If I Was On the Grand Jury

If I Was On the Grand Jury

  4:46 PM    Unknown

---

Photo: GBI Special Agent Jason Shoudel leads Ryan Duke into the courtroom for his first appearance Feb. 23, 2017 as Irwin County Clerk of Court Nancy Ross looks on.

If I Was on the Grand Jury

In less than 24 hours, the Irwin County Grand Jury will convene for the first time since Ryan Duke was arrested and charged with the murder of Tara Grinstead.

We don't know for sure that Ryan Duke's case will be heard by the Grand Jury, and if it is, the grand jurors will only hear one side of the story, the prosecution's side. But they can ask questions.

If I was on the Grand Jury, I would have a lot of questions I would want answered.

The first and most important question is "Why?" Why do investigators believe Ryan Duke killed Tara? Why do they believe he did it? What was his alleged motive?

I may be able to answer the first "Why?" I've been told Bo Dukes told investigators Ryan did it. I believe a DNA link was made to the glove found in Tara's yard. I've even been told Ryan confessed.

But I've never heard a satisfying answer to why he may have killed her. Not once.

And even if I'm right with my above assertions what do they tell us? Bo Dukes is someone who stole from our military during war time. Can he be believed? All a DNA link to a glove tells us is that someone was in Tara's yard. It doesn't tell us if that someone killed her or even if she was killed at all.

I would ask for what proof there is that she was murdered.

Even if Ryan confessed, could you believe a man who has kidney problems, who might be slowly dying, might take a fall to protect someone, possibly friends or family or a romantic interest? Beyond the rumors of renal failure, we know Ryan has kidney problems because they were mentioned in reports when he was arrested in 2010.

I would ask if Ryan is dying.

If all the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has as far as evidence linking Ryan to that house is the testimony of a thief, a link to a glove that places him outside, not inside, and the confession of a dying man, then if I was on the Grand Jury, I would have even further questions.

You see, I've heard a few rumors that supposedly originated with Ryan Duke, and in those rumors, if they are true, he told someone he was taking the fall. One of those rumors I consider to be more than a rumor since I can follow a "chain of custody" back to Ryan himself. Ryan told someone who told someone I trust who told me.

And what Ryan told this someone is that Tara died accidentally and some people freaked out and tried to cover up her death. And while I don't believe everything about this story, one part of it rings true in my ears.

Supposedly, in this story, she died in a pecan orchard, not at her home.

I think that before Ryan Duke was arrested most people believed Tara left her home voluntarily when she disappeared in 2005. The evidence seemed to suggest that.

It still does.

If I was on the grand jury, I would have lots of questions about whether Tara even died at her home. I think the evidence strongly suggests otherwise.

Why are there no clear signs of a struggle? Dr. Maurice Godwin's investigation into the case showed things that could indicate a struggle, such as a broken lamp and a broken necklace clasp, but the initial law enforcement officers on the scene said there were no signs of a struggle. At best, we can say the evidence is inconclusive as to whether there was a struggle.

Why are there are no signs of forced entry into Tara's home? Again, Godwin found evidence that suggests it would have been easy to open one of her windows, but I've never heard of any actual evidence that someone used that window or any other to enter her home. Again, at best the evidence is inconclusive.

Why was her purse missing? Would someone kill Tara, drag her body to a vehicle and also take her purse? Why? To make it seem like she left voluntarily or that the crime was a robbery of some sort? It doesn't seem plausible. Could it be to hide DNA or fingerprints? Again, not likely. Without resorting to fanciful thinking, the missing purse strongly indicates that she left on her own.

Why were her keys missing or the pageant tape she was supposed to watch that night? Perhaps they were in her purse? Someone might take the keys to be able to freely enter her house or drive her car, and the pageant tape may not have existed at all, but considered along with the other evidence, it seems unlikely someone would take the time to steal them.

Why did her dog, Dolly Madison, not make a loud enough fuss to wake neighbors if someone was attacking her owner inside her home? Why was Dolly, an inside dog, left outside? Did Tara let her out when she left to go elsewhere?

Why was Tara missing at all? I haven't researched this, but common sense will tell you that most murder victims are left where they die. Why take the risk of moving a body, especially when the killer would have to drive a nerve-wracking 20 minutes to the pecan orchard where her remains were believed to be disposed of.

Furthermore, how could a relatively small man like Ryan Duke carry her body on his own? It would be possible, probably, but also very difficult.

Why was her seat let back in her car? Although this might be explained by an investigator letting it back while processing the car for clues, a more likely reason is that someone taller than Tara, who was short, drove the car.

Why were her tires muddy on the car she kept impeccably clean? She was not known to drive anywhere muddy on the night she disappeared. Did someone drive the car somewhere muddy, such as a pecan orchard with a pond?

Why was $100 in cash found inside her unlocked car? Wouldn't Tara have brought the money inside if she was home for the evening?

One of the reasons I keep asking all these questions is a new clue I recently learned, or at least, it was a new clue to me. An eyewitness told me that she was coming home on the night Tara went missing and she looked over at Tara's house and saw the carport light on, and Tara's car was missing at 1:30 a.m.

Where was her car? Could someone have driven the car back to Tara's yard and worn latex gloves to hide their fingerprints? Could that same person have dropped the glove in Tara's yard as they walked to the road to be picked up, and in a twist of irony, the thing they hoped would disguise their identity would one day be used to identify them?

I think it's possible.

But there could be evidence we in the public don't know, evidence that clearly indicates what happened and why. But we don't know.

And if I was on the Grand Jury, I would want to know, because I am very afraid we were being sold a lie, not by the GBI, but by those the GBI has chosen to believe. I don't know what the purpose of this lie could be, who it could be trying to protect, or what the truth actually is, but the clues do not seem to add up to the picture the GBI, and possibly Bo Dukes and Ryan Duke, are presenting.

If I was on the Grand Jury, I would want answers.

And the thing is, I am on the Grand Jury. At least for now. And I do want answers.

I was chosen for my first Grand Jury in February, not knowing that an arrest would be made in the Tara Grinstead case just a few weeks into my 6 month term. I might be struck from the Grand Jury because of my coverage of the case or I might even ask to be excused because it might complicate my continuing coverage, but right now I'm on it.

Frankly I haven't made my mind up about Ryan Duke, so I would consider myself impartial in that regard, and no one in the jury room will be ignorant of the case, probably in part because they've read articles I've written. I think it might be good to have someone as knowledgeable about the case as me in the jury room, because I will ask questions and seek the truth, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who will be knowledgeable or who would ask questions.

And it's entirely possible the GBI has the right guy and the right story, and that the evidence is overwhelmingly in support of that story, but it's also possible, from what we know, that the GBI accepted an incomplete or even faulty story they wanted to hear to solve a case that seemed unsolvable for more than a decade.

We might know more and already have answers, but a gag order in this case and the usual secrecy of law enforcement investigations have left more questions than answers, and as I've said before, suspicion fills the vacuum left by secrecy.

If I'm not on the Grand Jury for whatever reason, I want the other jurors to know the questions I would ask. Because we need the truth more than a misled conviction.  If the wrong man is convicted or guilty parties go free, then there is no justice.

And everyone seems to want justice for Tara, but there can be no justice without first knowing the truth.

If the evidence is there, then by all means, I hope the Grand Jury indicts Ryan Duke, but the first job of the grand jurors is to make sure the evidence is there. Find the truth, with or without me.