in
01:09:17
any crime scenes actively to this day, but he would have been 10 years or so ago. And that's roughly about the time,
01:09:25
you know, that's when she disappeared. Right. And I asked him, I said, "Look, um I
01:09:30
would imagine, you know, duh, they have your meaning law enforcement, they have your fingerprints on file."
01:09:38
And they had they have people's fingerprints on file for any number of reasons, but if you're in law
01:09:43
enforcement, they have your fingerprints on file. There is some thought that there was a
01:09:47
fingerprint found at the scene. They didn't report on it because it seems to be it seems to be sketchy if that is in
01:09:54
fact true. Right. But But we also have eyewitness accounts of him being at the house
01:10:00
before then, so does a does a fingerprint mean that this guy is guilty? Right. So there that leads you to want
01:10:07
to know the situation with DNA. Mhm. And that's why I say if he were innocent, he would get a lawyer, well,
01:10:14
even if he was guilty, he'd get a lawyer, but if he were innocent, he would submit his DNA very quickly and
01:10:18
they could clear him and say that glove at least didn't belong to Heath Dykes. If the glove don't fit, you must acquit.
01:10:25
So I asked this officer, I said, "You know, 10 years ago or even today, do you think that they would have crime scene
01:10:31
technicians, detectives, police officers, if they would have those persons' DNA on file?" And he said he
01:10:38
didn't think that they would, and he knew that 10 years ago they did not. Well, this is also a very small
01:10:44
community as well, so Well, and he brought up he brought up something that that we should point out
01:10:49
is that it would be expensive to have everyone's DNA on file, first of all. Right. And second of all, I said, "Well,
01:10:56
I said, how do I know that because I told him, I said, here's my concern with this latex glove. I'm
01:11:02
putting a whole lot of weight and a lot of people other people are putting a whole lot of weight into the evidentiary
01:11:07
value of this latex glove where it could just be have left it was found outside.
01:11:13
Right. It hadn't been found inside inside, I would put more weight to it, but outside, you wonder, is this just
01:11:19
something that happens to be there and it's screwing up the whole investigation?
01:11:23
Right, because people could be checking the DNA against that glove and it doesn't match and they go, okay,
01:11:29
well, you're cleared. And this glove could have just came from a neighbor's house or this glove could have came from
01:11:35
who knows where. Well, and what I was doing when I was talking with this person was I said, you
01:11:41
know, I don't give him the name of the victim or the name of the case, that way he doesn't he's not answering my
01:11:46
questions with any preconceived thoughts or notions of his own. Mhm. And so, I just said, look,
01:11:53
what's the chances of a detective or a crime scene technician dropping a glove at the scene?
01:12:01
He said, first off, it it would be in his career and in his understanding and his his experience, it never
01:12:09
happens. Right. It never happens. And I said, well, I said, how do we make certain that it didn't
01:12:15
belong to any of those people that showed up on Monday and that's why nobody saw it until that Monday, that
01:12:21
nobody saw it on Sunday? Right. And he said, well, the first way that they would do it
01:12:27
was that they would typically wear latex gloves that aren't, you know, you don't
01:12:31
just go to Home Depot and buy the brand that the law enforcement's using. He said, the fastest and the cheapest way
01:12:37
to clear it from being anybody involved in law enforcement would be to check the
01:12:41
brand and the make of the latex glove. And he said, they had never he had never worked a scene where they were using a
01:12:49
glove that was common to anything else in the scene. So, I found that to be interesting. Now,
01:12:55
what he did bring up immediately after after that thought had passed, he said, "Who would leave the glove there would
01:13:02
be medical technicians." You know, people showing up in an ambulance, EMTs. He said, "They
01:13:09
constantly leave things at crime scenes." Yeah, but they have a different different concern. They're there to save
01:13:17
someone's life, while police are there to pres- preserve the scene. Right, but it's not out of the realm of
01:13:23
possibilities that it could happen. You know, somebody dropped a glove and felt stupid about it and just never
01:13:29
brought it to anybody's attention. But, you think if they're checking DNA off that glove, somebody'd say, "Hey, by the
01:13:34
way, that's my glove. I dropped that." Yeah. Yeah, if they're going to the point of eliminating suspects using the
01:13:40
DNA found on that glove. Now, the interesting thing But, we don't know that for sure.
01:13:44
The interesting thing though here, Captain, is that with his comment about EMTs constantly
01:13:52
leaving things at the scene, we know that that couldn't be the case here because
01:13:56
the ambulance was never called. Right. It never There was no need for EMTs to arrive on the scene. So, that didn't
01:14:03
happen then. But, what I find curious here about the glove and about Heath Dykes' business card
01:14:11
are two things. Mhm. One, how does a detective show up to that scene and not notice a latex glove
01:14:18
in plain sight? That seems very strange to me. They That That is what they are exactly trained
01:14:25
for, to detect and deduce things that the average man or woman would not at any given scene. And he's not just
01:14:32
showing up to a friend's house, he's showing up to a friend's house where he's been called, he's been alerted by
01:14:39
her relative stating, "I'm concerned. I've not heard from Tara." Right, but that glove could have been
01:14:46
somewhere outside where he couldn't see it and then moved by you know, the the weather, a dog, could have been
01:14:56
moved at some point where it's in plain sight. So, people go, "Oh man, how can you not see this glove?" Well, it's
01:15:04
like, well, it might have moved. You know, doesn't mean that the perpetrator came back in between that time or
01:15:10
anything. Uh it the glove itself could have just moved. Mhm. I also wonder about the his
01:15:17
business card being found in the door. And I state that because we by the accounts that I stated on our
01:15:24
show, the door, or at least a door, to the home was open prior to police arriving
01:15:32
on the scene. All right, so what you're saying is that at some point he comes by to check on
01:15:37
her, she doesn't answer the door, he takes his card and he puts it in the door. Yeah.
01:15:42
Then at some point that door is open, but when they come to investigate his card is still in that door.
01:15:48
Well, so I'm kind of going down two roads with this. One being what you just mentioned, that the door was open prior
01:15:57
to police arriving, and then they're saying, "We found this card stuck in the door."
01:16:02
Mhm. Where if the door was open, it would not presumably would not have still remained
01:16:06
stuck in the door. Unless they're talking about like a screen door, and then so the screen door
01:16:11
was open, but his door his card was stuck in the house door. I'm not really for sure.
01:16:16
No, what I mean is that the home was entered. Right? Like, so somebody entered the
01:16:24
home. So, regardless if there's one door there or two at that particular entrance
01:16:30
exit to the home, both would have had to been opened to enter the home. So, somebody entered and then then
01:16:37
possibly put the card back. What I'm What I'm getting at though is I I'm I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm
01:16:42
saying that there's there's cause to believe that potentially a different door was accessed
01:16:50
by by the neighbor who entered the home before police arrived on the scene. Mhm.
01:16:56
You know, like I've I've had I've lived in a residence before where the front door and the back
01:17:02
door had different keys to them. And maybe he only had a key to the back door because he was a
01:17:08
neighbor or to a side door, whatever. But but the other thing I'm getting at is we have the detective who does not see
01:17:17
the glove if it is in fact in the yard at the time that he was present at the house when checking on Tara. We also
01:17:24
have a a man by the name of Jared Luke. This was a colleague of Tara who had dropped by the house sometime on that
01:17:31
Sunday. He was there to retrieve a forgotten water bowl. I guess at some point she had watched her pet sit it for
01:17:40
him. Right. And so he drops by to retrieve this water bowl that was forgotten. He
01:17:45
doesn't see the glove there either. Here's what Here's what I wonder. So, uh because
01:17:52
is there there's two doors, right? Let's just We're assuming there's two doors. Two doors where?
01:17:59
In her house to get in and out of her house. Okay. But the neighbor is friends with her.
01:18:05
The the guy retrieving the bowl is friends with her. The cop is friends with her.
01:18:11
Mhm. Some people's houses, like, you know, I'd visit your house, your old house a
01:18:17
bunch. And I'd probably use your back door majority of the time. Right. So, if I if somebody said, "Hey, Nick
01:18:26
went missing. Can you go check in on him?" I'd say, "No." No, but then I'd go over and check on
01:18:31
him and then I'd probably knock on your back door. Right. So, I just wonder if depending on which
01:18:38
door these people checked or didn't check or knock on, is that one of the reasons why they
01:18:43
didn't see the glove? No, and I get what you're saying. But, the the route that I'm going down with this
01:18:49
is that a lot of people are saying, "Hey, look. The glove ended up there after these two
01:18:56
people went to the house." That That's what a lot of people would suggest that the evidence would show. That because
01:19:02
the detective didn't see the glove and because this guy that she worked with or or colleague of hers didn't see the
01:19:07
glove, that that that somebody came The thought is that whoever took her came back sometime that Sunday night, cleaned
01:19:15
up the scene, and in the course of that action dropped the glove upon leaving the area.
01:19:21
Right. What I'm What I'm getting at is if you want to argue that it's likely that
01:19:27
that's when the person cleaned the scene, my argument would be, "Okay, if if that's your one bit of evidence that the
01:19:34
scene was cleaned after those two events took place of the people dropping by the
01:19:37
home." My other argument would be, "Well, if the person came to clean the scene after those two people had been
01:19:43
there, the card The detective's card was still stuck in the door. If that person
01:19:48
accessed the house through that particular door, the the card likely would not have been stuck in the door."
01:19:57
Right. What I'm getting at is I believe they cancel each other out. And I think that
01:20:02
it's I don't think that the glove not being seen by either of those two people points me to believe that the person
01:20:10
returned on Sunday night. I do think that there are certainly some things that show that somebody cleaned up the
01:20:15
scene, that they manipulated the crime scene. I personally just think that it happened
01:20:20
sometime much earlier than that. Right. And I think that the things that were most manipulated in this situation are
01:20:27
things within side of the home that would not have been seen by either the detective or the colleague returning to
01:20:33
collect the water bowl. Maybe some things with the car, but I think those are debatable.
01:20:38
And I think you and I agree on those being debatable, the seat and the clay or the mud on the tires.
01:20:44
Right, correct. Do you Do we have time real quick for there are a couple of other potential
01:20:50
persons of interest that I want to make sure that we mention before we get to tomorrow's show.
01:20:56
Mhm. So, the thought being that there are also some theories. We talked about three guys that knew Tara very well.
01:21:04
There were also some theories that Tara could have been killed by someone that she was not dating or was not involved
01:21:10
with. Maybe possibly an obsessed stalker. So, I want to make sure that we bring up a situation that took place in
01:21:17
2001. Tara had been a victim of a stalker and she had actually pressed charges against
01:21:24
an individual. The stalker was unnamed and also only received probation for their actions.
01:21:32
Mhm. I'm doing a little speculating here, Captain, but my guess is maybe the reason why the stalker is
01:21:39
never named either one of two things took place. Either the stalker just pled guilty to
01:21:45
the charges with the agreement that his name would not be publicized Right. or two
01:21:52
it with her being a teacher, it might have been a minor. Yeah. It might have been somebody Yeah, a male
01:21:58
under the age of 18. And another strange twist, in 2010, a former student of Tara's committed suicide and left behind
01:22:06
a note listing 12 names who he claimed were involved in killing Tara. The list of names has never been released, but we
01:22:15
can assume that law enforcement vetted the names on this list pretty carefully. This, according to Dr. Maurice Godwin.
01:22:23
He says that the 12 people on the list all gave DNA samples and were cleared. These are the suspects and these are the
01:22:30
theories that people would ponder over and debate for years. Until recently, there's been a break in the case.
01:22:44
Until tomorrow, everybody out there, be good, be kind, and don't litter.