Up and Vanished - S1E16: Conspiracy
Episode Date: April 11, 2017Payne talks true crime podcasts with Crimetown creator/host Mark Smerling. On a trip to Ocilla, he also visits Marcus Harper's mother. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices v...isit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Ten years ago today marked the last time anybody
from tenderfoot tv in atlanta this is up and vanished the investigation of tara grinstead
i'm your host, Payne Lindsey.
When I first set out to make this podcast, I had no idea what I was doing or getting myself into.
And since then, it's been a rollercoaster ride of twists and turns, and also an emotional
experience unlike anything I've ever been a part of. I told you guys in episode one that I too am
a fan of other true crime podcasts
and documentaries, one of which was the HBO series called The Jinx. This series was one of my biggest
inspirations in trying to solve a mystery of my own. If you haven't seen The Jinx yet, I don't
want to spoil it, but my friend Matt describes it the best. It's like that Bigfoot show, if they
actually found Bigfoot at the end. The Jinx, without a doubt, has the most climatic and impactful ending of any true crime series ever.
A few months ago, the show's creator, Mark Smerling, reached out to me.
He was a fan of Up and Vanished.
And like me, he was also a filmmaker turned podcaster.
His podcast called Crime Town is fantastic, and was also his first time taking on the medium.
Over the past few months, we kept in touch.
And on the day of Ryan Duke's arrest, he called me.
All right, tell me everything.
This morning, I got a little tip that...
I told him the story we all now know,
and I asked him for advice on how to proceed with the podcast.
The arrest was a huge break in this case,
and the entire trajectory of my investigation had changed.
But the story wasn't over.
Well, you're worried about ending.
You don't have to worry about that anymore.
And, you know, things turn into new things,
and that's just how it is.
We always feel that pressure, right?
Like, you've got to do it now, you've got to do it now,
but now it always takes a lot longer than you think.
After the dust had settled a bit,
I called Mark again
to talk about where things would go from here.
Inevitably, you become emotionally entangled in the story.
It's not just about telling a great story anymore.
It's about, you know, sort of being part of the story, even though sometimes I don't put myself in the story.
The Jinx was unique that way.
But ultimately, you're emotionally entangled with the people who are telling you their stories.
And that's a powerful relationship.
And you become an expert, right?
Because you're talking to everybody, you become an expert.
I talk to people all day long about Providence, Rhode Island.
It's kind of crazy.
And some of these people are not in the show or their interviews are in the past, but they're still giving me information.
And these conversations are still, you know, sort of influencing the way the show's developed and
the story we're telling, you know. And sometimes it's just two guys talking or a guy and a girl
talking about something they really know well. I was driving back from Osceola, South Georgia,
last night at like one in the morning. And I was like, what am I doing?
Where am I right now? What the hell am I doing? What was I doing down here? It's like it becomes
such a fog of just going back and forth. And do you ever have a moment where you're like,
what the hell am I doing? I feel very much the same way. I mean, I think one thing that
attracted me to your show is that the way you were treating
your sources and how you were speaking to people and how you were telling the story,
it was extremely empathetic. You know, you have a way with dealing with sources that I think opens
people up rather than closing them down. And that's what I try to do as well. So I saw a sort
of fellow traveler. And, you know, you go through the roller coaster of talking to people.
You know, I've had people in this story, in past stories that were crime stories that I talked to for a very long time, built a real relationship with and was never able to get them to sit in front of the camera or sit for an audio interview.
That happens.
You know, that's part of it.
And that roller coaster ride is emotional.
The only thing you learn from doing it more than once is that time is your friend. So time eventually irons out all the bumps in the road, but it's a long journey. broadcaster or somebody and they're like, we wanted this thing delivered in six months or three months. I'm like, that's not possible because the relationship building takes so much time.
And that's where you get the good story by building those relationships.
You kind of learn as you go navigate through the case, kind of become friends with some of these
people and trying to find a way to get these people to talk. But after a certain point,
you feel like you're close to them.
And the way you were looking at going into it was not the same halfway through.
Yeah. Yeah, I know what you're saying.
I mean, Pain, it's all about this looking for the story,
the answers of the obvious story, like who did what to who,
and what crime was committed, and how it was committed,
and all the sort of ins and outs of the Sherlock Holmes part of the story. But there's also this underlying story that's much
more important. And that's the emotional connections to the material, to the story itself.
You know, the people who are affected and the people who are continuing to be affected,
that's where you get the really good stories.
And that's what Serial does.
That's what you're doing.
You know, that's what the Jinx did.
It transcends the mere mystery of it, the IDTV of it.
And it tries to build a story out of the emotional connections
with the characters who are telling their stories.
I mean, that's huge, you know?
And that only comes from building a relationship over time. You know, I remember someone telling
me once that, you know, that once you do one of these shows, you're going to be in these people's
lives forever. And that's just part and parcel to doing what you're doing right now. And that's true.
I can actually attest to that.
You know, these people are part of your life forever.
It's been a wild experience, honestly. I mean, in a way, I kind of knew what I was getting myself into, but at the same time, I really didn't either. Experiencing it firsthand is just
extremely different than how you envision it. I get tons of emails with people asking me how to get started if they want to do something similar to this, if they want to make a documentary
on a cold case or anything in this genre, investigative journalism. Sometimes it's hard
to give them the answer to that because I just picked up and did it. I didn't really read anything about it. I was a fan of shows like
The Jinx and Serial. And I just kind of took what I've learned from being a fan of watching
the mystery unfold and turn into the creator. Part of me just says, just pick up and do it.
But beyond that, what are the rules here? What are the guidelines? What are you looking for? I mean, when you set out to do something. you certainly had a huge influence on the entire story, right?
The reality of it.
That's when it gets really interesting, right?
When your storytelling starts to affect the world outside,
which happened in The Jinx and certainly happened with Up and Vanished.
And it's sort of happening in Providence too,
because there's a lot of talk up in Providence about this show.
It's extraordinarily popular up there, and people are really, really talking about it.
So it's it hopefully is making people think about the community they live in.
But that's an interesting moment is when it crosses over to reality, you know, back from reality goes to storytelling and then back to reality.
That's that's when, you know, you really made an impact.
If you haven't already, you need to check out Mark's podcast called Crime Town.
It's a captivating portrait of organized crime in Providence, Rhode Island.
The question that's been growing in the back of my mind since the arrest is where do we go from here?
The goal is to make sure we can bring justice for Tara and to tell the whole story, leaving no stone unturned.
Tara's disappearance has affected so many lives over the past decade.
Not just that of her loved ones in the town of Osilla, but also those who were accused.
And through all of that, everyone was wrong.
The names of Ryan and Bo had never even been mentioned.
But now that the truth is emerging in this case, I felt like it was time to retrace some
steps, and to hear firsthand from some of those who have been affected by all the rumors
over the years.
Tara's ex-boyfriend, Marcus Harper, arguably endured a lot of scrutiny, and possibly the
most.
And some of Tara's last documented communication was to his mother, Nancy, in those emails
sent just days before she disappeared.
There were just so many unanswered questions.
But today, we can finally get some answers.
While in Osceola last week, Marcus Harper's mother, Nancy Redman, invited me into her home and told me her story about everything.
All of my memories of her are very precious.
And it's really hard to sit here and say
all the memories of her are precious
because there are no more.
She's gone.
I mean, I'll have those.
But she was a beautiful person.
And I enjoyed all of my times with her. We had a lot
of time when it was just she and I, because my husband would be working in a way. And of course,
my son was away. So we would do cooking and we'd have our dinners together and we'd put in a movie
and just do girl talk. Just talking and laughing, you know, because I don't know if some people knew this,
but she's very humorous.
She loved to laugh.
And so we'd talk about some things, you know, that was funny or watch some comedy.
I could tell she was a very organized person and a good school teacher.
She talked about her students and what they meant to her
and how hard she worked to teach her classes, how she went beyond.
And I respected her for that. I admired her for that.
She described to me the last time she had seen Tara,
just a week before she went missing.
Tara came over to her house, unannounced.
And what transpired that day stuck with her forever.
I looked out the window and I
saw her standing out in my yard. And so I went out to see her and hi Tara, you know. And she said,
I came to say goodbye, Nancy. And I said, to say goodbye? What do you mean? I just need to say
goodbye to you. And I said, but we'll see one
another again. We live in a small town, and I'm sure we'll run into each other. And when we do,
I'll say, hi, Tara, how are things going? And we'll embrace each other. Things will always be the same
there. And she just really wanted me to know that she needed to put closure to it. And maybe she did need that closure.
But to me, what I heard was it was something final.
It really frightened me.
I'd never heard her speak in this way before.
Did it frighten you then or now?
I didn't understand it then.
It was strange.
I just felt something different.
It just felt strange, and I didn't understand it. But now when I look back and I think about that time, it may sound weird, but it gives me a little comfort to know
that actually she did get to say goodbye to me, even though that's not the way she meant it that
day. Wow. Do you think she just meant trying to move on from Marcus, maybe?
Probably. But, you know, I really don't know. I can't explain it, but I can only tell you how I felt that day. But I did embrace her and, you know, told her I loved her.
Yeah.
And like I said, I didn't know what it really meant. It was just something that's always been a thought. One of the biggest things we've discussed over the course of this podcast were Tara's emails to Nancy, and one in particular
seems sort of alarming. In an email, Tara said this to Nancy just days before she went missing.
Just remind Marcus what I said about something happening to me or even him. He leaves it as this,
and something may happen to me. I asked Nancy about this.
What did she mean by that, do you think?
Well, I can really tell you what I know she meant.
Okay.
She just didn't want things to stay the way it was. She just wanted one more last chance
to say something nice, whatever it would be. I don't know what she would have said, but
that was not in a threatening manner.
That was not in a dark manner.
I feel that that statement was just
sometimes like we hug our family member
before we leave in the morning.
Some of us do that because we don't know
what the day's going to hold.
You don't know if you're going to see
your loved one when night falls.
Right. And I think that's sort of what she meant. But then like I said, You don't know if you're going to see your loved one when night falls.
And I think that's sort of what she meant.
But then, like I said, only Tara really knew what she meant.
But I don't take that as a dark and a destructive or a plan that she had or anything of that nature.
It just seemed as a whole, most of the emails that she had sent to you in the weeks of October just seemed to show that she really was upset.
She really was emotionally distraught about the breakup and trying to get over it and
figuring out what to do.
And she was really confiding in you with a lot of that stuff.
Well, I really didn't have a lot of contact with her.
You know, when you read words, it's not quite as vivid as when you're sitting across the
table from someone.
Right.
But I feel like she was hurt.
Of course, any of us would be, you know, but I feel like Tara was going to be okay.
It was just going to take some time, like any of us.
Those type things happen all the time.
They do.
Breakups and hurt,
but you know, we get up and we move on. And so I thought that everything was going to be okay one day. The day you found out about the arrest of Ryan Duke, can you describe to me that day for
you in whatever way you can? When I first heard the news, my knees were weak.
It was just incredible news that I just did not believe what I was hearing. It was unbelievable.
I mean, I went to the press conference, but I remember sitting there and hearing the words,
and I thought, it is possible for a heart to feel two emotions at one time. I was rejoicing
one side of my heart, and the other was mourning, instant mourning, because all these years,
I held on to hope that somewhere out there, she could be just, you know, starting a new life. I mean, it's not too bizarre.
And this day, it was all final. That was it. There was the answer. And so something that I had never
been able to do personally was to grieve because I held on to the hope. And then, of course, to hear
the ones that had been accused now as innocent, because those words, Tara's case is solved. Unbelievable. It was a miracle.
How did you feel when you saw Ryan Duke in the courtroom?
about is, oh my goodness, there he is. Why? Why did he kill her? What in the world happened? I know we're all thinking this because we can't know the answers to these questions yet. I was
disturbed. I was disturbed when I saw it. It's like a dream. I was looking at him as he was
standing there. And of course, I was studying all the mannerisms and everything. And I thought,
there he is. There he is. That's
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free of charge. Back in Nancy's home, I asked her one more important question before I left.
What kind of impact has Tara's disappearance had on your
family's life? Well, I want to say, you know, I have a lot of faith and control to be strong,
but we're still human. You know, like I told you before, my dad passed away in 2015,
and it would have been wonderful if he could have known. But the same
goes for Tara's mother, of course. It would have been wonderful if her mother could have actually
had answers. It was devastating. Absolutely devastating is all I can think about. I don't
know how else to say it. Every waking day, every waking hour, I mean, it was there every day. And yeah, the thoughts were,
where is she? What happened? But still holding on to the hope. Maybe somebody will see her
somewhere. Maybe they will find her. Maybe she's going to be okay. That was the hope,
but it didn't turn out that way. It's horrible. You know, we're grieving. We're grieving
because now we have the answer.
How did it feel when people tossed around Marcus's name and you knew that your son was innocent?
Very hurtful. You're helpless. There's nothing you can say. There's not anything that you can do
that's going to make it right for the people that wanted to think the way that they were
thinking. To have to live every day, even to go into the small town where some business would
have to be conducted, and you maybe would have heard this one saying that, this person is saying
that. You should just try to be quiet. You just try to keep moving. You just try to keep surviving.
But it hurt.
I would have people to alert me when there was going to be a show on television.
And naturally, it's like anxiety began to build.
My heart would start racing.
And I would think, but I don't want to watch it because I know what it's going to be about.
I'm going to say something about my son.
And most of the time I didn't watch
it. Sometimes I would. How'd you keep from just yelling in the streets that my son is innocent?
Just trying to stay in control. Just trying to do what would be best. Just trying to make a good
decision that one day, hopefully, that the faith that I had, that it would all come full circle.
One day the answers would come, and I was
surely hoping that they would come before I passed away. You know, my dad's already gone. Tara's mom's
gone. But hopefully the answers would come soon. But it was, you know, who would have ever imagined
that we would have answers now? I mean, it's unreal. We may not have all the answers now,
now. I mean, it's unreal. We may not have all the answers now, but we know. I trust the GBI.
Do you think that just the not knowing and everybody in this town wanting answers and pointing blame on Marcus or anybody else, do you think that kind of made a divide
in this community at all? Oh, yes. See, I don't know who those teams are, so to speak. I don't
know who those sides are. I could feel it, but I just tried to keep to myself, to tell you the truth. No, I didn't lock myself in my home now. But there are other places to travel. There are other places to visit.
opposite direction. It's sad to say, but that's what I did. Lots of people just wanted to talk about it, wanted to talk about the negativity, you know, and they may not have mentioned certain
names, but it was still negative. I was trying to keep myself as positive as I could, praying
and believing in faith and just hope that one day this would all come full circle.
But there's nothing you can do when there's people doing all that type of talking and when there's television programs that are on occasionally,
and especially every fall, you know.
It would kind of make you dread, even though fall is one of my favorite seasons.
But I knew what was coming, so you dreaded it.
She could have had a good life
if the horrible thing had not happened. I really believe that she would have been okay one day.
She could have had a future. We'll never know that. And like I said, it's hard. It's hard to
sit here and talk to you about this because it's over. She's not here. She will not be
with us anymore. It's all truly memories now.
It was always hope, and now there isn't.
That was taken away, and that's when the grief started.
And it was the same day that I had the rejoicing because those innocent, including my son, were cleared.
How does that feel?
Oh, that feels absolutely amazing. It is equally amazing
as it is in the other being devastating. It is amazing. It was just a miracle.
I had imagined it happening in my mind. I would imagine how it would happen. But I'll tell you this. One of my little thoughts
I had one day was that she came to visit me and she came inside her house. And when she did,
I locked the door because I was going to make sure that she stayed with me until I could let
someone know that she was here. Yeah, she's here. But like I said, I can't imagine what her dad or stepmom must be feeling.
You know, I really feel for her dad or stepmom, but her dad, this was her daddy.
That's what she called him, her daddy.
You know, Payne, it would be so nice.
This is just a statement coming from a mom. Yeah. it would be so nice. This is just a statement coming from a mom.
Yeah.
It would be so nice.
And I know we don't live in a world like I'm about to say,
but it would be so nice if people did not talk ill will against another,
especially when they're innocent.
There's so much harm done there.
And it's like throwing a pebble in a brook.
And the ripples just continue to go.
And anyone that's been guilty of this, they really don't know just how deep the hurt goes.
And I really hope it stops now that we have the truth and we have answers.
Because now what it's about, it's only about one thing now.
Justice for Tara.
She deserves that.
She's at peace.
But we all have got to have closure.
Twelve years later, when there's two arrests, everyone's in shock.
They can't believe it's these two.
That's right.
I've never heard of them until this. I've
never heard their names. I don't know them. How I felt when I saw Ryan, I was in shock.
Tara's gone because of you. Yeah. He kept that secret and others probably kept that secret.
We don't know how many kept that secret maybe. And it went on for years and years
and years and it did not have to. And people suffered. Tara suffered the ultimate, but we
have suffered. But like I said, through my faith and just being strong and having hope,
and it all came full circle. What do you want to happen now? I want
all the truth to be told about what happened. I just wish that there was more freedom to speak
about what information has probably already been found. Of course, we can't know that right now,
but that would be wonderful. But for that to happen is what I'm looking forward to.
Justice for Tara.
Because we all know there's been arrest made.
So I'm just waiting for the whole story.
For everything.
We can all get closure if there is such a thing.
She'll always be in our hearts.
But to have closure in our minds, that would be peaceful.
Too many secrets. We know she's at peace that would be peaceful. Too many secrets.
We know she's at peace now, but there's too many secrets.
She deserves that.
We deserve that.
Everyone that loved her deserves all the truth.
And I couldn't imagine if I was someone out there and I had a bit of information and that I was holding it
back and it could help to fit that piece of the puzzle so I hope that everything
and everyone that can would help to paint this picture and it's complete Last week, Tara Grinstead's parents released a statement to the media.
It said the following.
We have waited a long time to get to this point.
Our focus and our efforts have always been about getting justice for Tara.
Our priority now is to protect the integrity of the investigation.
For that reason, we have decided not to comment on the case at this time.
We are grateful for the coverage Tara's case has had since she disappeared
in 2005, and we appreciate
all the support that's been shown
to all of Tara's family and friends during
this very difficult time.
We realize the public wants more information,
but we do ask for your patience
and understanding at this time, as the
case moves forward. We will have more
to say at a later time.
We do ask that you keep us in
your prayers. Billy and Connie Grinstead.
Duke was charged with Grinstead's murder back in February, and next week a grand jury will decide
if Duke's case should go to trial. Grand juries determine if there's enough evidence to indict a
criminal suspect. That's based simply on whether they think the suspect probably committed
a crime. At a trial, a different jury would decide whether Duke is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
If the grand jury indicts Duke, he would have to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty before the
case can move forward. Also, grand jury proceedings are secret, held behind closed doors unlike a regular trial.
On April 12th, there will be a grand jury hearing in the Grinstead case.
I caught up with Colin Miller from Undisclosed to break down what we should expect.
When a prosecutor charges a defendant with a crime, we don't just take the prosecutor at their word. We want to make sure that, in fact, the charge is based upon probable cause.
And the primary mechanism to determine that is the grand jury. And the prosecutor at this hearing will
present the case to the grand jury. And at the end of that, either the grand jury will vote on
what's known as a true bill, which means they found probable cause and the case can be bound
over and taken to trial, or they could issue what's known as a no bill. And that no bill means
they found like a probable cause, meaning the charges had to be dismissed. The prosecution
will be calling witnesses and presenting documentary evidence. The prosecutor is under
no obligation to present exculpatory evidence. He's not bound by the rules of evidence. He's not
bound by the Constitution. He can present basically anything he wants to the grand jury
other than perjured testimony. The rules of evidence don't apply, so there's no rule against
hearsay. There's no confrontation clause. So he could call live witnesses to have them testify
directly in front of the grand jury. He could present witness statements. He can have witnesses
describing statements by other people who aren't appearing before the grand jury.
These grand jury hearings, they happen in private.
Will we know what happens in there some way?
You'll know the result, but you won't know sort of how the sausage is made.
So yeah, grand jury proceedings are secretive.
And what happened before the grand jury is not something that the prosecutor can
explain to the public unless an exception applies, which is pretty rare.
The people in the grand jury, these people, are they allowed to talk or do they have to remain silent about
what they've heard? They have to remain silent. So they can ask questions during the proceedings.
And of course, they'll deliberate and issue a verdict. But after that, they're not allowed to
go on Facebook or social media or even talk to their friends and say, oh, we heard from
John Doe or Jane Doe, and they said X, Y, and Z. They have to take an oath that says they're not going to disclose what happened before the grand jury.
This coming up on Wednesday, should we know something on Wednesday, or could it be
dragged out even longer?
It could be either. It entirely depends on how much evidence the prosecutor has and wants to
present at this point in time. So some grand jury proceedings are a matter of hours. Some extend out weeks and even months.
So the question here is simply how much the prosecutor has and how much he wants to present to the grand jury.
They almost always indict.
I looked it up in Georgia.
It's about 90%, which is actually a little bit lower than nationwide, where it's closer to 95% or 99%.
So it's exceedingly likely in this case we're going to see an indictment. Unlike at a trial, it's not the requirement of a unanimous verdict.
It's a majority. So there's going to be, you know, like 23 grand jurors in the case. And as long as
12 of them find probable cause, they'll issue a true bill. So again, exceedingly likely that
we'll have an indictment here. The question is
simply when that's going to come. The first time I met with Maurice Godwin about this case,
he reviewed with me all of his findings from inside Tara's home. The GBI seemed to think that
there were no signs of a struggle inside her house.
But Maurice disagreed.
Now, based off what the state
is claiming, Ryan Duke
did in fact kill Tara inside
her home. Maybe Dr. Godwin's
discoveries were actually clues to
what happened that night and were just overlooked.
I called him
to go over the evidence again
and give it a fresh look now.
Originally, it was said by GBI and law enforcement that there was no signs of struggle.
But when I arrived there in March of 06, I talked to family and some friends to try to get an assessment of the location of items and stuff
so I could take that in consideration. And after I did my overview and walkthrough of the house
and examination, the close examination of the lamp that was on the bedside table, the lamp was
not just broken a little bit, the plastic base was actually broken with two hands
I mean you would have to take it and actually break the plastic with two hands so that just
didn't happen by some cat knocking it off and then I found a necklace clasp that had been pulled
apart well they don't get pulled apart oh just no force. There was some force there. And then I
knew that the chandelier earrings that she had on were missing. And then I knew about the necklace
that she had made. The beads from that were scattered on the floor. This told me that some type of altercation occurred between Tara and her attacker in that bedroom.
And it appears to be now that that is the case.
Another thing I found that's never been really talked about is I found a nail,
a broken off fingernail laying between the crevices in the floor.
And that was turned over to the GBI.
Where was it at?
It was at the foot of her bed
Where the clasp was
Here's the thing the earrings were missing
Now she didn't go to bed with the earrings on I highly doubt that
So she had time to change some clothes, but the altercation must have occurred before she was able to remove the earrings
because unless the earrings were just stolen,
that she was attacked before her earrings could be moved,
she would have not slept with the earrings on.
So the earrings were still on her when she was attacked.
Another thing Maurice noticed inside Tara's home
was something odd about the window by her bed.
The window latch, one screw was completely out.
It was hanging off to the side.
The other screw, you just could move it up and down in the hole.
So that window latch, as far as keeping the window safe or locked, was no good. Here's a
young female living on her own that looked out of that window on a daily basis. Do you believe that
she saw that window latch with the screws pulled out on a daily basis and never did anything about
it? I asked Maurice how he was feeling now about the case,
going on 12 years.
Man, it's been emotional.
I'm completely exhausted from this case.
Not through with it, but it's exhausting.
A few days ago, one of Ryan Duke's friends, who had previously talked to on the podcast reached back out to me.
He said he had remembered something and thought that it might be important.
Like I said, I really hadn't listened to anything before.
And my mom said that I probably should get on this one.
So I sat down and decided to listen to the whole thing.
I got to listening to the end of the episode where I guess it was a psychiatrist
was trying to break down his calls that he had made to different people and things like that.
I don't know what about it made me think of it,
but that night that he was at my house while we were drinking and hanging out,
he mentioned something about having night terrors
and that he had went to a place in Thomas Hill to stay for a little while
to maybe see, I guess, to get tested or to see what was wrong.
I'd say he had trouble sleeping.
He could get to sleep but couldn't stay asleep and just wake up
and kind of freak out for a minute.
This is the conversation that we had
at my house while we were just hanging out it was like me him and like two other people that was in
the house but it was only me and him talking the way he put it to me was that he's like i had to
stay a couple now or i had to stay a little while in charlottesville because i was having night
terrors and i couldn't sleep that well slowly but surely we're all beginning to see what may be a different side of Ryan Duke.
The Facebook message he sent in 2015 to another former teacher, calling her sexy.
And now an old friend of his revealed that just months after Tara disappeared,
he told him he was having night terrors and couldn't sleep,
then checked himself into some facility
in Thomasville, Georgia. It seems like there where you come from, what you look like,
your credit score, or your outrageous food delivery habits.
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In the last episode, I mentioned being in Tara's yard and thinking to myself,
the placement of the glove seemed off. There's still so much we don't know about this glove.
Was it planted? Did someone drop it? Did it belong to Ryan Duke? Is it his DNA on the glove?
If you go by
where the glove was dropped at
or placed at or whatever
then the person
had to be walking right directly
out of the house
right straight over that pine
straw bed beside the tree
and right straight over the ditch.
But it seems like based on the glove they didn't
go anywhere toward the driveway.
I mean, there's been no report on if there's a match or not,
but in regards to the glove and whether he dropped it or not,
it's important in some ways,
but I'm more interested in what he was doing with it in the first place.
The wearing of the gloves may indicate one or two things.
The crime was preplanned or they returned back to the scene.
The reason why I say that is because if the crime is pre-planned,
you would want to carry gloves with you because you wouldn't want to leave fingerprints or forensic evidence behind.
So you would have the gloves with you ahead of time, right?
would have the gloves with you ahead of time, right?
Or they went back to the crime, went back to the scene,
so they already knew ahead of time the crime had been committed and they didn't want to leave evidence,
so they prepared themselves not to leave any plans or anything
after the crime was committed.
I mean, I just don't see why by himself,
with no suggestion from anyone getting a box of Vitae's gloves and putting them on and going over there and doing that.
I think the gloves may have been suggested to it.
The fact that the person thought about using the gloves in the first place is very important because it goes to intent.
Legally, it goes to intent, it goes to intent in my opinion because
she didn't have gloves in the house they didn't find the gloves they didn't look up under the
sink or something like that and say oh here here's some gloves let me go ahead and use these they
didn't do that i mean sure you can buy latex gloves at a lot of places, you know, probably Harvey's or, you know, like pharmacies or, but still, that shows planning, right?
The GBI claimed he was off the radar, so there must not have been any kind of phone forensics, phone records from a phone call.
Unless he was just randomly riding around.
To know that she was home must have been watching her somehow.
So either they randomly saw her or they were watching as she was home must have been watching her somehow so either they randomly saw her or
they were watching as she arrived home i guess you could um have your gloves with you like
with you and randomly just ride around the block keep riding around riding around until the car
pulls in technically you could do that right but sort But sort of risky, sort of. But the whole thing was risky.
And especially very risky if only one person did this.
That would be a big task.
Yeah, the glove is interesting.
But unless there's something I don't know, the glove places him outside of the house.
But I don't know anything that places him inside. find their places in them time.
Throughout this podcast, the latex glove has quite possibly been the most perplexing element in this case.
From the discrepancy of the color, to who found it first, and why just one glove?
Nothing ever quite added up to me.
And to make things even more confusing, I recently received a call from a woman who had a brand new story about this glove.
If you see where Terry's house is, there's a house on the corner, one block up, like, you know, just the next block up. And a guy by the name of Norman, which he's deceased now,
his daughter-in-law had a flower shop, was in the flower shop one day. And Mr. Norman came in there
and he had a little dog, little chihuahua or something. And he would walk that dog every day
around the same time. Well, he was in that flower shop that day, and he told me, he said, there was another glove.
And I said, what are you talking about?
He said, I walked my dog the same day that when they found out that she was missing,
and he would walk that block, like, around from his house, around in front of her house,
and back, you know, back around to his.
And he said he found another latex glove.
Now, I can't tell you what color that glove was,
but he said it was another latex glove.
And he said he gave it to the cop.
It was somewhere from his house around one block, you know, back to his house.
So I'm not sure exactly where it was at.
But, I mean, he stood there in that glove shop and told me this.
And he said he gave it to the cops.
Maybe this is something the GBI had all along, a second latex glove.
If Ryan Duke's DNA is not a match on either of those gloves, then something seems very off here.
One glove in the yard seems like it could be a plant.
But two gloves in different places
that sounds like it belongs to the perpetrator
you can put a word on there you can type a message and then it'll go away in like 10 seconds or two
days or whatever you set it to go to so i screenshotted the first time he messaged me
and then he wouldn't message me back.
I had to, like, keep messaging him.
I mean, it was basically like a whole question and answer thing all night long,
and I got tons of information.
This is someone from the Up and Vanish discussion board
who recently had a private conversation with someone claiming to be Bo Dukes.
It was the same profile as last time.
A-A-A in all caps.
After some chatting, he invited her to private message him on an app called Wicker, which uses encryption
and automatically deletes the messages after a certain amount of time.
I'll just read you what I have real quick.
I said, there's a lot of names that need to be cleared, huh?
He says, yes.
I asked him
do you just get on this discussion board to see what all the theories are and then he sent this
long paragraph which i said was she really strangled he said that's what ryan told me
he said that his other roommate and a brother were there whenever all the talk about her being killed that night.
And I said, did he know the tipster?
He said, yes.
I said, was it something you all had planned, you know, to tell?
He said, fuck no.
I said, did you lose your job?
He said, no, I was in school and I had to withdraw when I realized it would be a circus.
I said, did it happen at her house?
He said, yes.
So he told me. I said said was Ryan in love with her
did he know her he said I don't think so I don't think he really knew her before that night
I said have you continued to talk to Ryan the last you know years he says no we haven't spoken
in many years I hate Ryan I said will the truth ever come out for everyone else to know he says yes and i asked him has tara's body been
and on his family's land ever since then and he said yes he said let me spell it out for you
hypothetically imagine your roommate takes your truck out you wake up to them telling you they killed her for reasons unknown.
Tell the other roommate and brother she's on your land.
You ask again later and you get a blank stare from them.
And two days later on Wednesday, they show you the body.
Before airing this call, I did my own research.
And to the best of my knowledge, it was most certainly Bo Dukes she was talking to.
This is not the first, nor the second time Bo Dukes has done this.
It's his third time.
For some reason, after not talking at all for 12 years, he suddenly has the urge.
And he's doing it with a sense of pride that is incomprehensible.
What's wrong with this guy?
He just can't seem to stay out of the spotlight.
For some reason, he seems to think that the gag order doesn't apply to him,
and he takes advantage of every opportunity he can find to tell his story to an up-and-vanish listener.
But that would be in direct violation of the gag order Judge Cross put in place.
I will be posting this entire conversation on the Up and Vantage discussion board
for you guys to see.
I talked with Colin Miller again
to see what typically happens
when someone violates a gag order.
If someone violates the gag order,
they can be found in contempt of court
and they could be fined or possibly even imprisoned.
The judge could then initiate a contempt proceeding, and at that contempt proceeding, it could
be as minor as just giving a warning to the individual and telling them to refrain from
discussing these matters in the public eye, and it could be as extreme as finding contempt
and possibly having criminal sanctions.
possibly having criminal sanctions.
Over the past month, we've slowly learned a little bit more about Ryan Duke and Bo Dukes.
We've learned that unlike Ryan, Bo is a former criminal.
Not an alleged criminal, but an actual criminal,
who stole nearly $150,000 from the U.S. government.
For that stunt, he served time in federal prison prison and was also ordered to pay back the money.
And he still owes them well over $100,000,
which, coincidentally, is the same amount as Tara Grinstead's reward money,
$100,000, for information leading to an arrest.
So, just who was the tipster?
Well, there's definitely been a fair
share of speculation. So far, the names of two women keep coming up. Bo's girlfriend
and his girlfriend's mom. And just a few days ago, I had a very enlightening call
with someone who used to work with Bo's girlfriend's mom.
with Bo's girlfriend's mom.
I think if the tip did come from her mom,
she tried to lawyer up first and then submitted the tip.
And I think that if the tip did come from her,
she sat on the information for a long time
before she said anything.
Like, when we got rid of an employee one time,
she made a comment to me,
I'll use a person as long as i need to then i'll get rid of
them with no problem brooke completely strikes me as the kind of person that she's not about this
for a while and a few times that her and bo broke up it's like oh you know if you don't come back to
me i'll tell this this and this because you know they thought that he has con money and he doesn't
when they broke up one time i said oh you know better off single
and she's like no i need her to be married to him i need you know i want her to be married to that
money the story kim gave he said yeah i want to take her a mail today there are all these gbi cars
in the driveway and he said that he called her and she said yeah now it's not a good time come
back later so he went back later to take her her mail.
She said, I'm about to tell you something.
You cannot tell anyone, not even your wife.
And Calvin said, okay.
And she said that Brooke's boyfriend was involved in the Tara Grunstead case,
and he helped conceal the body.
Calvin was that the other guy did it, and then he called Bo for help. help and Bo helped him and then it took him a few days to get rid of the body.
I think the plan was to turn him in, make the other guy take the ball for all of it.
Bo would admit to his part in it and take a plea so he doesn't serve any time
and then they would have their reward money.
Thanks for listening, guys.
Today's episode was mixed and mastered by Resonate Recordings.
You can check them out at ResonateRecordings.com.
This Thursday, we have a new Q&A episode with myself and Phillip Holloway.
If you have any legal questions about the case,
just leave a voicemail at
770-545-6411.
Thanks, guys.
I'll see you soon.