Tara Grinstead

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by jiminmybed

by jiminmybed

[OVERVIEW]

If you live in Georgia and watch the news, you may know the name and her story.

Tara Grinstead, a Hawkinsville, Georgia native, was a beauty queen and a high school history teacher who went missing in 2005.

[EARLY LIFE]

In 1999 Tara won the title of Miss Tifton and competed in the Miss Georgia beauty pageant. Her winnings from this pageant and many others she had entered helped her pay for college. Grinstead graduated from Middle Georgia College in Georgia and, in 2003, earned a master's degree in education at Valdosta State University. In 1998, she began teaching history at Irwin County High School in Ocilla.

[DISSAPEARANCE]

On October 21, 2005, the day before her disappearance, Tara visited a beauty pageant (she was active as a coach to young contestants) and attended a barbecue. On October 24, a Monday morning, she did not show up for work. Co-workers called police, who went to the home where she lived alone. They found Grinstead's cell phone inside the house and her car was outside, unlocked. Her purse and keys were gone.

Local police immediately called in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), feeling that "something was wrong" and the case was beyond the resources of the small town police department. The GBI found no signs of forced entry and no sign of a struggle.

Irwin County High School principal Bobby Conner was quoted by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as saying, "We're a small community and this has really touched home because it is something you read about happening elsewhere. This is someone with a tremendous, magnetic personality, and the kids just love her."

[INVESTIGATION]

In 2008, the Grinstead case received renewed attention with a report on the CBS News show 48 Hours Mystery, which noted the similarity of Grinstead's disappearance to that of another young woman, Jennifer Kesse, in Orlando, Florida, three months later.

In connection with that 48 Hours story, police revealed that they had found DNA on a latex glove that was found in Grinstead's yard, "just a stone's throw from her front stoop", according to an interview with Gary Rothwell of the GBI:

Rothwell did not identify as a suspect the person whose DNA was found in the glove, but he said that person could help lead to a break in the case. "We believe it is a critical element to solving the case," Rothwell said. Rothwell said the DNA has been analyzed and agents know it's a man's DNA. But they haven't identified the man. Over the course of the investigation, he said, agents have compared the DNA to dozens of men who knew Grinstead or who were associated with her. "None of them matched," Rothwell said. The DNA also has been entered into Georgia and national databases, but still no matches."

In February 2009, videos surfaced on the Internet featuring a self-proclaimed serial killer. Dubbing himself the "Catch Me Killer", the man in the videos details what he claims are his sixteen female victims, and one of these women was determined by authorities to be Grinstead. Although the man's face and voice are digitally obscured, police eventually determined the videos' source to be 27-year-old Andrew Haley. A police investigation revealed the videos to be part of a bizarre, elaborate hoax, and Haley was ultimately eliminated as a substantial lead in Grinstead's disappearance.

In 2011, the chief GBI investigator said: "this case has never gone cold", adding that leads still come in on a weekly basis.

Running from 2016-2017, the Up and Vanished podcast was credited by officials and media for helping shed new light on the evidence and reigniting public interest in the case.

On February 23, 2017, the GBI announced they had received a tip which led to the arrest of Ryan Alexander Duke for Grinstead's murder. About three years before her disappearance, Duke had attended Irwin County High School, where Grinstead was employed as a teacher. According to warrants read in court, Duke burgled Grinstead's home, and when she caught him in the act, he strangled her and removed her body from the house. Another arrest, on March 3, 2017, was made public in connection with Tara's disappearance. Bo Dukes, a former classmate of Duke with no familial relation, was charged with attempting to conceal a death by burning her body, hindering apprehension and tampering with evidence. Grinstead's sister, Anita Gattis, said she has known Bo Dukes' family for years but never connected him with any part of her sister's disappearance.

In August 2017, a grand jury filed four new charges against Dukes: two counts of making false statements, one count of hindering apprehension of a criminal and one count of concealing the death of another. These additional charges are based on a Wilcox County indictment stating that Dukes had lied to a GBI official who questioned him in 2016 concerning the disappearance of Grinstead. The trial of Bo Dukes began on March 19, 2019. Ryan Duke's murder trial is presently set for April 1, 2019

Bo Duke's trail ended on March 21, 2019 and his sentencing was today, March 22. He will be spending the next 25 years in jail as that is the maximum amount he can with his charges.

[NOTE]

This is in the "unsolved" section as her killer hasn't been convicted. Until someone is found guilty it is technically an unsolved murder. If and when it happens it will be put in the "update" section.