Up and Vanished - The Trial Series: Back to Ocilla

Episode Date: February 11, 2019

It’s been a while since Payne and his team visited Ocilla, Georgia and Tara Grinstead's case. Between Ryan’s hearings, the upcoming trial, and developments that no one saw coming, it's time to delve back in to the Season 1 case. 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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We'll be taking questions for an upcoming Q&A episode. So if you have questions about the podcast or Tara Grinstead's case, please call us and leave a message at 770-545-6411. That's 770-545-6411. As always from our team, thanks for listening. It's been a struggle. People are scared. A, it's a small town. And you gotta understand, this is not just a, in a sense, a random killing where

people had no connection. Half of that town may have been directly linked in some way, either by blood or by family of knowing them or having Tara in school or went to school with Bo and Ryan. This is a county of only about 10,000 people. So everybody's linked in some way. Half of the community literally went out searching for Tara back in the day. Everybody's linked to this story. They're all worried because they probably realized pretty soon that this was going to be somebody they knew. They didn't know who it was, but they knew it was

going to be somebody. I mean, we are, as we stand here and talk, what, 10 weeks away from a supposed trial, if it holds on that track? And there are still many people believe, not just the defendant's family, but a lot of other people who have a lot of questions, and legitimate questions. And usually by the time you get this close to trial, you know, if you've read all the evidence, you kind of can predict which way this is going to go. But i have read every piece of paper out there i've talked to pretty much everybody involved in this and i have no idea i don't think anybody does The End Blank text calls. An $80,000 reward is being offered. Where is Tara Grinstead? From Thunderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished, the investigation of Tara Grinstead.

I'm your host, Payne Lindsey. That was the voice of Tony Thomas, from WSB TV in Atlanta. He's been covering Tara Grinstead's case for a while now. It's hard to believe it's been about two years since Tara Grinstead's case broke. At the time, the case was cold for over 11 years. But now, it seems like there's an update or breaking news almost every month. Since the finale episode of season one, in August of 2017,

we followed the news very closely, waiting for the moment that Tara's case finally gets its day in court. That day is coming. The trial of Ryan Duke is set for this April. In this series of episodes, we're going to cover the latest updates in Tara's case, the change in Ryan Duke's representation, Ryan's leaked confession, the information we gleaned while shooting the Up and Vanished TV special, and of course, the manhunt for Bo Dukes.

As we await the trial date and do justice for Tara, I'd like to get back into it. As we all know by now, there's a lot to this case, and there's still unanswered questions. Personally, I can't predict the outcome, but I want to know as much as I can before that day comes. Let's start with what we know. Let's start with what we know. Six months after the release of the podcast, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation held a press conference announcing the arrest of Ryan Alexander Duke in the murder of Tara Grinstead. Ryan Duke was a former student of Tara Grinstead's at Irwin County High School. On that same day, February 23, 2017, Judge Melanie Cross passed a gag order that prevented release of further

information in Tara Grinstead's case. On March 3, 2017, Beau Dukes, no relation to Ryan Duke, was also arrested in relation to Tara Grinstead's murder and subsequently released on bond. Beau Dukes was also a student of Tara Grinstead. Ryan and Beau were friends and former roommates. Beau had been to jail previously for stealing $150,000 worth of goods from the U.S. Army. On April 12, 2017, Ryan Duke was indicted by a grand jury from Irwin County, Georgia. Ryan Duke was indicted by a grand jury from Irwin County, Georgia.

On May 4th, Ryan Duke waived his arraignment in the Irwin County Superior Court, signifying his plea of not guilty. In May of 2017, Brooke Sheridan, Bo Duke's girlfriend, announced on national television that she tipped the GBI off to Ryan and Bo's actions. On June 19, 2017, Bo Dukes was indicted for his role in the death of Tara Grinstead, including concealing a death, tampering with evidence, and hindering apprehension of a criminal. Bo Dukes was then released on bail. The Up and Vanished season one finale aired in August of 2017. On August 28th, Beau was given a second indictment in another county. The charges were similar to his first indictment, but included two counts of making a false statement.

In March of 2018, the Supreme Court of Georgia finally lifted the gag order imposed by Irwin County Superior Court, allowing anyone with knowledge of the crime to speak freely to media again. It's a case that stuck with me. It just kind of came out of the blue. Nobody was really expecting it. You know, you'd heard a lot of names floated around there over the years, but when these two names dropped, Osceola's a small town. You heard the names, but nothing to this extent.

This is... Tony Thomas, Channel 2 Action News reporter. I mean, the gag order, it shut everything down for a while. I think we can say obviously went too far. Our lawyers got involved immediately and got a lot of it thrown out. But it was still to the point where to this day, prosecutors and any law enforcement won't talk at all, period. Where normally you'd get some information coming out there, at least on background, so you knew where it was going. And they've stuck to that pretty well.

I mean, there are official gag orders, and then there are de facto gag orders, where the prosecutor tells everyone on their side just be quiet or the defense attorney just refuses to even answer your phone calls. Those are de facto gag orders. I've never covered anything like this. They were even at one point considering not allowing the public and media into some court hearings. That was part of the gag order. considering not allowing the public and media into some court hearings. That was part of the gag order. Luckily, it went clear up all the way to the Supreme Court,

and wiser minds prevailed. For some updated legal insight on Ryan's case, I called Philip Holloway. Ryan's been in jail, I guess, around two years as of now when we're talking. And in general, that's not necessarily all that long for someone in a murder case. It's unusual to be given bail in a murder case. And if you're convicted, it's an automatic life sentence. People who are accused of murder very rarely rush into a trial, but that being said,

justice delayed is justice denied. Oftentimes, the more time that goes by, people's memory gets stale, people's memory gets tainted. Evidence goes missing. Evidence gets lost. The unusual delay, if that's what you call this, can negatively impact a defendant's ability to properly defend themselves. But the other side of that coin, and I think it's fair to get both sides of it out there, is that in my experience, generally speaking, the more time that passes between someone's arrest and their trial, the better off they are. When witnesses become unavailable or if evidence gets lost, those are the types of things that often work to the benefit of the defendant because the burden of proof is on the prosecutor. So if some key piece of evidence goes missing or a key witness passes away or a key witness moves to Africa and can't be located by subpoena and made to come back,

then that can only help the defense. So there's some pluses and minuses to it. So I think on balance, the defense is not necessarily in a hurry to have a trial when their client may be charged with something like a murder. They're playing chess, not checkers. They have to keep in mind the long game here and not just the short-term benefit by having a quicker trial or getting somebody out on bail. The initial defense team did file a substantial number of pretrial motions at or near the time of arraignment, which is not at all unusual. It's to be expected. A lot of the motions that they filed were fairly routine, things having to do with discovery. Some of them were novel. Some of them had to do with

statute of limitations defenses. Some of those motions were in fact adopted by his current defense team and they've had litigation about them. His current defense team elected for, I think, strategic reasons, maybe not to proceed with some of the motions that had been filed by the other defense team. What those reasons might be, I'm not in a position to know, but knowing the merchants like I do, I suspect they had a very good reason for not pursuing any of the motions that had been filed by the previous counsel. As a practical matter, I want people in the criminal justice system who are accused of crimes, I want them to have whatever counsel they are comfortable with,

because I'm not going to have any confidence in the system if I see prisons full of people dissatisfied with their representation. In fact, when people enter guilty pleas, judges have to ask them, are you satisfied with the services of your counsel? And so the system just works better when people have lawyers that they're comfortable with. You know, I tell people all the time when they're considering maybe hiring me for a case, I may not be the best fit for you. I want you to hire who you're most comfortable with, because what's more important to me than you hiring me is that you hire someone that you're comfortable with. The system just works better that way. There's far less problems. And I think in general, people have more confidence in the end result of the criminal case when people are competently represented and the defendants actually feel that they've been competently represented. The day Ryan was arrested, he had a lawyer present with him in court who was with the public defender's office. And the day he was arrested, he waived his probable cause hearing.

Waiving your probable cause hearing is huge. I've always wanted to know why a lawyer waived that probable cause hearing for him. Because before an indictment, a defendant in Georgia has no right whatsoever to what we call discovery. We don't have access to anything the prosecutor's got. So that's like the only way that defense counsel has to explore early on what the state may have against their client. So to waive that very, very valuable right is something that left me scratching my head. And I know lots of my colleagues who felt the same way. Maybe there was a good reason for it. I waive probable cause on cases all the time, but it's

when I have a good reason to do it. But when somebody's only been arrested for like an hour and you're standing in front of a judge making your first appearance and you say, judge, I waive my right to a preliminary hearing, I'm scratching my head wanting to know what's going on because that's just not the way it's ever done. Maybe it's the way it's done there, but it's not how I do things, and it's not how anybody that I know does things. As I sit here today and think about this, I still can't think of any reason, any legal reason, any practical reason, none whatsoever, why a defendant would waive their right to a probable cause hearing so early in the case. Experience basketball like never before with BetMGM, an authorized gaming partner of the NBA.

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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.

Phil mentioned Ryan's new representation, the Merchants. For those of you who don't know this already, John Mobley, the public defender who previously represented Ryan Duke, is now replaced by Ashley Merchant and her husband, John Merchant. You might remember Ashley from being on the podcast and the TV special, offering her insight into the case from afar. She and her husband have since decided to take a step closer to this case

by representing Ryan Duke in court. The following interview with Ashley Merchant is from the Oxygen TV special. Keep in mind, this was before she announced she would be taking on Ryan's case. Ashley has been consistently critical of Ryan's initial charge of burglary. To your knowledge, is there any DNA evidence that links Ryan Duke or Bo Dukes to Tara's murder? Nothing. No physical evidence whatsoever. No DNA, nothing like that.

So what we've got is a case based on people's statements. Police are essentially saying that Ryan Duke burglarized Tara's house. Right. She's a teacher. I'm just assuming there's probably not too many valuables in her house. Does this make any sense to you? It doesn't make common sense,

but knowing how the law is in Georgia, it makes legal sense. And the reason that they did that is because they wanted to charge felony murder. All they have to prove is that he intended to enter the house unlawfully and that a death resulted. That's it. So it's easier. It's a lot easier. And it's the same punishment. Burglary is actually fairly easy to prove in Georgia because it's just an unlawful entry with the intent to commit something inside, some type of felony.

It doesn't even have to be theft. If the burglary is not true, then what else is not true is like where my mind goes instantly. Oh, exactly. And that's what a good defense attorney would poke holes, would say, you know, the state is telling you that this burglary happened. Doesn't make any sense. You know, the burglary didn't happen. So what else are they telling you that's not true? So I've gotten some calls from Ryan's mother,

from some other family members, his brother. He's got some friends that care very deeply about him. And they painted a picture of Ryan and just the desperation that he feels at this point. And it just spoke to me. You could imagine the weight on your shoulders when you have an innocent person's life in your hands. And been talking to him about whether or not we can take his case on and we can take over his defense. Really? We really believe in his innocence and we really think he should get the best defense that he can.

What in your mind convinced you the most that Ryan didn't kill Tara? I think that he has been outmaneuvered by someone who is conniving and smarter and maybe knows the game and played the game a little bit better. I think there's two individuals that were involved and I think one of those individuals planned this out

and sort of laid seeds as the case went on and did that developing their own defense. Does it ever enter your mind that maybe he did it? In this case, the evidence at this point, it just doesn't make sense that he's the one that did it. Will we ever know what really happened to Tara? You may not be able to guarantee that the entire truth is going to come out. We just don't have the control over that. And so there's no way to say that everybody's going to know exactly what happened. I can tell you I think people will know a lot more than they have historically because of the gag order

and things like that, once everything becomes public. But will everybody know exactly what happened? I don't think so. We spoke to Zach, a close friend of Ryan Duke's. These days, Zach tries to talk to Ryan whenever he can. Being a childhood friend of Ryan's, he has an interesting perspective. If you missed the TV special, you might not have heard this story. This past summer, Zach came to me with a phone call he recorded with Ryan from jail.

In this phone call, Ryan stated he had an on-and-off-again relationship with Tara. To my knowledge, that was the first time this had ever been insinuated, beyond mere speculation. But just because Ryan Duke is saying that, it doesn't make it true. Is Ryan Duke telling the truth? We went back to Zach for a follow-up.

I spoke to him the other night. He called me. Everything's good. I cleared the error list too. I'm Zach. I went to school with Ryan. I've known Ryan for a long time. When I talked to him, one of the first times he called, I've known Ryan for a long time.

When I talked to him, you know, one of the first times he called, you know, I started asking questions and he wouldn't answer. Or said he didn't want to answer because, you know, the phone was being recorded and was scared somebody could take his words and twist them or whatever. So I was like, well, next time he called me, I picked up my kid's iPad and just started making a video of it. He never knew I was recording him, so whatever he was telling me, he had no idea. And I didn't really tell him, or many people or anybody at the time. Say that they did take his words and twist them and use them against him. Well then, here I got a set of what was actually said. We can debunk that lie right there if we have to, you know.

And so I just kept quiet the whole time, didn't really say anything. And, you know, once we started filming the show and all that, he called me right after we come back from, what was we at, Fitzgerald? Tifton? Somewhere down in there. So right after, I mean like a week after we got home from the first interview, he called me and so I started recording or whatever and he told me that you know they had apparently been sleeping together or whatnot and I was like, shit, like I hadn't really heard this before you know and he's like that was his involvement in it so I was like you know maybe there's something to it. So it took me to pain. Just thought I was just trying to do it to betray him, I guess, but it wasn't the case at all.

I've spoken with Ryan's mom, Karen, before, but I've never interacted with Ryan. So we asked Zach to tell us a little bit about him and how he seems to be acting right now. If you've seen the pictures of Ryan when he was brought in for the first hearing, he looks pretty rough. Messy hair, a thick beard, and just overall disheveled. In the most recent pictures of Ryan, he almost looks like a different person. It's not really up to much, you know, in jail. We talk a little bit about football, talk about some books he likes to read, things like that. Game of Thrones, he's a big Game of Thrones fan, although he hasn't, I don't think he's seen it in the past two years or so. I'm actually waiting to send him a book now, but you

gotta send it, it's gotta be paperback, any hardcover, so the new one actually come out in November, I believe, but paperback version hasn't come out yet, to wait for it to drop so I can send it to him. Other than that we'll talk about you know why he's there. We talked about a lot of things. The other night when he called me he was doing a whole lot better. You could tell it in his voice you know it's actually you know a lot more character to him this time than what has been before. Seems like he's doing a lot better now. Now that he's got some pretty good representation, somebody's going to actually fight for him instead of lay down and roll over

and fight what they would prefer. And they also kept telling him, you know, said they couldn't beat it, but just kept telling him, you know, just keep his mouth shut because the story that's out there is what people are going to believe and all that. So, again, he wasn't given around a chance to really tell his story in that, which is wrong because everybody should have a right to defend themselves, guilty or not guilty. You still have your day in court so you can defend yourself

and tell your story, tell what happened. It is a small town like a lot of other small towns. You know, people joke that you better not blink as you pass through or you'll miss it. I'm Matt Seal, and I'm proud to be the mayor of the great city of Osceola, Georgia. Our actual downtown, where there's shops and some businesses, are probably about four or six square blocks. Not too large compared to some of the bigger cities that I know some of your audience members live in. You can park and walk around and enjoy some old buildings. And

there's plenty of things that have not changed in decades. So when people come home, they see the same building where they used to. Now, maybe something different inside it, but the building's still there. And people remember when it was the old five and dime. I mean, there's about 3,400 people that live here and a lot of them know each other. Every town's got some kind of annual festival, you know, no matter what the size. Ours is the annual Sweet Potato Festival, which started in the early 60s. There's some debate whether the first one was in 1960 or 1961. I won't go into that controversy.

It's gotten where there's actually been a little bit of change and a little bit, and I guess I'm an example of this, people who have decided to move here, which I think is encouraging. It's more than just me who see the potential in it. While there's a lot of things that may need to change, I'm not convinced that you come in a place and change everything. And so we're trying to kind of thread the needle of making the changes that you need because we're in a changing world, but at the same time, kind of hold on to who we are and who we've been for decades. And actually, Irwin County just celebrated its 200th anniversary as a county. So centuries, more than decades, two centuries.

I mean, from the you can go back to 2005. I mean, from the, you can go back to 2005, we obviously got a lot of attention when she was first missing before anyone knew any of the answers that we have now. You know, some famous people, I'll say Nancy Grace specifically, came down, I think, multiple times, interviewed law enforcement, local residents, you know, anybody that could, because it was, you know, it was an attention-grabbing story. And in that kind of, every once in a while, someone would do an update for several years. And if any kind of new search, it would end up in the paper. Because I've said this before, I want to grab every opportunity to say it. Local law enforcement in Osceola and Irwin County never considered this a cold case. And so leads were getting followed up. And sometimes they were some of the thinnest possible leads, and they would still go explore it just in case.

And then obviously nothing was bigger than that press conference. The number of media vans was something we have never seen. And maybe we'll never see again. Not necessarily a bad thing, because those media vans was something we have never seen and maybe we'll never see again. Not necessarily a bad thing because those media vans only show up when something bad, something salacious occurs in a small town of Isla, not excluded. That was interesting to be, I guess, on that side of the microphone and kind of looking out at this crowd that was there that day and the people asking questions and the faces of people who were kind of in disbelief, kind of looking out at this crowd that was there that day and the people asking questions and the faces of people who were kind of in disbelief, kind of relief might not be the right word,

but feeling like there was an answer now, that something had progressed in the case. Yeah, it was a memorable day, not for fantastic reason, obviously, but yeah, that was a big day in Osceola, to be sure. For all those years, there were rumors about various names, the same folks that Up and Vanished explored as possible suspects and things going around town. But now there was a law enforcement had declared this name attached with this event, and that was the first time I believe that it was defined as a murder. Up until then,

it was a missing persons case, even though I think Tara had been declared dead, I think it's seven years after she went missing, and so there was some assumptions there, but still the question always lingered. You know, at that press conference conference murder was used for the first time in any kind of official capacity. That doesn't make it happy, but it brought some answers to some questions. Obviously it brought up even more questions in some regards because of the names involved having not been part of the story before. So there were a lot of tears. part of the story before.

So there were a lot of tears. Every time there's another hearing, it seems like the attendance is less and less, obviously. But none of it is anything like that press conference. The press conference was not a legal proceeding. It was, we're going to plainly give you some information, answers to questions that have been out there forever, or at least so many years. So people are very curious, but then it ends up kind of getting drowned out with, I don't know how many motions have been filed and discussed and things like

that. And so I know people have followed this case from all over the world. They're hanging on every word. What's the latest? What's the latest? And digging into the details. It would not be accurate to say that everybody in Osceola is doing that same thing. They're, of course, interested in the conclusion and they want to see justice. But the excitement at every single court hearing or proceeding, the media vans don't come every single time anymore. You know, I don't wake up, come to work, and the first thing I think about is, well,

how's my job going to revolve around the Tara Grinstead case? I think, hey, what can I do today to try to improve? You know, we just started an after-school program, and we're trying to build towards having an Osceola Boys and Girls Club. I think a lot more about that than the law enforcement angle on the Terregrin's dead case. And that's not to say that I think this is unimportant. It's just my role is going to be a lot more about making the improvements, trying to do some community development, trying to do something that will attract more businesses to encourage more growth and just a better, even better quality of life for the people that I live here.

So my days are more about how can I make improvements. On August 8, 2018, Ryan Duke's lawyers filed 24 motions in his case. On August 28, Ashley and John Merchant took over as Ryan Duke's attorneys, pro bono. From November 19th to 20th, Irwin County Superior Court Judge Bill Reinhart heard arguments regarding several motions in Ryan Duke's case.

In early December 2018, an anonymous source leaked Ryan Duke's alleged confession to the GBI on the Up and Vantage discussion board. On December 7th, Judge Reinhardt overruled five motions filed by Ryan Duke's attorneys. On December 12th and 13th, Ryan Duke's legal team filed new motions. On December 21st and 26th, Judge Reinhart denied their motions.

With this case, things were fairly quiet for a while. Lots of motions filed, and talks of trial dates. But then, Ryan's confession to the GBI was leaked. Where? Of all places, the Up and Vanished discussion board. Next week on Up and Vanished. Our top story at six, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation says it's aware of a report detailing an alleged confession by Ryan Duke that's circulating the internet. GBI Special Agent JT Rickettson says he cannot confirm if the documents from the GBI case file are the ones being circulated.

But he did say he's contacted. And he's like, dude, have you seen this? And I was like, I'm talking about what I'm what I think you're talking about. I'm trying to figure that out. Let me call you back and so I mean, even he got it so. Yes, it's everywhere, man. Yeah, I mean it went out on went out on a pretty mass scale.

Yeah, I mean, it went out on a pretty mass scale. Up and Vanished is an investigative podcast produced for Tenderfoot TV by Payne Lindsay, Mike Rooney, Christina Dana, and me, Meredith Stedman, with new episodes every Monday. Executive Producers Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Additional production by Resonate Recordings, as well as Mason Lindsay. Voice over by Rob Ricotta. Our intern is Hallie Badal.

Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set. Our theme song is Ophelia, performed by Ezra Rose. Our cover art is by Trevor Eiler. Special thanks to the team at Cadence 13. Visit us on social media via at Up and Vanished, or you can visit our website, upandvanished.com, where you can join in on our discussion board. If you're enjoying Up and Vanished, please tell a friend, family member, or coworker about it. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening.