Up and Vanished - The Trial Series: New Year's Day

Episode Date: March 5, 2019

The events of January 1, 2019 may have a significant effect on the Tara Grinstead case. Payne seeks perspective on Bo Dukes’ latest criminal charges. 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

Get ready for Las Vegas style action at BetMGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for. When you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat and Roulette with our ever-growing library of digital slot games, a large selection of online table games, and signature BetMGM service. There is no better way to bring the excitement and ambience of Las Vegas home to you than with BetMGM Casino. Download the BetMGM Casino app today. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. BetMGM.com for T's and C's.

19 plus to wager. O-N only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to any operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Breaking news right now, Bo Dukes is... Now, one of two men charged in connection with the death of Tara Grinstead is now wanted for rape and kidnapping.

Police are on the hunt now for Bo Dukes, who's charged with raping two women at gunpoint in Bonaire, Georgia. Warner Robins police say he is charged with rape, aggravated sodomy, and additional charges. charged with rape, aggravated sodomy, and additional charges. Deputies say 34-year-old Bo Dukes brought two women to a home and threatened them with physical violence and then raped them at gunpoint. Deputies say he's on the run and has a history of drug use. And still no sign of Bo Dukes. And now the U.S. Marshals are being called in to help track him down. Dukes is wanted for allegedly raping two women at gunpoint on New Year's Day. Tonight, the feds are joining in on this manhunt. Police say Dukes left the home in a 2013 white Kia Sorento. They also say Dukes has made

suicidal threats and is known to drink heavily and use cocaine. If you do know about Bo Dukes whereabouts, Warner Robins police want you to call them. Their number is 478-3730. Ten years ago today marked the last time anybody had been seen or talked to Tara Grinstead. Officially, police are calling this a missing persons case. GBI officials say investigators... Where is Tara Grinstead? From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished, the investigation of Tara Grinstead.

I'm your host, Payne Lindsey. For those of you that are following the Tara Grinstead case closely, you might already know most of the story. For those of you that don't, this part's pretty shocking. On January 1st of this year, it seems that Bo Dukes showed his true colors. If there was any lingering doubt that Bo Dukes was capable of violence, that's been banished, at least for me. Here's journalist Tony Thomas from WSB-TV, Channel 2 in Georgia. Well, let's go back.

From the very beginning, there's been two camps. Beau was the first one. Beau and his girlfriend were the first one to go to the authorities. You always hear this analogy in the legal world. First one in gets the biggest bite. He was the first one in. His story, whether it's the truth or not, stuck. And that's what led the Dominoes to get to Ryan and charge Ryan with the murder and

Bo with accessory. He's only charged with, in a different county even, of helping move the body, lying a little bit, and helping burn the body, dispose of the body. That was fine. Everything was rolling along until January 1st. Bo is supposed to report on a totally unrelated theft case for the federal government. He's out on probation, I guess, parole. Violated that, was supposed to go back to federal prison, middle of January. January 1st, police get a call of two women who've escaped Bo Duke's house and say he had held them at gunpoint, sexually assaulted them for hours. His girlfriend came home, distracted him. They

were able to climb out a small window, escape to the neighbor's house. This led to a manhunt for Beau. Now he's charged with all these charges that could get him put away for basically life and now everything's up in arms. The prosecutor and the sheriff and others held a press conference kind of describing how they caught Beau and everything, because they had for a while, they had the U.S. Marshals looking for him. It was an outright manhunt, and they had no idea where he was or what he was doing for several days. And this was obviously, in their view, a very desperate man who they knew was armed, and he had allegedly committed

some very terrible atrocities in his own home. And he had nothing to lose, because he was due, I think, within a week to report to federal prison. He popped up on a road heading south through Fitzgerald, which is 20 miles or so from Osceola, telling a friend who ended up being a confidential informant for law enforcement that he was heading down to turn himself in, but he wanted to do it to Irwin County authorities where he's from. He veered away a little bit, ended up going to a relative's house where authorities captured him there, but they still say he was going there to turn himself in. So he wasn't like he's fleeing. So we were down there

for all that to answer your question. This has Ryan's attorneys now saying this proves everything we've been saying about he's really the violent one. So why Ryan's attorneys now saying, this proves everything we've been saying about he's really the violent one, so why is Ryan sitting behind bars when this guy was out for so long? And this could ultimately derail the Ryan trial down the road if the defense gets everything they want. For the defense, for Ryan's defense,

they've now got their boogeyman. You know, they had been saying, oh, he did it, he did it, but they really had no heart, anything they could grasp onto. Now for their defense, they've got all this stuff. They can wave in court and say, listen, this for us, in our minds, proves that he's a lot more dangerous than Ryan is. And that's going to play a key part in everything from the bond hearing to also deciding

where they're gonna hold the trial for Ryan. This is gonna play a key part in that because the defense now may not want to move out of Irwin County because all this coverage on Bo kind of proves their point. It's gonna have a big impact on everything. Experience basketball like never before with BetMGM, an authorized gaming partner of the NBA.

Ready to shoot your shot? We've made the BetMGM experience more immersive and fun for all types of basketball fans. Being on the sidelines is one thing. This season, experience basketball on the foul line, exciting state-of-the-art live tracking technology, and dozens of sportsbook selections await you at BetMGM Sportsbook. Tap into every game on your mobile devices. Get up off the sideline and drive to the basket yourself. No matter which team starts popping off, you'll find out why there's truly nothing like laying up a W with the king of sportsbooks.

Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone else close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. So Tony Thomas suggests that Beau's outrageous actions in January could in turn affect the kind of trial that Ryan receives. Here's Philip Holloway with some more legal insight on that idea. We talk about whatever you want with Grinstead,

but one thing that everybody wants to know about is this latest developments with Bo Dukes and how, if at all, it's going to affect the trial of the state of Georgia versus Ryan Alexander Duke. It literally is the most bizarre turn in this case since Ryan was arrested. So for months and months, everybody's wondering, okay, what's going to happen with this trial? What's going on with all the participants and all the players in this crazy story? And the big person that everybody wants to know about is surprisingly not Ryan, but what's going on with Bo Dukes? Lo and behold, on New Year's Day, it turns out Bo allegedly kidnaps and rapes at least one victim in Warner Robins, Georgia. Now, this is in the middle of Georgia.

It's a couple hours away from Osceola. But just out of the blue, we get this breaking news of this, these arrest warrants. And then following that, there's this dramatic, you know, where is he? And the cops are really trying to figure out just what's going on with Bo Dukes. And where is he? And will he turn himself in? And is he going to be taken alive? There was this lookout that went out to law enforcement and it said, among other things, that he's armed and he's dangerous and he's suicidal. It mentioned that he was known to use cocaine and drink and all this kind of stuff. Suddenly, just the Internet and people that are following this case,

they go bananas and it starts becoming this phenomenon of its own, taking on this life of its own. The people who think that Bo Dukes is somebody who is not only capable of, but to them, in their mind, he most likely is the real killer of Tara Grinstead, this falls right into the wheelhouse of what is the probable reality for these people. In the typical case, and I think in this case, this is also the way it went down, the law enforcement agency takes an arrest warrant, and they don't know where the person is. And these are hefty, serious charges. I mean,

we're talking about rape, false imprisonment, kidnapping, somebody's armed. This is the type of fugitive that, from the law enforcement perspective, just the hairs on their spine go up, right? And this is like, this is some of the, like, the most dangerous kind of an arrest you can make. So when the law enforcement officers who swore out this warrant, when they put out this, it's called a BOLO, it stands for Be On the Lookout. They sent it out, you know, statewide, but it also was sent, as I understand it, to the places where he's most likely to turn up. Where is that? Of course, it's where his people are, where he's raised, where his family and friends and contacts are. They are trying to do everything they can to make sure that they apprehend him or secure him, you know, maybe turning himself in. One way or another, they want to get him into custody with him alive. Law enforcement approaches

this from the perspective, you know, they want to take him alive. They don't want the worst case scenario to play out. They don't want any kind of SWAT situation. They don't want somebody to be barricaded with an armed and dangerous person. It's the last thing they want. I predicted erroneously, of course, early on that he was probably going to be taken alive within a day or so. He would be captured. I predicted he was going to be captured within a day or so. But when that didn't happen and hours turned into days, one day turned into two, two into three hours turned into days, one day turned into two, two into three, three into four, and so on, it became a legitimate question, is he alive or is he dead? Has something happened to him as he left the state of Georgia? Most of the time, fugitives

stick around what they would consider to be, you know, their own familial surroundings, where their friends are, their family. But when several days go by and somebody's completely off the grid, like apparently he was, it's a legitimate question. Is it a local search? Is it a statewide search? National or even international? And in Bo's case, because he's on federal probation and there was a warrant for his arrest due to a probation violation, they were able to get the U.S. Marshals involved, I think, early on. And that adds a lot of resources to this. And that basically turns this into something that if they need to go interstate with it, they can do so very

easily. And they've got all the legal and judicial authority they need to bring the resources of the federal government to bear. Allegedly, the incident occurred in the evening of January 1st. Finally, after a four-day manhunt, Bowe was apprehended and arrested on January 5th. There was a press conference that was held by, I think it was the Ben Hill County Sheriff, along with the district attorney in Ben Hill County, that went over a lot of the details of the manhunt and the ultimate

arrest. He was taken into custody by the Irwin County Sheriff's Office. And of course, he's not indicted or charged with anything in Irwin County, but he was nevertheless found and arrested in Irwin County. It was reported that he had been in communication with law enforcement, and they somehow thought he was going to maybe turn himself in, but because he's Bo Dukes, after all, they didn't exactly take him at his word, or at least I hope they didn't, and they tried to get to where he said he was, which was an area north of Ben Hill County, which is next door to Irwin County.

And he was, I think, filling his car up with gas. And so they had people that were able to put eyes on him. And eventually he was taken into custody in Irwin County. From a legal perspective, what's going to happen to Bo Dukes is the $64,000 question. He has so many things going on in so many different jurisdictions, it's almost impossible to keep track of it without a flow chart. And I guess if you work your way backwards in chronological order, these charges in Houston County, Georgia, that's Warner Robins, they are extremely serious. He's charged with rape.

He's charged with false imprisonment. He's charged with kidnapping and possession of a firearm during the commission of crime. These are the types of charges that people go to prison for for life and they never, ever get out. He's got really, really big legal problems, even if none of this other stuff was going on. He's also been out on bond in not one, but two different Georgia jurisdictions in connection with the death of Tara Grinstead. He's, of course, been indicted in Ben Hill County for what his alleged role is in covering up her death and helping the accused Ryan Duke with covering up this murder, according to the prosecutor. And he's also under indictment in Wilcox County for allegedly lying to the GBI when they interviewed him about his alleged role in her disappearance.

You know, and this interview was in 2017 2017 so he's got an indictment there for lying to the gbi he's on bail and out on release i guess pre-trial release on on these two things so he's also while he was on the run he missed a court date in ben hill county in relation to his first arrest so they've revoked his bond there because he missed court while he was on the run for rape and kidnapping. And so the list goes on. On top of that, he's got federal problems. He's, of course, a federal probationer. The judge last year in 2018 ordered his probation to be revoked for not paying restitution

as ordered in connection with the theft of U.S. Army property. And he's been ordered to serve a sentence for that. And if you rape somebody while you're on probation for anything else, that's a probation violation because rule number one of being on probation is don't break the law. So if they're saying that he broke the law and they can convince the federal judge that he broke the law, they could revoke basically the rest of his probation in the federal system. So where he's going to go in jail doesn't really matter. He's going to be in jail somewhere, whether it's the federal system, whether it's Houston County, whether it's Ben Hill County or Wilcox County. the jails that want Bo Dukes are just

stacking up like cordwood. And it's really hard to keep track of which jail is going to get him first. And really, it doesn't matter because if he's got court dates, they can bring him back and forth to whatever judge needs him on any given day, if they need him at all anytime soon. It could be a while for him. What jail he goes to and when depends on how fast each of these different criminal cases proceeds. Judges are able to sign what are called production orders, where people who are in custody are effectively just borrowed, for lack of a better word, from one jailer and taken temporarily to another while they attend whatever court they need to attend. In January of 2019, he's reportedly in the custody of the Houston County Sheriff.

If he's needed anytime soon to go to Ben Hill County or to Wilcox County, then the judges can sign the necessary orders for the sheriff to transport him. And of course there's the question of whether and when he's going to go to the federal system to serve the probation violation sentence that the federal judge ordered. Everybody wants to know why has Beau been free all these months while Ryan has been sitting in jail? And the short answer to the question is because he was out on bond and because the federal authorities took a really long time to get around to revoking

his probation for not paying restitution. There just seems to be a lot of things that have happened that people think, well, he just seems to be getting away with stuff. He seems to be getting preferential treatment. But I will give you the other side of that coin. Keep in mind, he's not been accused of murder. Up until this thing in Warner Robins, whatever happened, if anything happened, up until these charges out of Houston County, everything that he had was serious enough, but it was things that generally you would expect people to be able to postpone on.

Because keep in mind, we can't just keep people locked up indefinitely because they're accused of a crime. He did post a bond of, I think it was $15,000 on the original charges from Ben Hill County. And then, of course, he posted bond for lying to the GBI, allegedly in Wilcox County. Of course, lying to the GBI, if that's what someone does, is never a good thing, but it's also not the kind of thing that you expect to be stuck in prison for forever or to be held without bail for. So the charges were serious, but they were not of the nature that you would expect someone to get stuck in jail, especially if you are a cooperating witness. And I fully expect that at least at the time of the original charges out of Ben Hill County, I think Bo was probably a cooperator. And at that point, you would expect

somebody who's cooperating to be released on bail. Unless you do something in violation of your bond conditions, there's really no reason to revoke it. But in this case, now that he's been charged with some very serious felony crimes, that's certainly enough to revoke his bond. But it's also irrelevant because he doesn't have bond on these rape and kidnapping charges, and he's not going to get bond, at least not any time in the foreseeable future, if ever. And I think that's probably unlikely that he's ever going to get bond on those. Phil said it best. Bo Dukes has no shortage of legal problems. After hearing Phil list off Bo Dukes' pending legal infractions, there's no doubt in my mind he's facing some serious consequences. When I first heard about the events of New Year's Day, I couldn't help but think if it is true, maybe Bo just wanted

to break the rules one more time before facing some hefty and seemingly inevitable charges. If so, that's a pretty malicious way to ring in the new year. Allegedly, Brooke Sheridan, Bo's girlfriend, was the one who discovered Bo with the two kidnapped women and caused the interruption that led to their freedom. Brooke has told our team that she doesn't want to talk, for understandable reasons. I'd like to play part of our conversation from Season 1, in which Brooke discusses Bo's temperament. I think right now, it's significant information, and I haven't encountered many character

witnesses for Bo? People act like he's a pompous asshole. He's not. He's been living with us for a long, long time. But let's just say that he was not in a good place, okay? Now, all of my stuff was still, because Bo and I

were living together when he told me. And all of my belongings were still at his place I mean most of my stuff anyway and so you know I had asked the GBI agent like what do I do you know I still have to go over there and get my stuff and he said would you be willing to wear a wire and go over there and talk to him or record a phone conversation? You know, what are you willing to do?

And, you know, me thinking as a woman, I didn't really see Beau in that kind of light to where he would do something to me. But one, he was upset over the breakup. Two, you know, there were other things that had gone on between us that led to why we broke up. So I don't know what kind of state of mind he was in. And I didn't want to go over there wearing a wire, you know, and me having to be moving stuff, getting stuff in my car.

And so, you know, I'm just thinking, what if it slips out of my pocket or, you know, because it's like a recorder and then whatever. So, cause I had spoken with him on the phone before that, but I called him to ask him if it was okay, if I came over there to get my stuff and he was very upset. He was crying. He was just not, he wasn't himself basically.

I went over there to get my stuff, asked him you know how are you doing whatever and I said and granted I was angry with with Bo because of all of this and because you know it was a little rough patch on our relationship I was angry and that's when I was finally I was done you know and i was mad because i had moved my life and my career down there so i start boxing up stuff and i was like though i said this is not i said you can't hang on to all of this for the rest of your life because I knew what it had already put him through. And, you know, dealing with that demon, it was awful. And I went over there and I told him, I said, you need to come clean about all of this. I said, you can't put this on my conscience.

I said, and that family deserves to know. I said, how would you feel if it was me? I said, and nobody had talked. I said, and you knew that somebody knew what had happened to me. I said, how would you feel? And he broke down and he started crying. And he said, I know, I know. And I said said you have to confess I said there is no option I said because of you and I told him I said look I've already taught with a GBI I said you have to confess I don't I know what would have happened if he hadn't I come forward and this hat and ball came on the open. He would have committed suicide. Because this wasn't the first, I mean, it wasn't the first time that he had talked about it or attempted it.

I mean, if you deal with a demon like that for so long, and it just grabs a hold of you and it eats at you and you think you have you don't deserve to live but you can't I mean and you had held on it to it for years and then you finally come forward with it I mean and he knew he wasn't stupid he said you know I'm a convicted felon. You know, this is going to completely put me, you know, back up under the jail. I mean, all of that was just a snowball effect. You know, he just, he thought about all of it. And I guess he just stayed quiet. And he also had a loyalty to a friend, you know. It had just all been coming to a head. Zach, Ryan's childhood friend,

shared his reaction to the news about Bo. So like the day that he was on the loose or whatever, so I got a text message from somebody down there with a screenshot. And it had the Be On The Lookout bulletin in it. And it had a picture of Bo describing what he'd done or whatnot. And this was before the media had even gotten it or whatever. So I took a screenshot of that and I sent it to a pile of mine in a news station.

He got it out there, but it was crazy. I called a GBI agent that I know and I asked him, I was like, should I be worried about this? Should my family be worried about this? We're just going to put some stuff on the internet about us or whatever. He told me he couldn't talk about it. He was like you know I can't really go in detail about it. I was like well yeah that's great and all but you at the same time should I be worried about it whatever. Of course he was like we don't know where he's at. I was like yeah you know if you guys did wouldn't be having this conversation. I asked him should you know should we take

precautions anything we need to do? And he just told us, you know, be aware of your surroundings right now until we find him. But you guys should be okay, but just definitely be aware of your surroundings. And so we did. It was a little spooky around here those few days, that's for sure. And you best believe I was locked and loaded, ready. And, you know, even I was talking to Ryan, and like he was telling me the other night, you know, he hates it for these girls that this just happened to. Because he knew something like this would come along again one day. But he said he's glad that Bo finally got caught red-handed doing something like this.

Just shows, you know, just gives a little glimpse into his mind of how sadistic it is, according to Ryan. Finally, I had to call on the man that's probably the most passionate about this case. Here's Maurice Godwin's thoughts on the name. So they've always let him out. I mean, he was on parole for stealing all that military equipment. He pulled out three years in federal prison. So he was on parole. And not only that, he was awaiting trial

for what he had done in the terror case. Even if, just to forget the terror case right here, he was on parole. He was a convicted felon. He didn't express he had a weapon. had done in the terror case. Even if, just to forget the terror case right here, he was on parole. He was a convicted felon. He didn't expressly have a weapon. He had a gun out, and they escape out the window. He runs out with the gun and hops in the car and leaves and runs for four days,

and they call the police. You would think that he would know better than that with all that focus on him. He didn't think like that. He's driven by different emotions. They don't think like you and I. And there are criminals who wouldn't do something like that. But they're different.

He's driven by sexual need. And he's also a charmer. He can lure people in with his charm and then when he has them where he wants them, And he's also a charmer. He can lure people in with his charm, and then when he has them where he wants them, then he unleashes his anger and his rage on them. And that's what was going on inside the house through the assault, the assault on the girls. He's a charmer.

He can get by women. He can lure women into his web, and when he gets them there, then he unleashes his sexual fiend and he goes to attack them he sees the women as a lawless thing

to just use and abuse and if the one little wrong move that they made that he doesn't particularly like he unleashes all hell on them. That's where he goes into a rage of anger and revenge upon women.

You know, Bozot is a psychotic, sadistic psychopath. That's exactly what he is. He's just completely messed up, but he can't help it, see. He's got a drive that's a sadistic, sexual drive in him. And I'm not just saying this now. I repeated this over and over again. I said, he has the propensity to have committed this murder. Talk about terror. I just think that he couldn't help himself.

I think it helps Ryan. I think it helps the argument. It's not really evidence, but I think it helps the argument to show that he's a lot more violent person. Rather than just saying, hey, I suspect that he could have done this. We know now that he's capable of it. He's much more capable of it now than some people's minds So what will happen next? Luke from the Osceola Star says it well, I think. And sorry, this clip's a bit windy.

We both know what's going to happen. One's going after the other and the other, I mean, they're going for each other's throat and that's what it is. And these are two dudes that were connected at the hip. I mean, straight connected at the hip everywhere they went. In a way, the psychological dynamic of that relationship may even be more interesting than some of the stuff that goes on. You know, two guys that probably couldn't be any closer at one time are now going to, you know, almost walk into a gladiator ring and try to, you know,

this is going to be a last man standing type deal. Next week, we'll explore the quote unquote gladiator ring that Luke suggests Bo and Ryan are entering. This case is starting to look a little bit like Duke versus Dukes. See you next week. 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 said. Our theme song is Ophelia, performed by Ezra Rose. Our cover art is by Trevor Eiler. 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 co-worker about it. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening.