Up and Vanished - Q&A with Payne Lindsey and Philip Holloway 03.30.17

Episode Date: March 31, 2017

Payne Lindsey and Philip Holloway answer your questions from our Voicemail line and from social media. Have a question? Call us at 770-545-6411. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone else close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Hi, this is matthew calling from chicago let's have a quick legal question kind of follow up on a question i heard on last week's episode and that was how can they convict on confession alone without any type of evidence to back up the confession. My question is, what if there is some evidence, slightly corroborating evidence, say the glove, for example, they find his DNA on this glove,

but it turns out that the chain of custody on that glove would make that evidence inadmissible. Would that mean that then that confession would also not be admissible without the proper evidence to go along with that. Okay, so he brings up a good point about chain of custody, which refers to how an item is collected from a crime scene or any other place and how it's maintained in terms of its integrity all the way through the process so that we know that the item that's in court is the actual item that

was collected and tested. In Georgia, a chain of custody is important, but you don't have to show an entirely complete chain of custody. There can be breaks in the chain of custody, and it still be admissible. I'm not suggesting that there are any breaks in the chain in this case because we just don't know. But if there's a little bit of a break, it can still be admissible. And the judge would instruct the jury that that would go to the weight that they give any evidence, not its admissibility. But it would be a type of corroboration that could be used to corroborate a confession if there is one. Would they still have to have other evidence besides a confession

if that were to be thrown out? If, for example, under that hypothetical, they wanted to use the glove as some type of corroboration and it turns out it's not admissible, then they would still need something else, even a statement from another witness. For example, hypothetically, if Beau turns out to be a witness. Something else, but it could just be Beau's testimony or someone else's testimony. Just slight corroboration is all that's required. Hi there, this is Angie in Canada. My mind is just blown by the developments in this case, and I think you guys are doing a great job. I had a couple of things that I was wondering about. The first one is, initially it seemed that there was some kind of confession maybe from Ryan, which makes it seem odd that his lawyer would

request this gag order in the first place. I'm just curious about that, if there's any reason that there might be a gag order, if he's planning to plead guilty to something. And also, I'm wondering if it's possible that there'd be any charges down the line for anyone who may have covered up this information about this pecan growth story coming out 10 years ago, if anyone had found that out and then concealed it, can they be charged for anything? Okay, keep up the great work.

First of all, what's the gag order? I don't know. I can't think of that part. That's how they say it in Canada, I suppose. Down there in the south, we call it a gag order. I'm just kidding with you, but you go ahead. Okay, so I'm going to address that question backwards. She's talking about potential charges against third parties.

This is all speculation, of course, but if law enforcement determines that there's people that were involved in it, they can still prosecute them. If they find out people have done anything to hinder an investigation, to tamper with evidence, and if any further investigation reveals evidence of that, then there could be charges. There's statute of limitations issues, but theoretically, I think charges could be made if there's evidence. It doesn't look like there's going to be at this point, but hypothetically, it's possible. You got to understand that by the time he was appointed a lawyer, he had already made any statements that they would have been asking for prior to taking him into custody. You know, that's the big frustration that lawyers in criminal cases face is by the time they get their client as a client, a lot of times they've already confessed

all over themselves and the damage has already been done because it's very difficult to survive a confession as long as the confession was obtained legally. And what happens is police will interview or do some type of interrogation with someone prior to them being placed into custody. And they will get counsel, of course, after they're arrested. So most of the time, people ignore the Miranda warnings and do give statements. Do you think that it's customary for a state-appointed defense attorney in this case to request a gag order, or is that out of the norm for this high-profile case? The fact that it's a public defender versus a hired lawyer, I don't think makes any difference. I think that it's

professionally the responsible thing to do for the defense counsel to ask for it because you go into a case not knowing exactly what you've got on your hands and you figure that out later. So going into it, you have to do everything you can to protect your client's rights, which would include the right to a fair trial. And pretrial publicity has an impact on that. So it's responsible and it's what I would do if there was a case that had this much publicity. Hi, my name is Heidi, and my question is, when they first announced that they had arrested Ryan for the murder, I read somewhere, and I'm not sure if it was from a legitimate source or not, but that Ryan was in late stages of renal failure and on dialysis.

And I just wanted to see if that was true or not, because that kind of feeds into the speculation that maybe he's taking the majority of the rap for Bo because he could be at the end of life anyway. So that was just a question that I had. Thank you. The county jail in Osceola or Irwin County is not your typical county jail. It's run by a private company and it contracts

its services out not only to Irwin County, but primarily to the federal government. It's used as an immigration deportation holding facility. It holds literally hundreds and hundreds of federal inmates. And the number of people who are in jail on local charges awaiting trial has to be very, very low. When I practiced in that circuit, it probably was less than 10 or 15 at any given time. So there's not going to be a lot of local Irwin County inmates there. But the thing about that facility, and because it holds so many federal inmates, it has more advanced medical facilities than a lot of other smaller county jails in that area

would have because it's really unique. And I think it's just happenstance that that's where he's held. So if he does have medical needs that other inmates don't have, I think it's reasonable to believe that a lot of that could be handled in-house without having to move him to a hospital. Is that where they would normally keep him, or do you think that he's there for another reason? No, I think that's the county jail. If they house him anywhere else, they're going to have to pay another county to house him. So we may as well house him in the facility that they already have. And he can get better medical attention there than he could get at any of the other, you know, smaller county local jails or probably better than you could get at a local jail in the metro Atlanta area.

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O-N only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to any operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey, this is Mary in Macon, Georgia.

I was wondering if since Bo Duke seems to have so many connections, if it's possible that Ryan Duke could have been compelled by him or his family to confess to a crime that maybe Bo committed. Thanks guys. Great show. I've seen people make statements or confessions or things that approach the confession that weren't the whole truth. I've seen people make statements that minimized other people's involvement or maybe minimized their own involvement, but I have never seen anyone outright just flip and take the blame for a serious crime.

I've seen it in maybe a drug case where you get a bunch of kids in a car and there's some weed in the car and the cops will say, okay, whose is it? I'm going to take everybody to jail unless somebody says it's mine. And then somebody will say, okay, it's mine. Right. So maybe it was all theirs. Maybe it wasn't. Someone took the blame for it and everybody else didn't, but not in a real serious case. I think that is probably very unlikely. Hi, Payne and Philip. This is Kristen Richter from Oklahoma City.

I guess the biggest question that I have after this last episode is, if Ryan had been arrested before for a DUI, he had been fingerprinted. So if he had been fingerprinted, would the fingerprint have matched the glove? And if it didn't come up as a match, then whose fingerprint is on the glove? Just my first thought. Thank you so much for all that you're doing. Well, we don't know if the fingerprint was on the glove or not. The only thing that was known is that some DNA of some type was on the glove. It's very difficult to take prints off of certain types of material, and a latex glove would be something that I would imagine

would be very difficult to obtain a latent fingerprint. Now, that being said, we know that her car was fingerprinted. We know that the scene itself of the home was fingerprinted. And it's possible that some of those prints were around. And maybe now they go back and see if the fingerprints that belong to Ryan match anything that they may have found at the scene. Now keep in mind they've got new prints too because he was arrested on this case they printed him again. So they would have had to have had some reason to compare his prints from the DUI to any prints that they may have collected from the crime scene.

And it literally could be that nobody thought to make that comparison. If they had fingerprints from the crime scene, and if they'd entered those into a database called CODIS, and if fingerprints from the DUI arrest were taken electronically and also put into that same system, theoretically, it could have been a match. But if they use the old fingerprint card system and it never got put into that system, there would have been no way to match them up. I've been in that tiny, tiny little jail in Precinct and Osceola. Are they submitting every single DUI and minor arrests that they get in Osceola into this CODIS system or is it automatically do that? Or is there still a paper system or was there in 2010 likely that even if they

did have the print and it did match the glove, we would have never known anyways. Yeah. It would have to have gone into that system. And if you're arrested and it's using the modern technology and it's all done electronically, then I think it automatically gets fed into that. But unless it went into the system, there would have been no way that the two would have automatically linked up. And we're assuming that they found a print anyway, the crime scene, and we really don't know that. Hi, Payne. My name is Lindsay, and I'm from Hawkinsville.

I had a question. If there were people who knew about what happened to Tara, you know, let's say that were closely associated with Ryan or Bo, and they had let the beans fill, so to speak, and told them what happened, those people who knew and did nothing to let law enforcement or the GVI know, can they be held accountable for basically concealing that? No, they can't be held accountable for simply not reporting a crime. They can be held accountable if they lie to somebody about it, if they obstruct an investigation, but they literally can keep that information to themselves and suffer no legal consequences whatsoever. There are certain people like physicians, for example, who are called

mandatory reporters of like sex crimes and things like that. Abuse. Correct. But just your ordinary person is not a mandatory reporter, and so there's no obligation. Hi, Payne and Phillip. This is Elizabeth in California. My question was, outside of speculation, what actual facts do we have that point fingers at Ryan for the murder? Thank you. The podcast is awesome. Yeah, I know that wrongful convictions do happen, and that's something that I'm going to talk more about later, but wrongful convictions do happen, and eyewitness identification is one of the worst types of evidence that is out there, like eyewitnesses to a crime that's really unreliable. There is a real thing when it comes to false confessions. That does happen. And we also know that people tell lies to the police, and they tell lies to juries. So there's

a lot of things that go into it, and we could literally devote, I don't know, maybe a whole podcast episode to this topic. But it does happen. As far as what evidence is actually there in this case, really all we have to go on right now is the warrants and what they allege, which are fairly conclusory statements. They don't go into a lot of detail. So other than what you've uncovered and what's been released publicly, we don't know what the facts are. Right. And there's been very little, if at all, anything that's been released publicly other than the arrest warrants and the fact that they have been arrested at all and that Ryan has been charged with murder. As far as the facts that I have, I don't have many at all. But nobody has any facts here because there's a gag order in place that is preventing the police

from telling you what facts that they have that I think that could prevent some of the speculation. But from what I know to be true and what I personally believe to be true is that Tara's body has been found on that pecan grove and that that story has been corroborated by many people and it involves Ryan Duke killing Tara Grinstead. I personally think that that is what the state is alleging here. You know, we don't have all the details of it, but the state feels confident enough to say,

Ryan Duke killed Tara Grinstead. I'm just choosing to agree with them. Hello, my name is Stephen Ferriccioli. I'm from Brea, California. My question is this. Do you have any idea how long it takes GDI from the time a tip comes into their phone line to the time they have a resource available to investigate the tip? Law enforcement

was receiving hundreds, probably thousands of tips in this case. So I'm sure they have their own ways of deciding how legitimate it is. And, you know, I have spoken to the GBI at one point and they told me that they vet out everything no matter how silly it is. They explore everything. I guess from your experience in the system at all, how quickly do they have a resource to respond to certain things? Let's just use the orchard, for example,

the pecan orchard. They were clearly digging out there and they got the information from a tip. How quickly do they swoop in and take care of business when it comes to that kind of stuff? Well, I think the best procedure would be to follow up on the information as quickly as you get it.

I think a lot of times tips can be ruled out as being significant almost immediately if it's something that law enforcement knows not to be accurate, they don't necessarily have to go out and send a SWAT team of folks out to start rounding up suspects and making arrests. A lot of it they can filter out based on things they already know.

If it has anything to it that says it could be within the realm of conceivable possibility, then I think they move on it fairly quickly and get enough information to decide whether or not they need to even go further. So it just depends on the nature of the tip. I think they have plenty of resources, and that's really not an issue. Timing is probably not an issue.

And I know people that were involved in this case from the very beginning, because I remember when it happened, and these are people that I know that were involved in, you know, conducting these searches for her. And I know that there was a lot of information coming in to a lot of different law enforcement agencies involved in, you know, in a short period of time. And of course, most of it turned out to be nothing. And that's why this case sort of captivated everybody's attention. Hey, guys, this is Alec calling from Nashville, Tennessee.

This is my favorite podcast out there right now, and just first want to say great job. I've had a great time following it. My question is I just keep going back to what was said back in, like, episode six with the kid who committed suicide and left a note that apparently had, like, 12 names on it saying that they may have been involved with the disappearance of Tara. And I'm just wondering if that note will be obtainable now that this gag order may be lifted.

And, you know, we have a confession and could Ryan or Bo's name be on it? Well, the answer is no, because that would be in the possession of the GBI. And of course, they're all subject to the gag order. The entire file is subject to the gag order. We don't know, as far as I understand, all the names that are on it. We don't know if it's relevant. We don't know if it has anything to do at all with this case. It may be one of those white rabbits. Hi, I'm Jennifer from Warner Robins, Georgia, and I have a question. It's regarding the gag order. Now that the stipulations have been eased a little bit, I'm wondering if we would be able to find out things that happened while the

gag order was in place, such as is it possible for us to know if Tara's remains were found specifically? Thank you. Keep up the great work. Well, we can't know for sure, at least unless someone violates the gag order. I can read between the lines when I look at the arrest warrant, which indicates that the body was destroyed in Ben Hill County. And I can infer from statements that the GBI made prior to the gag order that items of evidence were in fact found. So putting that together, I am of the firm belief and opinion that remains were found. Will that ever come to light soon or before a trial or conviction? At what point does that come out? I think it comes out when the case is resolved in court, whether it's by some type of negotiated plea or if it's a trial. My biggest concern and fear about this case, though, and I've said this

before, is that if they do work out a plea deal and they don't want all of the details to be public, even if it's for privacy reasons for the family, you could go into court and you could simply stipulate to the court that there is a factual basis to support the charges and the plea without actually laying out what those facts are. And those facts could therefore not become part of any public record. So, you know, Payne, a lot of people have passed on some questions that they wanted me to ask you about. And one of the ones that seems to be really capturing everybody's attention. Now, you went down

there and you were in Ocilla and you visited the current resident of Tara's home. And is it true that you just like knocked on the door and somebody just who doesn't even know you says, hey, come on in? That's actually exactly how it happened. I walked to the door, knocked on it, and I hear, come in. And I really couldn't believe it. I looked back at the road. My little brother was there with me.

Donald was there in the car. And I was like, are you sure? And I mean, I opened the door and walked inside Tara's house. So did they look out the window and see who it was? No, the blinds were shut. There was no window on the door. It was just a completely shut door. There was no way to see who I was. She never heard my voice yet. I just knocked on the door. And seconds later, she says, come in. And so I just instinctually opened the door very slowly.

And it was dark in there. And it was a completely surreal, kind of spooky experience for a second you know I think I mentioned that afterwards yeah it was when I saw you go go in that's when I got out of the car and kind of just walked around the yard a little bit and was kind of listening in on the conversation and yeah yeah what time of day was this it was daytime so it wasn't it wasn't I mean it's probably four four or five o'clock it was youclock. It was really dark inside the house. It took a couple seconds for our eyes to adjust. You guys don't look like very trustworthy characters.

I don't know if I would have opened the door. I know. She could see me. She definitely probably wouldn't let me in there. She had no qualms whatsoever just letting anybody in her house. I thought that was very strange. Unless you walk around and roam and look through the place? I kind of felt weird looking around in there

because she was sitting on the couch and she was having some private time with the television. All the lights were out in there. It seemed like I was really kind of in somebody else's stuff in her house. Well, you were. I was, yes. But I did ask her, I was like,

do you mind if I kind of look around for a second? It's so surreal being in here. I just had to check it out a little bit. So I just peeked in the kitchen and kind of peeked around to the other room, which would have presumably been Tara's room. It was completely surreal. I thought I was just going to knock on the door

and hope they're not home, let's go. Right, it was. And the weird thing, It was completely surreal. I thought I was just going to knock on the door and hope they're not home. Let's go. Right. It was. And the weird thing, and this will always stay with me, was, you know, when I walked in, Payne was already having just a cordial conversation with her about the, you know, the home and about people coming by. And first thing I noticed was she was just, you know, an older black woman sitting on the couch watching the Andy Griffith show in black and white. And it was just like a real throwback of like just in like a time capsule. It was textbook like movie scene.

But yeah, no, she was real polite. I mean, she was obviously, you know, welcoming and let us in her home and said we could come back anytime if you wanted to shoot something there or walk around the property. And she said a lot of people, no one really comes to the door, but a lot of people she'll catch just driving by or looking at the house from outside. But, yeah, we're, I guess, one of the first people to actually knock on the door and check it out. Now, the question I've got for you, Donald, then, did she indicate if she was aware of the significance of the house that she was in? Yeah, she was very aware.

She knew. She knew exactly what had happened there or, you know, with Tara and didn't seem shaken up by it at all. She was actually very forthcoming about herself and how she was confident that nothing would happen to her. She was basically like, look, I'm ready. If anybody comes in here with some bullshit, basically, I'm ready for them. I didn't use her voice because I never talked to her about using her voice on the podcast.

I didn't really put our conversation in there. But yeah, she was really kind of funny about how she had no problem defending herself if someone else was trying to go in there and do something. Yeah, she acknowledged knowing what the significance of the house was and that Tara had lived there. She kind of just said that most people just kind of drive by and stare and look at her like she's not supposed to be in there. And that was us, actually. You know, a month or so before, we you know, were combing the neighborhood and just

drove by before Payne had the courage to go to the front door. And she was actually sitting out on the porch. So we, this was the second time we were referring to her. Exactly. We drove by a couple of times and yeah, saw her out there and actually talked to the chief, Billy Hancock, about her. Cause obviously he, he knows the residents over there and is familiar with her. So he may mention that she was a nice lady and was probably welcoming. And then we didn't actually go and actually pop in on her until this last trip. But yeah, it was interesting. Well, the other question about the visit that people have asked me to pass on to you that maybe you can shed more light on is you mentioned in episode 15 about going over to where you knew the glove to have been recovered from

and that it was in an unusual place. Can you expand on that a little bit more? Yes, I mean, from all the pictures I've seen and the descriptions I've had from Maurice and Billy Hancock and even just seeing the statements made by Gary Rothwell from the GBI, I knew where the glove was from a sketch or the pictures and sort of looking at Google Maps or even being there from the road and seeing it. But not until I was in the yard and I saw pretty much, you know, what was the precise

area that the glove was found. And it just didn't seem to make any sense as to how it would have got there. And I mean that by it wasn't right in front of the door or really in front of the door at all. It was to the side. If the glove was dropped on accident, you would assume that someone was running or walking by. So that person had to have walked or stood right there in that particular spot or was running right through that area. And it just made no sense to me why someone would be heading that direction because one, it's not a good place to hide your car. The other side of the house makes a lot more sense or directly across the street. And two, it kind of just goes straight into the neighbor Joe's yard.

It's almost the longest route to the road. Again, if you were to take that and make a line from the door to the road and, you know, assume that they dropped the glove along the way, it just doesn't make any sense for it to be there. Now, someone could have totally tossed it, but if you were to assume that it was accidentally dropped, it just didn't seem like the likely place. What about weather? Do we know what the weather was like on the 24, 48-hour period when she was missing and before she didn't show up for work? I know that it didn't rain. I don't know if it was windy or anything.

I mean, typically it's not extremely windy in Georgia in general. Of course, it could have blown over somewhere, but assuming that that didn't happen, which I think is a fair assumption, I just thought the placement of the glove was odd. Trying to make sense of it being there from somebody dropping it, I still don't know why they were heading that direction.

I mean, they totally could have been, but I don't know why. It didn't seem like it made the most sense. Yeah, it was, if you come out the front door, the closest places to park is either in the carport, which is to the right, or you're going to go straight out the front door across the lawn, which is where I was parked.

Either one of those directions is not out the front door and to the left, which is where the glove was found. And if you're going that way, it would be the worst place possible, like you said, to park if you were going to go from that front door to the- And the longest route to the road. Yeah, the longest route to the road. So especially if you were carrying a body or something like that, and you were trying to

be very quick and covert about it, it just seems like the wrong direction to be going. There's no cover that way. There's no cover that way either. When you go to the right, there's kind of bushes along the side road, and there's the carport. There's a lot of cover if you go out into the right. Out into the left, it's just there's nothing there. It's the wrong

place that you want to go if you're trying to conceal something or hide something. I mean, there was just a lot about the house that you really don't understand unless you're there on the property, driving around, walking around. It wasn't until I was actually in the yard, standing there, and you kind of pointed out, it was here?

I'm like, yeah, it was here. In the pictures, it kind of seems a little bit different. Everything's always a lot smaller. Oh, a lot smaller. The house is a lot smaller. Even in your memories, oh, I thought this was so big. It was so tiny now in real life same sort of thing even from the road

once I walked into the yard and to the front door everything just kind of shrunk and it became a lot smaller and then all of a sudden being there and having a point of view of a person who was there at some point too,

I was like, what the hell? This doesn't really make sense. Once you're here and standing here and you're looking at it. Want visibly glowing skin in 14 days? With NuOle Indulgent Moisture Body Wash, you can lather and glow. The 24-hour moisturizing body wash is infused with vitamin B3 complex and has notes of rose and cherry creme for a rich indulgent experience. Treat your senses with NuoLite Indulgent Moisture Body Wash. Buy it today at major retailers.

Hey, I'm Tom Power. I'm the host of the CBC podcast, Q with Tom Power. I get to talk to artists from all over the world, writers, musicians, actors, directors, all kinds of creative people. And we try to have the conversations you have with really, really good friends. The conversations you have when you share a love of something, about ideas, when you want to hear about everything. I feel really lucky to have these conversations. Q with Tom Power, available now on Spotify. In today's economy, saving money is like an extreme sport. Coupon clipping, promo code searching. It takes skill, speed, sweat. Unless we're talking Kudo's new phone, internet, and streaming bundle. With the HappyStack, you can sit back and stack up the savings on Kudo Internet,

a sweet phone plan, Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime, all starting at just $99 a month. Stack more, spend less. The HappyStack, only at Kudo. Conditions apply. Okay, so on Facebook, Anna Claire wants me to ask you, are there any other cases you're interested in? There are tons of cases we're interested in.

Since Up and Advantage started and since this kind of recently blew up a little bit, we've had tons and tons of emails from people with case suggestions. Some, even their family or their friends or different cases that are dear to a lot of people. So we have been sent, I would say, in the hundreds and hundreds of cases. We probably receive 10 to 15 cases a day. So we definitely have no shortage of cases right now. So we're kind of just going through them right now and looking at them and kind of making our own assessments

and trying to read all the emails and trying to really take into account everyone's story. Obviously, you know, picking a case for season two is a big deal. We know that. We know that kind of, you know, from a podcast standpoint, where the bar has been set as far as trying to find another case that we can have an impact on and, you know, come together again like we have. Well, this dovetails into the next question I have here. Another one from Facebook, Sunshine Moody asks, and I'm going to break this up into a couple of parts. She says, are you sticking with this case till the very end?

Yeah, that's something we've been, you know, I've talked about a couple of times recently, not really on the podcast yet, but, you know but we did say we were going to do 18 episodes. So we're still going to do 18 episodes. We promised that. But like you said, I picked the number 18 before Ryan Duke's arrest and before Bo Duke's arrest. So things have changed a little bit. And we have to tell the whole story.

This has to have the right ending. We're not going to end it abruptly just because we said we were going to go to 18 episodes. I think that it can go beyond 18 episodes because the future is so unforeseen. We're in a spot where we don't I don't know personally how many episodes

I want to commit to, but I think that it will go beyond 18. I'm not sure what the number will be, but I think that it will go beyond 18. I'm not sure what the number will be, but we're going to keep going until the story is complete and we've told everything. And even if there's another case that— We'll always give updates on Tara's case, you know,

but at some point we have to say, hey, we're moving on to another case, and that would be the end of this season. But we will always follow Tara's case, and we'll always follow up on different leads and developments in this case and the trial and anything else that happens. So we're a part of Tara's case now. We're always going to cover it.

But like you said, at some point, we have to go on to a second season. At some point, we're going to have to. So we can promise you 18, probably go on for a little bit after that. But at some point, we're going to have to. So we can promise you 18, probably go on for a little bit after that. But at some point, we're going to move on to a second case. We'll always update you on Terragrind instead. And the second part of her question is for me,

asking if I'm going to become a recurring speaker on the podcast. Well, I think that's obvious because we're here speaking about it right now. Get the hell out of here. And there's a little bit more to that question that we can elaborate on maybe later. But the short answer is yes. Somebody is asking about the black truck. They really want more black truck information because there was at the end of episode 14, there was a reference to the black truck. And then there was nothing about it in 15.

That's because that is really as far as that story went. There's not much that I cut out that I didn't play for you of that. And just to be clear, he said that he was sitting inside of a truck talking to a person he believed to be Ryan Duke. And he firmly believes that and Bo Dukes was there, but he didn't know for sure if that was Ryan's truck or if Ryan had access to a truck. but he didn't know for sure if that was Ryan's truck or if Ryan had access to a truck. I've talked to a lot of Ryan's friends. Nobody remembers Ryan having a black truck, but I have found that these two

would have had access to a black truck. I don't want to put too much effort and thought into trying to make the black truck theory work. I know people tend to do that. It's kind of a common mistake when you first start investigating something is trying to make the pieces fit. The black truck could have totally been a coincidence or Ryan Duke could have drove a black truck that night. We don't know. I think that what that interview told us was that they had access to a black truck. That truck wasn't white. That truck that Ryan Duke was sitting in with that guy

in a time period very close to Tara's disappearance was a black truck. And that's all we know about it until we can find some more information on that. I'm basically going to combine a lot of questions that I'm getting into one because it's a common theme. And people want to basically say, what else do you know, Payne, that you're not telling us? So why don't you just tell us?

It's not really like that. I mean, of course, I know some things that not everybody may know, but the things that I do know, I got from other people. So I think it comes down to, the same reason the GBI would keep their case files closed is the same reason I wouldn't just tell you everything I know as soon as I find it out on one podcast episode. Of course, I have to pace myself, and I'd be lying if I told you it was easy to not just get excited and tell

you some information that I think is really important and can really help solve this or lead to another clue. So I mean, it's difficult to not tell everybody everything all the time. But I think that if everybody knew where I was at the whole time in my own investigation, then I would have no investigative edge. Everyone would always know, oh, well, Payne's looking at this right now. We know everything he knows, so he's never going to get to the truth. And from what I've observed, and I think it's important for people to understand, you need to go and confirm and verify things to the extent that you can. to the extent that you can, you may learn about something on one week, but it might be five, six, seven weeks before it makes its way into an episode, even if it does, because you've got to figure out where it fits into the whole thing and how you're telling the story. Is that fair?

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I could tell you a bunch of random facts that don't go together at all. Some that I know 100% to be true, some that I haven't completely verified yet, but it wouldn't be a story for you. And what I'm also trying to do, like you said, is tell the story for you too. There's a reason why you're not investigating it and I am, it's because you would prefer to listen to it. Now, maybe you want to investigate your own case too, or you would like to be with me. Now, maybe you want to investigate your own case too, or you would like to be with me investigating it,

but you're not. So I'm trying to make this a really easily digestible story and sort of a capsule of everything that's happened so it can live on forever and people can come back and know nothing and easily digest everything. And it's really confusing to me when it all comes in. So I try to spend a lot of time making it not so confusing. It's kind of like back in school when teachers wanted you to read the whole book for the

book report rather than just the Cliff Notes version, right? I'm Cliff Notes only. Well, I think the black truck is a perfect example. When you, if you go back to that episode, there was a lot of information about the black truck that had been collected over several weeks or months with several people, different neighbors talking about a similar incident on the same night. And, you know, it wouldn't have been as effective. It wouldn't have been as big of a piece of evidence or even a theory if you had to kind of strung that out, if the first time you heard about the black truck, you mentioned it and then, oh, someone else told me about a black truck. And then there's really no consistency with how the

story is being told or like providing people with more concrete evidence versus just everything that you know at every given time, at any given time. So yeah So you just have to present it in the right way to where it actually makes sense for the listening public. I'll be honest. In episode one, that week, it wasn't as big of a deal. Ethically, it would be. But if I had put out some misinformation. But now, there are so many listeners

and people who have their eye on this. It's a completely different responsibility that I have. Obviously, that hasn't changed the way I work, but I'm a lot more aware of that. And I'm seeing firsthand the impact that the podcast is having in this case. And what I mean by that is people in this case referring to it and relying on it for some of their information.

Obviously, the police aren't relying on the podcast for their information. But a lot of people in the town do. And most people across the country who are tuned into this case follow the podcast as well. So it's being brought up in the courtroom. It's not just covering the story anymore. It's kind of worked its way into the story. And I fully recognize that now.

And I just view it as a responsibility. So I try to vet everything out. And I think about things a little bit differently and the impact that's going to have not only on myself, but the case, Tara, everything before I just go out there and say it. But that's not going to hold me back from saying something that I want to say. I'm just going to make extra sure

and be extra cautious and know what it is I'm saying when I'm saying it. And so far I've done that. And that's why some things are slow to come out. And this time it may be a little bit slow. I mean, I've always done that, but it might be a little slower now because this is really in real time. It was in real time a few months ago, but there weren't people who were arrested. It's fair to say that the arrests that were made in this case sort of changed the trajectory of what you may have had in mind for the direction of the season, right?

Absolutely. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, there are things that we plan on covering from 13 to 18 that will probably never be covered just because they're, you know, dive deeper into persons of interest who we now know were likely not involved. deeper into persons of interest who we now know were likely not involved or even other people that we may end up revisiting just kind of depending on how those stories play out and what else we learn within how this trial plays out

or the information that comes from the GBI. What the arrest did, in my opinion, it allowed us to focus in on something now. Because we didn't have the case files, we couldn't make up our own assessment. We couldn't rule anybody out entirely. We did sort of rule some people out in the beginning and kind of moved on

past them throughout the podcast. But we never said, they're ruled out. We didn't ever officially rule anybody out. We never really ruled anybody in either. But now we can hone in on the state's theory and conduct our own investigation, which we've been doing. And I believe the state's theory and conduct our own investigation,

which we've been doing. And I believe the state is correct here and it falls in line with other things that I've learned throughout this that I haven't really shared yet. It matches a lot of things that I did learn about early on, but didn't make any sense to me,

didn't really mean anything at all. But now looking back on it, for example, I'll elaborate on this later, but I have a picture on my phone from August of 2016, and it's a group of boys. Do you know who's in that picture? Bo Dukes is in that picture. From August? From August.

You obtained a picture of Bo Dukes in August of 2016? Yes. Yep. And I obtained it for a different reason. I was looking at something else. But all of these little things that really even then just appeared to be complete hearsay and just people's feelings and stuff. I was going off of like nothing. I was going off of nothing here.

But, you know, I just knew right away there was no way I was completely, completely off. There was no way that this is completely random. And it's true. I wasn't. I'm not saying that I was on the hunt and he was next on my list. I'm just saying that they were never far away. It was right there in your case file too. And you just didn't know where it fit.

Exactly. Yep. So that's what I'm saying. So we'll go back and we'll look at those things. And so that's what we can do now. We can focus in on something for the first time and not have to worry about so much speculation. I think also, a lot of people don't understand how real time this really is and how we have to kind of dance around what to say, what not to say, what to use, what not to use. I remember sitting in Osceola Star, and this is the Friday after Ryan got arrested. And the first time we start hearing about Bo Dukes, probably earlier that day. And so we're sitting there, complete off the record conversation, myself, Payne, Dusty, conversation, myself, Payne, Dusty, the mayor happens to just stop by his office. It's like, you know, 30 feet away. And he kind of overhears us talking about this entire story that happens to later be 100% true. And the story goes, you know, that this is Bo Duke's character

who has family ties and this is Pecan Orchard and that's where the body is and where they're searching and it sounded i mean just listening to the what i'm looking at the mayor's face while we're having this conversation and we're talking about hey do we use his name or do we not use now it's the big thing we're talking about he's kind of shaking his head he's like shaking his head like this is so far-fetched that and then the way the information was coming in was through you know friends and family and these this kind of overheard conversations and these, these things that turned out two weeks later to be completely true and real. So, I mean, next time we go to Osceola and we sit down with the mayor, I'd love to talk to him and kind of get his opinion on, you know, just re-remembering

that conversation. Yeah. In, in that moment,, I recorded the whole thing, but I only played a part of it in the podcast. But we were there talking for about five, ten minutes. I asked everyone's opinion in the room. Here's what I have been told. Here's what I believe to be true. I believe that the Bo Duke story was true. I had enough evidence, in my opinion, to back it up. So my question was, should I mention this on the podcast?

Because it was going to be me going out on a limb and saying, hey, here's what I think happened. And it was a think. It was a, hey, I think this happened. But I firmly believed it. And the only reason I was really hesitant was because of the active investigation. and that's just a term people throw around, but I saw firsthand an active investigation when I was in Osceola. I see these people behaving differently and looking at me differently. So it's not just a word that I'm tossing around when I say that. I say that thinking that this is going to have an impact and could possibly change things for better or worse for me, for you, for them. So I'm taking all these things into account. And so I asked everybody, I think it was the mayor who said, you've done such a good job up until this point with not delivering misinformation.

Is it worth it for you to be wrong and have to retract that statement? And I decided that it wasn't worth it. And so I decided to censor his name and give him the benefit of the doubt. And I don't have any regrets, but he's not getting any more. So. Thanks for listening, guys. Today's episode was mixed and mastered by Resonate Recordings.

You can check them out at resonaterecordings.com. As a reminder, next Monday is a case evidence. Thanks for listening, guys, and see you soon.