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The disappearance of 30-year-old Tara Grinstead mystified the small group of Ocilla Georgia, recognized for its pleasant small-town America values and huge pecan orchards.
And for greater than a decade, pecan orchards held the key of what occurred to the one-time beauty pageant contestant, who was having fun with a profitable profession as a trainer.
“48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant investigates the younger girl’s disappearance and the hunt for solutions within the case he is coated since 2008 in “The Tara Grinstead Mystery,” reairing Saturday, August 20 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
On the afternoon of Saturday, October 22, 2005, Tara had helped youthful contestants put together for a native beauty pageant. Afterwards she went to a barbecue. Sometime round 11 p.m. she returned to the small home the place she lived alone.
When she failed to indicate as much as educate her historical past class on Monday morning at Irwin County High School, her pals knew one thing was incorrect. “She would never do that, she would never leave her kids,” stated her finest pal Maria Woods Harber.
Maria went to Tara’s dwelling and seen her automobile within the driveway. She adopted police inside. Tara’s purse and keys have been lacking, her alarm clock was underneath the mattress and a bedside lamp was damaged — however there was no different overt signal of a battle.
Investigators obtained lots of of ideas, however nothing panned out. But in 2017, a girl named Brooke Sheridan got here ahead with a outstanding story. She stated her boyfriend, Bo Dukes, appeared to have been conserving a secret from her. She stated she had prodded him to admit what had been consuming away at him. Finally, she says, he advised her his secret: that years earlier his roommate Ryan Duke [similar name, no relation], woke him up one morning and advised him he had “accidentally” killed Tara after attempting to rob her in her dwelling. The two males had attended Irwin County High School. In reality, Bo had been a student in one in all Tara’s courses.
AP/Georgia Bureau of Information
Bo stated that Ryan advised him he had used Bo’s truck to move her physique to a pecan orchard owned by Bo’s household. Later, Bo stated that Ryan confirmed Bo him the precise location the place he had dumped Tara’s physique. Bo advised Brooke he helped Ryan burn Tara’s physique in a hearth pit, which took two days.
After Bo advised his story to authorities, Ryan Duke was arrested and charged with homicide. In a voluntary interview with the GBI simply earlier than his arrest, Ryan Duke stated he had been stealing from Tara’s purse, excessive on medication, when Grinstead got here up behind him and he hit her. Bo Dukes was additionally arrested and charged — not with homicide — however on prices associated to serving to to cowl up a crime. He was convicted and sentenced to 25 years.
In May 2022, Ryan Duke went on trial for Tara’s homicide. Ryan testified that he gave investigators a false confession again in 2017 – claiming he had taken painkillers earlier than that interview with the GBI, and that he had been afraid of his former pal, Bo Dukes. On the stand, Ryan stated that it was actually Bo Dukes who killed Grinstead, and Ryan admitted that he had helped Bo transfer Tara’s physique, earlier than Bo lit the fireplace. After greater than seven days of testimony, Ryan Duke was acquitted of all prices regarding Tara Grinstead’s homicide, and was convicted solely of concealing her dying. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail on that cost.
Both males have excellent prices in opposition to them in a neighboring county, regarding burning Tara’s physique there.
“What happened in this orchard was senseless…” says Woods Harber. And as for what actually occurred to Tara on the night time that she disappeared? “I’ve had to come to a conclusion that I’m just gonna have to live the rest of my life not knowing.”
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story by The Texas Tribune Source link
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