Up and Vanished - S1E7: Phineas Gage

Episode Date: November 22, 2016

We explore the man who committed suicide and the circumstances leading to his death. Plus the mysterious suicide note.  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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Are you scared? Yes, sir. One by one, kids are going missing with no explanation. A black 15-year-old male who lived in the same area where three other children had disappeared. There was a real-life monster on the loose. The city of Atlanta demanded answers. Inner-city kids get killed. Unfortunately, nobody cares.

By 1981, the FBI was involved in one of the largest manhunts in U.S. history. And eventually, they put one man behind bars. But nearly 40 years later, this case has left more questions than answers in what may be Atlanta's darkest secret. I don't know today whether he's innocent or guilty. From the producers of Up and Vanished and How Stuff Works, we present an all-new podcast. I don't know today whether he's innocent or guilty. This episode of Up and Vanish contains graphic and sexually explicit content that is not suitable for children. Listener discretion is advised. Keep right on Mystic Highway.

In half a mile, arrive at Acela. That's it right there. Right there. That's her house? Yep. That's her house. This is... Can I get a note? You pictured it in your head. This is not at all what I pictured. It makes you feel like, yeah, you could definitely disappear in this area after dark.

How remote and random is this place after dark? place after dark. From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished, the investigation of Tara Grinstead. I'm your host, Payne Lindsey. Think of the last time you bought something to wear, something to decorate your house, something for your family or friends. What if each time you made a purchase, you got a little something back? With Rakuten, you can. You can earn cash back on just about anything you buy

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Please 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. Last month, the streets of Osceola were packed with people for the 57th annual Sweet Potato Festival. Hundreds of civilians gathered in celebration as the parade marched through the downtown streets. It was on this same weekend, 11 years ago, that Tara Grinstead disappeared. We knew something was wrong immediately. She was not the kind of teacher that would not show up without alerting somebody.

We was expecting her to pull up any time and say, what are you guys doing at my house? But that didn't happen. I think about Tara virtually every day, and I certainly think about her when October comes around. For now, time stands still. Grinstead's friends, family, the town still held captive by the unknown. For many people in Irwin County, this weekend brings back painful memories. That fateful night on October 22, 2005 would haunt this community for over a decade.

Tara's missing poster still hangs in front of the police station. It's now faded and hard to read, but Ocilla is still holding on for an answer. In the last episode, Maurice had called me with a new lead. He told me about a man who committed suicide in Knoxville, Tennessee. The man also wrote a letter,

and it said he couldn't live with himself any longer because he knew what happened to Tara Grinstead. The letter also listed 12 people's names. This has to be very sensitive because I have been dealing with a distraught family for two months. And that family, just one person from the family, the rest of them are so still distraught that they refuse everything. And they were mad, really, in the beginning.

That's the reason why I'm telling you, Payne, it's very, very, very sensitive, man. It wouldn't take but a little swift and that whole family and everything would absolutely put a stop to it. He stressed to me that this was a very sensitive situation. This was not a rumor or hearsay. A real person committed suicide. Out of respect for

the grieving family, I was asked not to say his name in this podcast. It's a very confusing and eerie story, but I'll do my best to explain it. He lived in Fitzgerald, but he went to Irwin County. And because it's right there on the line, a lot of people do that. He would have been

31, 32 now. So 10 years ago, he would have been 21 or 22. He was an avid fisherman and an avid hunter too. This came to me by an anonymous, somebody created a Gmail account about two and a half months ago or more. I don't know who sent it to me, but it was a female, and she wasn't from Osceola. She was from Tiffin, and she was in college when this happened. She dated one of the guys whose name was on the list. This is new information, but this individual wrote a letter

and said that he couldn't live with himself anymore and that he knew what happened to Tara. Those 12 people were hauled in by the GBI, and they were all swabbed. They were all swabbed. But see, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. There's no use to search the Internet. There's nothing. I mean, just one obituary, that's it.

But there's nothing in the internet about this. For one thing, he killed himself in Tennessee, but there's nothing in the internet about any of it. Other than obituary, there's nothing on the internet about his suicide. So the question is, did he do it? Well, no, he didn't. What it is, is that he was threatened. He was threatened, and he saw something that he shouldn't have seen.

He was actually threatened. He had told family, see, he didn't say who, but he was threatened. And it's either two things, either that and he saw something something or there were a group of them. See, you could have 10 people standing around, one or two people harming somebody. And you could list those 10 people's names in a letter and swab them and you won't get any hit. The suicide note didn't give any details about what happened to Tara. It just said that he knew what happened and then he listed 12 people's names. The letter was given to the GBI,

and they brought in all 12 people for questioning. They also got a DNA swap from each individual. Maurice was saying that even though these people's DNA presumably didn't match the glove found in Tara's yard, it didn't really mean anything. He's saying if there was a group of people involved, and they were all standing around watching, then their DNA wouldn't be on the glove anyways. The main thing is none of the families have the note. Now, the GBI has the letter. So I've

submitted a records request for that letter to GBI. I made the argument that none of this was tied to terror case. So I don't know if they abide or not, but I want to copy the letter. Tennessee law is, you know, if something is an active investigation or open, you don't get it, just like Georgia. But the thing is, they don't have the letter in Tennessee. I've already confirmed that. They've got the original letter, GBI has it. And that's what they pulled the boys up on. Just like Georgia's record law, Tennessee doesn't have to give us the letter either.

You have to deal with the family, see, because they're still hurting after five years that he killed himself. He went to Georgia for one year, and then in 2009, he was an honor student at the community college there. He was a pretty good guy, it seemed like. I said, there's about four or five people I don't have the names on. I have five. They're all 01 or 02. All of them had Tara as a teacher. None of them were 05. They were all 01 and 02 or 03 graduates of Erwin County.

I don't have the letter. I just know that the 12 individuals on the letter, they were all swabbed. The source that gave him this information only told him five of the names on the list, so we're still missing half of them, but it's still a good start. Maurice was able to contact one of the names on the list, and he told me about their conversation. I've talked to one person that was on the list. You know, the question that I asked this individual was this.

I said, why do you think you were listed on here? He said, he doesn't know. I mean, the family doesn't know why these people were on the list. And I asked him, he said he doesn't know. He said he doesn't know. I said, well, what did the GBI say? He said, well, they mentioned about the glove and the DNA in the glove. And then they asked if any of us had had sex with Tara. So I don't know the source of the DNA on the glove.

Could it be body fluids rather than saliva or sweat or skin cells or something like that? So could it be body fluids or something on the glove? So I don't know why they asked him that question. The tipster was his girlfriend for two years. The tip was given to Maurice by an ex girlfriend of one of the men listed in the suicide note. When Maurice questioned this man about the letter, he told him he had no idea why his name was in there. He had no clue. The GBI supposedly asked him and the other men in the letter if they had ever had sex with Tara, and they were all swabbed for DNA. This was very confusing, because it seemed to imply that the glove was somehow linked back to Tara. The whole thing just gave me an uneasy feeling, and the whole nature of this thing and where it goes

is honestly pretty uncomfortable to talk about. Is this the answer to solving the case, or am I just jumping down another rabbit hole? I knew that either way, this was an area I needed to tread very cautiously. Maurice gave me the names he knew from the list, and I've tried to reach out to them, but they've all ignored me. I decided to do some more research on the man who committed suicide. I hoped that maybe searching through his friends and background would turn up something.

And it did. It turns out that this guy's brother was friends with someone I knew, and someone that you know too. I decided to pay him a visit in Osceola in person. Dusty. What's up, man? This is my friend Donald, by the way. Dusty Vassie, the reporter from the Osceola newspaper. He knew this guy's brother.

Did you have lunch or anything? No? Want to get some lunch or something? Miss Diane, I'm going to eat lunch. Okay. We went to one of the local restaurants for lunch. I had my friend Donald with me too. I like Dusty a lot, but he had no clue I was going to ask him about this suicide. I hope it didn't

catch him off guard too much. Can you change it to where you order here now? But here's the menu if y'all want to look at it. Okay, cool. Same as up there. Same as up there? Mm-hmm. We sat down at the table, and I told him I wanted to ask about this person.

To my surprise, he had a story of his own. A friend called and said one of our friend's brother was freaking out because the people that killed Derek Grinstead were trying to get him. This was, I want to say, probably 2007. And he said, you know, what should we do? You know, what should I do? And I was like, well, the police need to know. So I called and talked to, I believe it was Alan Morgan,

was the deputy I talked to, and told him, you know, just basically what I'd been told, which wasn't much, just that he was very upset and that there was something, whoever it was, was after him. And three years later or something, he committed suicide. I didn't know much about it at the time. It wasn't until years later, after you started the podcast,

that I heard that he had left a note that apparently had indicated some people were involved in Terry Grinstead's murder. You knew this guy, right? When he was a kid, I knew him. I went to high school with his brother, his much older brother. And he told me more of something about the story, something about, you know, it's been years, but something about, said he encountered somebody on a dirt road.

I got the impression it was more than one person. And somehow or another, they were connected to the death of Terry Grinstead. It's some really messed up stuff. This guy and another guy encountered the supposed killers and then supposedly a black girl with them and they carved their initials into her and put their DNA on her so that they couldn't rat the other people out. This was extremely graphic and terrifying.

The uneasy feeling I was getting earlier came right back. I asked him what the police did that day when he was freaking out. What did they think about this? Basically that he was just disturbed. Like there wasn't any truth to it. I've talked to his brother, and I actually talked to somebody who went to school with him. They both said that he had a wreck at some point with some other guy, which was, I think, on a dirt road. There's some speculation that maybe he had some damage from the wreck that may have contributed to this,

because it was after the wreck that he started withdrawing from his friends and started saying all this stuff. I don't really know the extent of the injuries or anything like that but just that these claims started coming after the wreck. He said you know sometimes he would say things and it would seem crazy and sometimes he would say things and it seemed like it would This was one of two things. True or false. We know for sure this guy killed himself and left a note about Tara. But it's up to us to determine if there's any truth to it. As creepy and messed up as that story just was, I find it comforting that there might be an explanation for all this.

And maybe that story, along with the context of the suicide note, simply just aren't true. Apparently this guy had been in a bad car wreck a few years prior to his suicide. It was after that when his friends started noticing his weird behavior. He became more reclusive and began telling crazy stories about how he knew what happened to Tara, and that the person or the people responsible were out to get him. It seemed like whatever the car injury was, it had to be severe enough for someone to start acting like this. I am nothing close to a doctor, but my best friend Matt is a doctor. I wanted him to weigh in on this theory. Was this the behavior of a deranged person or somebody with a traumatic brain injury?

Remember I was talking to you about the guy who killed himself and left that note yeah i guess a few people told me that he got in a car wreck or something basically ever since the car wreck he wasn't acting right yeah like is there any sort of injury that he could have sustained that would make him act like that all of a sudden yeah but it's it'd have to be like or to have like a really like acute personality change you have to damage like one particular part of the brain the famous example if you want to look it up is this guy phineas gage was his name he's a railroad worker and he set off a stick of dynamite and it blew up and a piece of the railroad went flying up through the roof of his mouth and came out the top of his head damn it didn't kill. It didn't kill him.

It didn't kill him. But he forever after that was a different person. Oh, wow. I mean, how different? How did he act? I think he was angry. He's like just kind of deserted his family. Gotcha.

That's kind of how this guy was acting. Kind of deserted his friends and didn't really hang out with anybody anymore. Was real reclusive. That's interesting. You would think it'd have to be like an actual like in the head injury, chronic concussive injuries or a one time, you know, in the brain injury would make it more realistic that he would just kind of go off the rails. And you know what I'm saying? So do you think it would be more likely that he would get in a wreck and, you know, knock a screw loose in his head and start rambling off

crazy stuff or start telling the truth. I mean, I think if anything, if he was in a car wreck, that was particularly bad. I think it probably makes you contemplate life a little bit more, especially like end of life stuff. And so maybe that brings out feelings of guilt from a psych perspective. But I don't know. I think if he was going to tell the truth, he was going to do it anyway. I don't think really the car wreck would send you off the rails, so to speak. Right. Okay. But it's possible out there that he could have damaged something in his brain to where he just became simply a crazy person. I mean, I don't know how else to put it. Yeah. I mean, I think, like I said, it's happened before.

Yeah. It's definitely within the realm of possibility that it has happened before. Yeah, I think, I mean, yeah, it could happen. Sometimes with a bad head injury, especially inside the brain, the person can undergo a personality change. The first famous case of this was the man named Phineas Gage, also known as the American Crowbar case. In 1848, this man was working on a railroad. A stick of dynamite went off and a piece of the railroad the size of a crowbar went straight through his head, but miraculously he survived. But from that point forward, he was forever a different person. He was angry and isolated and he eventually started acting crazy.

Could this be what happened to the man who committed suicide in this case? It's hard to determine for sure at this moment, but the explanation for his behavior seems plausible. The GBI investigated this thing too, and I guess they felt there was nothing to it. Regardless, even if the stories were true, the man who committed suicide never implicated who Tara's killer actually was. So in my opinion, it could have been anybody. It doesn't change who We'll see you next time. We deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age.

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I'm Samantha Cole, host of the new season of Understood, The Pornhub Empire. Over the course of four episodes, I'll tell you how a horny YouTube knockoff in Canada came to dominate the porn world, only to shatter their cheeky reputation in a massive scandal. The Pornhub Empire is a new season of Understood from the CBC. The Pornhub Empire. Understood. Available now on Spotify. Anthony Vickers was charged with disorderly conduct for trying to beat Tara's door down.

He claimed that Tara was not answering her phone, so he became upset because she would not respond. The Osceola police were called, and Sergeant Sean Fletcher was one of the officers who responded to the call. Sergeant Fletcher noticed that another vehicle was parked in Tara's driveway, which may have been the real reason that Anthony became jealous after he saw the vehicle at Tara's house. At the time of the incident, no one except Tara knew who was in the house with her. It was later learned that the individual with Tara that day was Detective Heath Dykes, a detective with the Perry, Georgia Police Department. Detective Heath Dykes, a detective with the Perry, Georgia Police Department.

The day after the Vickers incident, Tara went to the Osceola Police Department to get a restraining order against Vickers at Dykes' urging, because he told her the boy was apparently a nut and dangerous. Sean Fletcher was the Osceola Police officer who took the report. He would not give Tara the restraining order until she told him who the person was at her house that day. Tara didn't want to tell Sergeant Fletcher because she knew he was friends with her ex-boyfriend, Marcus Harper, and was afraid he would tell him. Fletcher assured her he wouldn't tell, but had to have the person's name to file the report. Tara told him it was Dykes, a police officer from Perry, Georgia. Marcus Harper was in Afghanistan at the time the report was filed. A couple of months after the Vickers incident, when Marcus came home, he angrily confronted Tara

and told her about the entire incident saying Fletcher had told him. Tara filed a complaint against Sergeant Fletcher at that time for telling Marcus about the incident after assuring her he would not tell, and he was suspended from his job and almost got fired. Heath Dykes, the Perry police officer, was inside Tara's house on the day of the Anthony Vickers incident, and Sean Fletcher was one of the arresting officers that day. Sean Fletcher is the same guy Marcus Harper was riding around with in the cop car on the night of Tara's disappearance. It's a pretty strange thing. A circle of different persons of interest in this case,

all involved in this little incident that happened six months prior to her disappearance. Tara asked Sean Fletcher to not tell Marcus Harper that Heath Dykes was in her house. The question is, why did Tara want to keep that a secret? Sean Fletcher broke protocol and told Marcus anyways. He almost lost his job over it. Shortly after Tara went missing, rumors ran wild about an affair she may have been having with Heath Dykes. Some people painted him as an innocent family friend, the guy who went to go check on her and left his business card. But some people claim that they were in a heated affair, and that there's

much more to this story. Like I've said before, to solve this we need all the facts, no matter how small, insignificant, or uncomfortable they might be. So far, this idea that Tara and Heath Dykes were having an affair has just been hearsay but if there was any truth to it it would definitely change things search crews just cleared out of this area right here off of Frank Satterfield

Road about 20 minutes ago and Captain Heath Dykes says nothing showed up on their search today I just spoke with Sam's father Christian Posse about an hour ago he says if nothing showed up on their search today. I just spoke with Sam's father, Christian Posse, about an hour ago. He says if nothing shows up on the search today, there's really nothing left to do except keep hoping and keep spreading the word about his son. This is a local news report from Perry, Georgia. Keith Dykes is now the police captain in Perry. A quick Internet search took me to this video. This is from two weeks ago.

There's a creek area that runs through this property that we've, it takes a little bit more time to get through it. Dyke says every tip they've received has come up cold. Maurice had the chance to interview Heath Dykes in person back in 2006. A friend of his, a former GBI agent, helped set it up. See, I had the opportunity to interview him because their cousin, retired GBI, had briefly set it up. The thing is, she said that he couldn't do it.

He couldn't do it on the weekend because his wife wouldn't allow him to leave, that she was keeping an eye on him, that he couldn't meet with me on the weekend because there was marriage problems. The in-person interview never happened. He was only able to do it over the phone. I asked him more about Heath Dykes being inside Tara's house on the day of the Anthony Vickers incident.

After that incident, she went next door to Joe, ordered the next door neighbor, and asked him could Heath park his car, his vehicle, next door so it would look like nobody was at her house. Heath was always there at the house. After I made numerous phone calls to the Irwin County Sheriff's Department, they kept their word with me and finally sent me the dispatch logs from the night of Tara's disappearance. Marcus Harper's alibi involved multiple run-ins and stops with the man named Benny Merritt. There were no reports in Osceola, and there were no reports at the county either. These dispatch logs are the very last place these Benny Merritt incidents could be recorded.

And if they're not there, then Marcus Harper's alibi simply isn't true. Before we dive into these dispatch logs, I want to share an email that I recently received from a local in Osceola. She told me that on Monday when Tara didn't show up for school, someone told her something strange and it always stuck with her. A man that her family knew, named Joe Hilton, told her and her mother at a restaurant after school that day that Tara was missing, and they think Marcus did it, but he knows it wasn't him because he was with him all night. That definitely sounded odd to me, too. Who was Joe Hilton, and where does he fit into this alibi? I asked her if she could tell me this story over the phone for the podcast, and she did.

I was 15, and I remember the day that she ditched her for school, you know, and it was such a big deal in Osceola because Osceola was so small. And there's this restaurant in Osceola called Peck's. That's where everybody went after school to like, you know, get a drink and do something to eat before you go home.

So that's where we went, me and my mom and my brother. And at that point, I don't remember if we knew she was missing yet, but Ocilla was kind of crazy. Just, you know, people everywhere, cop cars everywhere. And when we were at Peck's, we saw Joe and he said, Tara Grinstead's missing. They think it was Marcus, but it can't be him because I was with him all night I don't know it's just weird it didn't sit well

alright and let me make sure I have the fax number for you okay alright give me a minute and I'll get these sent through okay there's I'm going to be give or take, 10 pages or so. I got the dispatch logs, and I called Maurice so we could review them together on the phone. Yeah, you have to look up there. It has the number.

It says dispatch from 016, which is Fletcher, to D7, to D7, to D7. From time received, it's 16 minutes past midnight. And then at 0146, he's downtown. Okay, then I see eight minutes past two o'clock. And that's to Apricot 111 South Apricot. That's where Bernie Merritt lived at. That's Bernie Merritt's place. South Africa. That's where Bernie Merritt lived at. That's Bernie Merritt's place. So it looks like there is some truth to Marcus Harper's alibi. I saw it myself. There's two police calls for Benny Merritt.

One at 2.08 a.m. and one at 2.49 a.m. Marcus said he left the White Horse Saloon shortly after 1 a.m. The bar is located in Fitzgerald, about a 10-minute drive to Osceola. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, let's say he left at 1.15 in the morning. The latest he would be back in Osceola to tag up with Sean Fletcher would be around 1.30 a.m. Upon a second glance, I noticed one glaring piece of information in the dispatch logs. These records have corresponding numbers for each officer on duty that night. So each officer that responds to a call is listed next to the incident.

The first call for Benny Merritt was at 2.08 a.m. But Sean Fletcher wasn't there. Another officer was, Sergeant Kisling. On the second call, at 2.49 a.m., Sean Fletcher was there. What this means is, the first and only time we can place Marcus Harper anywhere that night is at 2.49 a.m. So if he left the bar at 1.15, then where was he for almost 90 minutes? It's just a weird time to do right along. And it's so suddenly.

I mean, if he did this, then if he did something temporarily, then he had to do the alibi, then he had to take care of the business later on the next day or whatever. If he did this, he did something fast and temporarily hid it, and then went back and took care of it as soon as he could. Because, see, he was with Joe Hilton Sunday night.

It's just odd that he's riding around with these people Saturday and Sunday. But he was, he damn sure was with Joe Hilton. Joe Hilton told one of the people that Monday they had the vigil outside of her house. He said that they would never find her. Thanks guys for listening to episode 7. Open Vanish is now back in full swing. Next Monday there will be another Case Evidence episode,

and the following Monday will be Episode 8. Starting this week, after every new episode of Up and Vanished, I'll be hosting a live Q&A for our listeners. This week, it'll be on Wednesday at 7 p.m. on Twitter. Just tag at Up and Vanished and ask your question using the hashtag AskPain. The Twitter handle is at Up and vanished and ask your question using the hashtag ask pain. The Twitter handle is at up and vanished. And again,

this is this Wednesday at 7 PM. Also, if you're enjoying this podcast and would like to donate to the production, you can go to up and vanish.com slash donate for exclusive content. Go to up and vanish.com this week. I'm posting the dispatch logs on the discussions page. Thank you guys for listening, and I'll see you next Monday.