Butt of a Cosmic Joke

Butt of a Cosmic Joke

  7:52 AM    Unknown

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Life is weird. So is dying.

Yeah, I’m talking about cancer again. Not that there isn’t plenty else to talk about. With the country tearing itself apart over racism, nuclear war being threatened, and the county closing trash sites last week, I felt like all I had ever fought against was a failure. Thank you to the commissioners who gave me a little bit of hope in a dank, dark week.

So, early last week, I went to meet with the doctor in Thomasville about the special radiation treatment I was to have there. To recap, no pun intended, I have lung cancer that spread to my brain. The radiation was the first step in getting these problems under control.

The nurse there asked me a series of questions about symptoms I might be suffering due to the brain problems. It was like a to-do list of things to be afraid of. So I may lose my ability to walk and chew. That’s great. And apparently I may get constipation and diarrhea at the same time. How is that even possible?

I’m exaggerating, I think. I hope.

Wednesday, I met one of my oncologists for the first time, and he gave me a prognosis I didn’t ask for. I didn’t really want to know, even though I suspected. My cancer is incurable, so I’m on a deadline, so to speak.

“Incurable” is a hard word for a realist to hear. It saps away a lot of hope. That was a bad day.

Of course, I could live years, or I could die tomorrow, I suppose. But a lot of the mystery is gone, which stinks. Why invest in anything? Why get excited about a video game or a football season  or TV series you may never see the end of?

(I’m basically living to see the end of Game of Thrones right now).

I got a flat tire the day after finding out I had cancer. Is it any wonder that the night before I was headed to Thomasville for the radiation treatment, there were major protests over a police shooting only blocks from the hospital?

Luckily that didn’t interfere with anything, but it was another concern. I quickly forgot about it when the doctors and nurses began screwing a metal frame to my skull Thursday morning. I thought a toothache hurt, but this was worse, agonizing and constant. I was shaking so bad from the pain that my brain was showing up blurry in the MRI.

They had to give me pills and more injections to ease the pain, which was when things started looking up finally. The radiation procedure went more quickly and easily than I had hoped. And I emerged still able to think and talk without drooling too much, so that’s excellent.

My mom said my color looked better after the procedure. Of course, having your head stuck in a microwave might give you a healthy glow, too.

After the procedure, I wore two bandaids on my forehead, in public. My mom said I looked like they'd cut my horns off.

Now, I've had my brain bombarded with radiation. I'm on steroids. This week, I get a port installed to help with chemo, which makes me technically a cyborg. I'm halfway to being a super hero, for sure.

And the steroids are making me hungry. I'm going to be the world's fattest cancer patient. A friend showed up this weekend and thought I was bleeding. I wasn't bleeding. I'd just spilled rocky road ice cream down my arm and shirt.

I'm starting to feel somewhat disabled with my fallen voice and shaky, imprecise hand. My latest favorite food is a Cobb Zalad from Zaxby's doused in ranch dressing and barbarous Nuclear Sauce, which is, to me, a perfect hot sauce. I tried to order the other night and the kind cashier thought I asked for "new croissants" instead of Nuclear Sauce, which seemed plausible. I got the right sauce, though, just in time for me to spill my change on the floor, struggle to pick it up and then have equal difficulty putting my lid on my to-go cup.

Speaking of drinks, I had the wise idea to enjoy the unique experience of doing things for the last time. For instance, I rarely drink Pepsi, so I decided I'd have my... drum roll... Last Pepsi. Unfortunately, I rarely drink Pepsi, so I didn't realize I bought a Wild Cherry Pepsi instead.

Of course, chemo will likely put the kaibosh on my steroid-fueled appetite. And my immune system will be compromised, so I have to avoid all sorts of things I love: Medium rare steak, sushi, and even Nuclear Sauce, since hot sauce can lead to minor but potentially dangerous internal bleeding. At least I'll still have rocky road ice cream.

Resting in the gamma knife machine for over an hour, I thought a lot about what to do with the time I have left. I decided to rededicate myself to writing the story I had planned about the Disappearance of Tara Grinstead, but to also include my own ordeal with mortality.

A goal will give me focus and a little bit of the hope that keeps being snatched away.

I ran into a friend at Cirillo’s last week, and she told me a loved one with very similar cancers is still living 7 years after his diagnosis, and that made me feel great. Then I mentioned it to my ex-brother-in-law, who is a surgeon who deals with cancer patients regularly, and he said he wouldn’t count on me lasting that long.

Woo... Thanks for that.

It’s so weird, and so terrible. This has been an amazing year for me in ways. I’ve never felt more loved and appreciated, and I have people from at least six countries praying for me or thinking about me. I’ve had people ask me for my autograph at an oncology center and after a fan approached me at a restaurant last week, I commented on how weird my life is these days.

My niece picked up on the observation.

“Your life is weird because you have fans and you have cancer,” she said, and yes, that’s exactly what I meant.

Like our president, I’m a bit of a narcissist, (although I’d say he’s a malignant narcissist and I’m a narcissist with malignancies.) Also unlike the commander in Tweets, I’m honest enough to admit I like the attention, and awards, unfortunately, motivate me.

So when I learned this past weekend that The Ocilla Star won seven awards at our annual company conference, I was overjoyed. As a part of our team and as a journalist, that will probably be my finest professional moment, but I missed it due to my health. And the joy was, of course, bittersweet.

I almost feel like I'm going out on top, but I also feel like I’m the butt of a cosmic joke. But at least I’m still laughing.

Note: Since I originally wrote this, I did get a bit of good news, but I don't really understand it. I'm supposed to be something like a 90 percent match to some new form of immunotherapy, which I was told was very good news. I don't know much about it, but immunotherapy has shown some new success fighting lung cancer, so not all the news is so grim.

Thanks: There are so many people who deserve my thanks right now, and I want to mention some of them, although I will miss hundreds in doing so. To Dr. Wayne Maris, Dr. Rubal Patel, the nursing staff of the oncology centers in Tifton and Thomasville, Dr. Howard and Janet McMahan, Hazel McCranie, Norma Baker, Carol Pharr, Paige Wynn, Cheryl Odom, the Hicks family, Debbie Russo, Terry James, DeDee Arnold, Stephanie Ross, Traci Harper, Tammy Vickers, Joe McCrimmon, Chelsea Cobb, Walter Hudson, Rob and Megan Dowdle, Matt and Roxie Seale, Sandy McClurd, Greg Sidwell, Daniel Gothe and Jessica Korpinen, Payne Lindsey, Richard Wingate, William Wingate, Leigh Kimbrell, Angie Thompson, Ruby Chamber, Laquita Whittle, Taylor Wynn, Dena Vassey, Kamran Ali, Myda Ali, Shawn Fowler, Jonathan Beal, Linda Rodgers, Zack Jarrard, Irfan Ali, Eric Gaines, Dylan Bryant, Rick Bryant, Maria Hardman, Diane Pless, Beverly Bradford, Debbie Parrish, Laura Beth Tucker, Mona Paulk, Gloria Mix, Yvette White, Sue Bryant, Christy Hagenbaugh, and my rock, my mom, Mandy Bryant, and many others, thank you all for the hope and strength you've given me in this dark tunnel I still plan to emerge from one day.

And here are some songs I composed which are barely related to the story at all, featuring the Joker and Batman.

Cosmic Joke

Super Hero

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Overview of the Tara Grinstead Mystery

Overview of the Tara Grinstead Mystery

  9:11 AM    Unknown

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Overview of the Tara Grinstead Mystery

by Dusty Vassey

The Tara Grinstead Mystery began more than 11 years ago, but even after two arrests in the case, questions remain. This is an edited reprint of a series of articles I wrote for The Ocilla Star from June 7, June 14 and June 21, 2017.

YEAR ONE

The Disappearance

On Saturday, Oct. 22, 2005, Tara Grinstead, an Irwin County High School history teacher and former Miss Tifton, used her experience with beauty pageants to help students prepare for the Miss Georgia Sweet Potato Pageant. She attended the pageant at the Grand Theatre in Fitzgerald, and then visited a barbecue at the home of former Irwin School Superintendent Dr. Troy Davis in Ocilla. After she left the get-together shortly after 11 p.m. that night, she disappeared.

Family and friends could not get Grinstead to answer her phone on Sunday. She did not arrive at work on Monday morning, and neighbors and friends used a key to enter her house, and she was not home. One of the neighbors, Joe Portier, who was then an Ocilla city councilman, called Ocilla Police Chief Billy Hancock directly. Portier also spotted a mysterious latex glove resting in her front yard.

Hancock arrived and sensed that something was amiss. Almost immediately, he called in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to take over the missing persons case, and the largest case file in GBI history began.

Although the investigators did not find any clear signs of a struggle at the home, certain possible clues were discovered. Her car, the clothes she wore on Saturday, and her cell phone were there, suggesting she did come home after the barbecue, but her purse and keys were missing. She reportedly told Davis she planned to watch a video tape of the pageant when she went home, but no tape was found. Her dog, Dolly Madison, was left outside despite reports that Dolly was often an inside pet, and a neighbor reported the dog was barking loudly late that Saturday night or Sunday morning.

There were also several oddities about Grinstead's car. The tires of the Mitsubishi 3000GT she usually kept impeccably clean were muddy. One hundred dollars in cash was found inside the car, and the drivers seat may have been let back farther than Grinstead, who was only slightly taller than 5 feet, would have needed, although this clue may be a false one because law enforcement officers said the seat may have been adjusted when the car was processed for clues.

An eyewitnessing neighbor said she came home at about 1:30 a.m. Sunday morning and saw Grinstead's carport empty.

A police officer who was a family friend who was sent on Sunday to look for Grinstead left his card stuck in her front door.

No clue may have been as important or mystifying as the latex glove found in her front yard. A GBI agent later revealed that white male DNA was found on the glove. In the weeks after Grinstead's disappearance, a man walking around the neighborhood found a second latex glove within blocks of Grinstead's home, according to one of his relatives, and the second glove was turned over to law enforcement, but whether the second glove was related has never been publicly revealed.

The Search

Within the first few days of Grinstead's disappearance, people poured into Ocilla to march through the streets, checking yards, sheds and ditches for any signs of her. An especially busy weekend for Ocilla followed with the annual Irwin County-Fitzgerald rivalry football game, the Georgia Sweet Potato Festival and Parade, and the Georgia-Florida football game, but still loads of volunteers took to the countryside to search for Grinstead. For months, searches happened nearly every weekend until all or nearly all of Irwin County was covered, and the searches continued in surrounding counties also. The horse-riding search group Texas Equusearch, which helped with the famous Natalee Holloway disappearance in Aruba, joined the case as well.

Although a few odd finds were made, such as a discarded clothing and even a marijuana growing operation, the searches were mostly fruitless as far as definite clues in the mystery.

On Nov. 8, an anonymous caller reported a mysterious fire at an unoccupied home on Snapdragon Road in northeastern Irwin County. An SUV belonging to a neighbor also burned up in the inferno. The remains of the house were divided into grids and cadaver dogs were used to search the area. The dogs alerted in places, but a dog handler on the Up and Vanished podcast indicated the reason for some of the alerts could have been due to septic lines, which sometimes confuse cadaver dogs.

The cause of the fire was never determined, and the blaze has been a source of speculation for years. However, the fire could have had a mundane cause. The SUV which burned as part of the fire, a 2000 Ford Expedition, was one of 4.5 million vehicles later recalled by Ford because the vehicles were known to sometimes catch on fire, even when they were not in operation. In a report on the recall by Reuters, owners of the vehicles were urged not to park them in garages or near homes.

In April 2006, a pond on Snapdragon Road was drained, and Grinstead's sister, Anita Gattis, reported that something was found there.

One search would later seem important, and it appears to be a missed opportunity.

According to multiple people who wished to remain anonymous, a tipster came forward between 2 to 6 weeks after Grinstead went missing. According to these sources, while at a party, the tipster overheard Ryan Duke talking about killing Tara Grinstead, and the tipster also reportedly mentioned the name Bo Dukes. The tipster spoke to some friends who were involved in the searches, and they reportedly prepared a written statement which was presented to two deputies in the Irwin County Sheriff's Office.

According to sources, the deputies contacted the Ben Hill County Sheriff's Office, and a late-night search was conducted at the pecan orchard, the same pecan orchard which would later be searched in 2017. Reportedly, the tipster could not find the burn pile which he believed was used. The tip may have went no further, and the GBI, which later said Ryan Duke was off its radar, may not have been told about the tip at the time. However, a law enforcement officer involved in the search of the orchard was recorded saying the GBI was informed, and the recording was played on Up and Vanished.

Ryan Duke was later charged with Grinstead's murder, and Bo Dukes was charged with crimes associated with covering up her death.

An anonymous tip in December also led to a search of the Queensland area of Ben Hill County, which is near to the pecan orchard, but again nothing of note was reported found.

The Attention

The news that Grinstead was missing shocked her friends, co-workers and students. Fliers were printed and distributed throughout the Ocilla community. Teachers for Tara and Teens for Tara were formed, candlelight vigils and fundraisers were held including a Spirit of Tara pageant, and the Irwin County Senior Center was transformed into the first Tara Command Center to organize searches, but the center was later moved twice.

Fliers and press releases spread quickly within the first few days after Grinstead's disappearance was discovered. Along with numerous reports from local and regional television stations and newspapers, the Grinstead disappearance also became a national story. In a year in which missing women were popular in the media, from “the Runaway Bride” Jennifer Carol Wilbanks in April to Natalee Holloway in May, the Grinstead case quickly captured the public’s imagination.

National television hosts Nancy Grace of CNN and Greta Van Susteren of Fox News covered the case extensively and even visited Ocilla. The story was also featured on Dateline NBC and on the Montel Williams show. Holloway's mother, Beth Holloway, who later became a television personality herself, visited Ocilla to bring more attention to the Grinstead case. U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston also pledged his help to find the missing woman.

Grinstead's sister, Anita Gattis, became the public face of the campaign to bring her sister home safely, and she was featured in many of the media reports about the case. Grinstead's family also worked with Dr. Maurice Godwin, a forensic investigator, who first investigated the case in early 2006 and continues to be involved with the case today. Godwin performed his own investigation of Grinstead's home and believed he found signs of a struggle, including a broken lamp and a broken necklace clasp.

Psychics also became involved in the case, including psychic profiler Carla Baron who filmed an episode of her show, Haunting Evidence, about Grinstead.

Two rewards were raised in relation to the case: $100,000 for her safe return and $100,000 for the arrest and conviction of those involved in her disappearance. The reward and Grinstead's disappearance were announced in missing posters, a large banner, and even highway billboards.

The disappearance also happened at a time when social media was rising to prominence for the first time, and chat rooms and discussion boards sprung up for those interested in the case to talk, sometimes across the world.

With so much attention on Grinstead's disappearance, suspicion arose about many of the men in her life. Though the GBI never named a person of interest, it never cleared anyone either. Some men were talked about on television, some were the subject of chatter on social media, and some were discussed in hushed gossip.

But circumstances would show that all of those discussed openly were actually innocent, despite the suspicions aimed at them. However, it would take more than a decade and a shocking arrest for their names to be cleared.

THE QUIET DECADE

After the massive searches and heavy media attention of the first year after Tara Grinstead went missing in October of 2005, the following decade was relatively quiet. Still, there were several points of interest during that period of time.

In Memory of Tara

The first anniversary of Grinstead's disappearance was marked with a candlelight vigil on Oct. 22, 2006. On the week of the second anniversary, commemorative events were held at Lanny Roberts Memorial Stadium and Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.

Also on the second anniversary, a gingko tree was planted in Grinstead's honor on the south side of the Irwin County Courthouse. Over the years, the tree died, however, though a marker remains and some people have tried to have the tree replaced.

Just over 5 years after her disappearance, Grinstead was declared legally deceased in an Irwin County Probate Court hearing so that her family could settle her affairs.

The Media

Though regular news reports stopped in the years after Grinstead's disappearance, several television specials or episodes kept the story of the missing teacher alive, and an online podcast later presented the case to millions of listeners.

In 2008, CBS aired a 48 Hours program entitled "Stolen Beauty," which attempted to connect Grinstead's case to the 2006 disappearance of Jennifer Kesse in Orlando, Florida, but investigators could not find a connection. In 2010, Investigation Discovery aired an episode of its Disappeared series, "The Beauty Queen Mystery," about Grinstead. In 2011, Lifetime aired an episode of Vanished with Beth Holloway about the Grinstead case. In 2014, another ID series, Beauty Queen Murders, aired an episode about the Grinstead mystery called "Stolen Promise." On Fox News, Greta Van Susteran returned to the case after nearly 10 years in 2015 for a special about Grinstead.

In August 2016, following the success of the podcast Serial and true crime television series like Making a Murderer, a filmmaker from Atlanta named Payne Lindsey started the Up and Vanished podcast. For the first time since the early days of the Grinstead mystery, the case received weekly coverage due to the online audio podcast.

Up and Vanished featured guests who were prominently part of the story, such as forensic investigator Dr. Maurice Godwin and former school superintendent Dr. Troy Davis, who hosted the barbecue which was the last place Grinstead was known to be seen. Other guests included former students and friends, a fire marshal's investigator, reporters, dog handlers, and others with insight into the case.

Many aspects of the case were examined on Up and Vanished, including the circumstances of Grinstead's disappearance, the fire on Snapdragon Road, and the mysterious sightings of a black truck near Grinstead's home on the weekend she went missing.

Although the online interest in Grinstead's disappearance never ceased on web sites such as WebSleuths, a discussion board on the Up and Vanished web site became a hotbed of chatter about the case.

The Investigation

In the years following 2006, only a few searches were performed by law enforcement officers but some of those searches and other areas of investigation are still discussed today for their possible relevance in the case.

In 2009, a man posted an online video with his face hidden and voice disguised. Calling himself the "CatchMeKiller," he claimed to have murdered 16 women, including Grinstead and Kesse. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation determined the claims were a hoax and arrested and charged Andrew Haley of Gainesville, whom the GBI believed to be the man in the video. He was later convicted of tampering with evidence and making false statements.

In 2010, a local young man committed suicide in Tennessee after claiming that the person or persons who killed Tara Grinstead were threatening him. He reportedly left a suicide note that included the names of several people, many of whom were later interviewed and swabbed for DNA by the GBI, though those interviews did not lead to any arrests.

It is unknown if the man had any legitimate information about the case, however, his brother reported that the young man said he encountered the killer or killers on a bridge on a dirt road in Irwin County. In March 2011, the Irwin County Sheriff's Office and a dive team investigated Little Brushy Creek on Daisy Road, which is a location with a bridge on a dirt road. Nothing was reported to be found during the search.

In February 2015, a small pond was drained and searched just north of Fitzgerald, only a few miles from where the GBI searched for Grinstead's remains in 2017. A block with a rope tied to it, which could be used as an improvised anchor for a boat, was reportedly found, but there was reportedly no clear connection to the Grinstead case.

In August 2016, Lindsey and the GBI separately investigated a mound found under the home where the barbecue was held in 2005, which was the last place Grinstead was known to be seen. The GBI reportedly found animal bones and a pair of underwear. Ocilla Police Chief Billy Hancock said nothing of evidenciary value was found.

In October 2016, a man walking through the forest in a park in New York found what has been described as a "missing persons shrine." The man found photocopies of missing persons posters, including one of Grinstead, inserted into plastic sleeves and pinned to trees.

The Suspects

Although they were "off the radar" of the GBI for more than a decade, the two men who were arrested in 2017 in relation to Grinstead's death had other encounters with law enforcement.

Ryan Duke, who was charged with Grinstead's alleged murder and other alleged crimes, was twice arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. He was arrested in 2008 by the Tift County Sheriff's Office, and he was arrested in 2010 by the Ocilla Police Department.

In 2013, Bo Dukes, who is accused of helping to cover up Grinstead's alleged murder, pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal more than $150,000 worth of property paid for by the U.S. Army. His then-wife also pleaded guilty in the same case. Prosecutors claimed Bo Dukes, who was then unit supply specialist in the service, ordered property and fraudulently billed the Army for it. The prosecuters claimed the couple would then pawn the items for their own benefit.

THE ARRESTS AND AFTERMATH

The Tara Grinstead Mystery took a dramatic turn early this year when two arrests were made in the case, and the months afterward were also eventful.

In the Courtroom

On Feb. 23, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation held a press conference before a packed Irwin County Courthouse to announce the arrest of Ryan Alexander Duke, who was charged with the alleged murder of Grinstead. Dozens of reporters from various media outlets were among the crowd, and many of the cameras remained for Duke's first appearance in court later that afternoon. Duke was charged with murder, burglary, aggravated assault and concealing the death of another in relation to the 2005 disappearance of the former Irwin County school teacher. He was denied bond and remains incarcerated at Irwin County Detention Center.

Eight days later, on March 3, Bo Dukes turned himself in to the Ben Hill County Sheriff's Office. Dukes was charged in Ben Hill County with concealing the death of another, tampering with evidence and hindering the apprehension or punishment of a criminal by the GBI in relation to Grinstead's death. Dukes was arrested but released the same day on $15,000 bond.

Duke and Dukes, who are not related, were former classmates, friends and roommates who both attended Irwin County High School when Grinstead taught there. They were both about 21 years of age at the time of her disappearance.

On Feb. 28, Superior Court Judge Melanie Cross issued a gag order preventing extra-judicial statements in the case against Ryan Duke. The Ocilla Star was told the request for the order came from Duke's defense attorney to protect Duke's constitutional rights, but The Herald Leader of Fitzgerald reported that the district attorneys in the case requested the order.

The original gag order affected law enforcement officers, the attorneys involved in the case, potential witnesses, court personnel, and the family members of both Duke and Grinstead. Cross also sealed two motions in the case, and in the orders sealing the motions, the judge ordered that all pre-trial motions in the case should be sealed from public access and that all hearings were to be held "in camera," which means away from public view.

Within days, several media outlets and Anita Gattis, Grinstead's sister, filed motions challenging the gag order. On March 16, a hearing was held with the attorneys opposing the order on one side, and District Attorney Paul Bowden and Defense Attorney John Mobley on the other.

On March 24, Cross issued a modified gag order with a lesser scope. The new order only affected past and current law enforcement officers and personnel who participated in the investigation, the attorneys involved in the case and their personnel, court personnel, and Bo Dukes. Other potential witnesses and the families of Grinstead and Duke were no longer affected.

In April, two of the media outlets that challenged the original order further challenged the modified gag order. Cross denied their motion in June, but the two television stations, WXIA-TV and WMAZ-TV, had already asked the Georgia Supreme Court to consider ruling on the gag order. The Georgia Supreme Court response is pending.

On April 12, an Irwin County Grand Jury indicted Ryan Duke on six charges. Rather than a single murder charge, he was indicted on one count of malice murder and two counts of felony murder. In Georgia, defendants can be charged with felony murder if they are alleged to have commited a felony that leads to a person's death. In Duke's case, the alleged felonies of aggravated assault and burglary are alleged to have led to Grinstead's death.

On May 2, the GBI questioned most of the members of the Grand Jury which indicted Duke after allegations that someone leaked information from the secret Grand Jury deliberations. More than one poster on the Up and Vanished podcast's online discussion board claimed to have information that originated from a Grand Jury leak.

On May 4, Mobley, Duke's attorney, entered a plea of not guilty on behalf of his client.

On June 19, a Ben Hill County Grand Jury indicted Bo Dukes on all three charges he faced.

Explanations

Although the arrest warrants for Ryan Duke provided some indications of what may have happened to Grinstead in 2005, the details were scarce.

The GBI's announcement of a search for Grinstead's remains on Feb. 28, just days before Bo Dukes' arrest, provided more clues. A reporter said dozens of vehicles belonging to the GBI and other law enforcement agencies were seen leaving the orchard, which belonged to Dukes' family. Aerial video from a helicopter from the television station WSB-TV from Atlanta showed teams of GBI agents sifting through dirt using special equipment.

The last day the orchard was known to be searched was the same day Dukes was arrested, March 3. No announcement was made about whether remains were found, but the gag order may have prevented such an announcement.

With the gag order restricting comments from law enforcement officers, the only explanation of the GBI's allegations came from the arrest warrants  and indictments.

The indictments against Ryan Duke alleged that he broke-in to Grinstead's Ocilla home on Oct. 23, 2005 to commit theft, assaulted and killed her using "his hand," and then removed her body from the house, but some details differed from the arrest warrants against him. The arrest warrants previously alleged Duke broke-in to commit aggravated assault and murder, and that his "hands" were used.

The warrants against Bo Dukes alleged he participated in destroying Grinstead's body some time during a period of 5 or 6 days at the pecan orchard north of Fitzgerald. The indictments against Dukes added the detail that her body was burned, a rumor that had circulated often since the arrests.

Less than 24 hours after Bo Dukes was arrested and possibly earlier, a poster on the Up and Vanished discussion board claimed to be Dukes himself. Various people who interacted with him support claims Dukes participated in the discussion board, and no one has publicly denied the poster was Dukes.

The Up and Vanished podcast also revealed text messages between Dukes and a friend of his who served with him in the Army. Up and Vanished host Payne Lindsey also interviewed Brooke Sheridan, Bo Dukes' girlfriend, multiple times.

From Bo Dukes' interactions stemming from the Up and Vanished discussion board, the text messages with his friend, and the interviews with Sheridan, a story of Bo Dukes' reported claims has emerged.

According to these sources, Dukes claimed that he and Ryan Duke were roommates at the time of Grinstead's disappearance. On Up and Vanished, Sheridan said the roommates held a get-together at their house and after everyone passed out Duke borrowed Dukes’ truck. She said Duke used Dukes' truck to transport Grinstead’s body to the pecan orchard.

On Up and Vanished, she said Ryan Duke returned to their home and told Dukes and another roommate that he killed Grinstead. She said Dukes did not believe Ryan Duke until Oct. 24, 2005, which is when it became public knowledge Grinstead was missing. She said that on Oct. 26, 2005 Duke took Dukes to the pecan orchard and showed him the body. She said  Dukes was scared that the crime would be pinned on him because Duke allegedly used his truck and her body was on Dukes’ family’s land.

On Up and Vanished, Sheridan said Duke broke-in to Grinstead’s home while she slept and used a credit card to enter the home. She said Duke would not tell Dukes his motive.

Dukes reportedly told his Army friend that he told several people about what happened to Grinstead. Sheridan said she was told in January, and she later told her mother who contacted the GBI, and Sheridan then spoke with GBI Case Agent Jason Shoudel.

According to apparent texts between Dukes and his Army friend, Dukes believed he had an immunity deal but it may have been revoked before his arrest because he did not expect to be arrested.

Attorneys commenting on the case on Up and Vanished have speculated the statute of limitations may apply to some or all of the charges against Bo Dukes because law enforcement officers apprarently received information about the crime in 2005, which led to the search of the pecan orchard. The indictments against Dukes point out that the statute of limitations was "tolled," or suspended, because the crimes were unknown at the time.

With the Up and Vanished season about the Grinstead case ending July 31, new public information about the case seems to be mostly exhausted. Although Lindsey plans to continue updates about the case, new explanations may not arrive until the as yet unscheduled trials begin or plea deals are made.

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The Brutal Savagery

The Brutal Savagery

  7:41 AM    Unknown

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The Brutal Savagery

You may need to twist your sense of humor some to enjoy this story, so if you're incapable of doing so, you might want to quit reading.

Saturday, I was visited by some of my best friends and also some guy named Jonathan. Everyone says "You can beat this cancer!" and "Stay positive!" but then they travel for hours to see you for the last time, sending a bit of a differing message. It's still great to see them. Better take an opportunity now than later find regret in a missed one.

Cancer is strange and scary, and it couldn't have happened at a worse time. Not only is this the busiest time of the year with work, with football starting and millage rates being debated, my family is going through massive changes. My sister, Dena, got married the day before I learned I had a mass on my lung, and she and her kids are moving to North Carolina this week to live with her husband.

So Saturday night, Dena invited me to dine at our favorite Mexican restaurant with some of her favorite students from her now former job as librarian at Irwin County High School. One of my friends joined us, and I consider several of those former students friends myself, except for one person about whom I have somewhat mixed feelings.

I won't say this young woman's name, but she is a savage and bedevilling presence whose ice-cold judgment withers like rust. I mean this in the most highly complimentary way possible. I did not know until tonight the depths of this girl's savagery.

You see, several years ago, I interviewed this young woman, whom I will call Samantha, after the character from Bewitched. Samantha had won an academic award, and because I had encountered her many times, I thought we had a rapport. She seemed to be good-humored and open to a bit of back-and-forth wordplay. So, I teased her about how smart she thought she was and how pretentious her plans for the future seemed to be, which of course, was only joking.

I thought everything was fine as the interview ended, and we left on what seemed to be good terms.

Later, however, Dena called me and told me Samantha was very upset about our interview. My sister said Samantha was afraid that I was going to make her look bad in my story, which I most certainly didn't, nor did I ever intend to do so. Dena even told me Samantha went to another teacher mortified and sobbing about how devastating the interview had been.

I was shocked and felt like the worst heel in the world. I told Dena to apologize for me, but I didn't want to approach Samantha myself for fear of making the situation worse. All I could do was write the article I intended, and to make sure I didn't escalate the problem.

I was so regretful that I had so deeply hurt the feelings of such a sweet, innocent girl.

Hogwash.

One day, I ran into her in Wal-Mart, and Samantha told me she liked the article and she wasn't as upset as Dena told me. I didn't believe her. I thought she was only telling me I didn't upset her because she didn't want to seem weak or easily emotionally affected.

In short, I still felt like a heel.

For years, I lamented my too familiar teasing with Samantha, and I discussed my regrets several times with my editor. I really hated that I hurt this girl's feelings. I have a mental list of the worst things I've ever done, and it checks in at about Number 4: "Made a school girl cry."

So Samantha was a member of the dinner party Saturday, and I asked her a question about a recent event she attended. She said she wouldn't answer because she didn't trust me.

Again, I was rocked by the opinions of this young woman. As someone who aims to be as honest as possible, being told that I'm not to be trusted is a deep wound. Of course, I understand there are many types of trust, and someone who is overly honest may not always be the best to trust with a secret. They're too sides of the coin of trust, in a way.

But I have cultivated a reputation that my word can be trusted, and I hope that it's deserved, so when she said she didn't trust me, I was shattered.

A bit of back-and-forth began, and during it, she made some startling revelations about our past unpleasantness. She didn't cry, she said. She wasn't upset by the interview. She had tricked me, and Dena also, into thinking she was upset, I suppose to punish me for daring to tease her about being pretentious.

She wasn't so thin-skinned or easily affected. She was crafty as a fox and her guile had left me in fits for years. I felt like a fool, but I was also deeply impressed. No wonder she won an academic award back then. She was a smart, devious little master planner.

Still, I feigned defeat, consternation, and just plain shock.

I said "This is my lowest point of the week." And remember, I learned I had cancer twice this week.

As Samantha laughed with a brutality reserved only for the truly heartless, I reminded her she must not have much empathy for those with cancer. The others seemed to find this hilarious.

I've learned to make a joke of my condition to lighten the atmosphere and keep my spirits up. I said things like I've got a "weak hand" when we played cards later, a reference to my cancer-affected, nerve-damaged right hand, which has lost some strength. If I forget a name or miss a joke, I say "I've got brain cancer" as an excuse.

My condition became a running joke as we played the despicable card game, Cards Against Humanity, which sells itself as a Party Game for Horrible People. The title was accurately applied Saturday night, as this bunch of mismatched friends tickled ourselves with insulting banter and truly horrifying jokes. It was the best time I've had in ages.

In Cards Against Humanity, a judge reads a question from a card, and the other players submit a funny answer from a selection of cards in their hand. For instance, one time I was the judge and read the question, "Why am I so sticky?" And my loving sister submitted an answer from her card which read "A brain tumor."

Yes, she actually did that. And even though I can't explain why I would be sticky because of a brain tumor,  I awarded her the point because it was the funniest answer to that question and frankly the most horrible answer of the night. But that's sort of the point of the game, to be funny while being horrible.

And that's exactly what I needed.

I've felt like I was basking in an incredible ocean of love the past several days reading about the generous support and overwhelming kindness from people all across the world who learned about my health. In an insane way, I feel like I'm at the top of the world, that I've never been happier, because I've never felt or even dreamed that I could ever feel so loved, appreciated, and admired.

But inside, I know I'm falling, failing, from that unimaginable perch in the sky. And seeing those many touching, heart-felt compliments and humbling admissions of admiration often makes tears, half of joy and half of sorrow, leap into my eyes.

I don't hate crying though. I know men aren't supposed to cry, but men aren't supposed to be facing their own mortality at 41 either. And I recognize that crying is not an act of weakness, but the act of the body trying to make itself feel better and stronger.

So please don't withhold your love, if you want to share.

But for one night I was glad to be part of the crowd trading insults with each other like long-lost friends without a care or tear to shed. I grinned as they insisted I mime rather than speak to avoid hearing my raspy, cancer-altered voice. I let myself be the butt of their jokes, and I offered plenty of barbs of my own.

And no one was more cutting, with her sideways, judging eyes, than Samantha. At times, she would just start laughing when I spoke in my horrid hoarse rasp. Or she would trade whispers with her boyfriend when I said something because what she had to say was too horrible for people making jokes about... I can't even say how horrible the jokes are in Cards Against Humanity. it's horrifying.

But at least I know that if I ever did hurt Samantha's feelings, she has more than earned her revenge by now.

I'm thinking of making a bucket list, a list of things to do before I die, whenever that may be. It's hard because I've done or do most of the things I want. I've said before that if I was a millionaire, my life wouldn't change much.

I'd like to go skydiving, and I'd like to get a tattoo on my shoulder of the Cobra emblem from GI Joe toys and comics. I plan to go on adventures with a former classmate with whom I've rekindled a friendship. Some incredible people have offered to provide me and a guest a trip to anywhere in the world, sort of like my own personal Make a Wish Foundation.

But most of what I want to accomplish before I die is to tell the stories I've left untold.

But, if I was to choose to use my time to fix my past mistakes,  at least I'll be able to mark off "Made a school girl cry."

I asked Samantha if I could write this, fearful that somewhere under all the snark and judgement there was a young girl who might actually have feelings. She said I couldn't make her cry, so I could write it, but not to say anything that would make her mother cry. That sounded fair.

I enjoy clever wordplay and biting teasing more than just about any types of human interaction, so when Samantha asked why I hated her, I said I didn't actually. In fact, I think she's pretty awesome.

But what I didn't tell her is she must not be very memorable. When I saw her for the first time in years a few weeks ago, I knew exactly who she was, but I could not, for the life of me, remember her name. Only several minutes after parting did I remember her real name, and I felt like a moron for forgetting.

But I didn't know at the time that I had an excuse.

I've got brain cancer.

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A Funny Story About Cancer

A Funny Story About Cancer

  1:07 AM    Unknown

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A Funny Story About Cancer

This is, I hope, proof that you can make a funny story out of anything.

I'm going to start in a weird place, as I often do with these stories, and that's with my pants. I've lost about 35 pounds in the past several months, for reasons which will become obvious, and that has left me with exactly zero pants that actually fit. I dropped from size 42 pants to size 38 seemingly overnight, and even with a new belt, the size 38s drooped like a tent missing a pole.

Errr... maybe that isn't the best way to describe my pants.

Anyway, I never understood why I needed to replace my belt, since I bought the belt when I was much thinner. My niece reached the answer rather quickly.

"Because you stretched the belt out," she said.

It makes me glad that I wrote a few columns in the newspaper defending people's rights to wear saggy pants because sometimes you don't have a choice. I didn't have any other pants that fit!

So this weekend, my sister, Dena, bought me several pairs of 36s to try on. Most of them didn't fit either, and I realized then that my 38s might fit if I hadn't stretched them out, too.

But one of the pairs Dena bought fit, sort of, but only because it had a stretchy waistband. So now I have one pair of pants that fits and it's a skinny-legged pair of hipster pants that hugs my every curve like a long-lost lover. So basically I'm wearing jeggings.

Of course, I've had more serious concerns than stretchy pants, drooping pants, or even losing weight. Many people know I lost my voice about 2 months ago, and then I woke up one Saturday morning coughing blood, which led to the discovery of a mass on my lung.

Even before I lost my voice, I started losing feeling in my right hand, specifically my thumb and index finger. At first, I thought it was a carpal tunnel issue. Then, about a month ago, I started having these attacks where my entire hand would go numb and tingle for a few minutes, and starting with the second such attack, my teeth, gums and lips on the right side of my face would also go numb and tingle. It was almost exactly like getting a shot to deaden your jaw in the dentist's office.

This clearly was not carpal tunnel, which has no effect on the teeth or lips. It was so weird that one medical professional even suggested it might be psychosomatic, or in other words, all in my head. In a way, it probably was.

These attacks started happening more and more often. As I write this, I've had three episodes in four days.

I've lost strength and coordination in my right hand, which is especially bad, since I'm right handed. Little things are harder. Like, a friend of mine who was studying computer science once told me that some simple actions, like using a key on a lock, were extremely difficult for artificial intelligence. The robots cannot easily decipher all the fine adjustments, the muscle memory, and the sense of space and touch it takes to find that sweet spot which our minds find our us nearly automatically. I've noticed now that using a key on a door is quite difficult for me, so I can empathize with the robots.

I've also noticed that I'm not nearly as good at video games. My brother Dylan and I used to be pretty evenly matched in Madden football. The last game we played, he beat me 68-0, though I had one of my nerve episodes right in the middle of the game and could not even feel the controller at times. Now I've decided to give my Playstation 4 to my nephew.

The nerve attacks were worrisome, but Tuesday night, they were the least of my concerns. I have a bad tooth, and that joker was very, very bad Tuesday night.

The greatest pain I've ever experienced is when a tooth, aggravated by a neighboring wisdom tooth coming in, got infected in my mid 20s. It had bothered me for months, but then one night, that absessed tooth literally exploded. Imagine a bomb going off on a nerve ending, and you'll get some idea of how it felt.

I didn't sob, but tears poured from my eyes like faucets. I could feel the pain vibrating through my skin, emanating from my head like a malevolent bulb of pure agony. Women say childbirth is the worst pain, but I have a very hard time believing childbirth is worse than having a tooth explode in your mouth.

There was no escaping the excruciating misery. It was like a slasher movie where Jason or Michael Myers is always right behind you, waiting to do you harm. I could do nothing but meditate (I did that sort of thing back then) and it allowed me to manage the agony, like molding pottery made of broken glass. Finally, after hours... hours... the blood stopped pouring and the throb subsided.

I say all this to point out how bad the worst pain I've ever experienced was. Because I don't want to diminish the second worst pain I've ever felt:  The tooth pain I suffered Tuesday night.

It's a similar situation. My final wisdom tooth nudged the back tooth out farther and farther until it became the focus of my nightly tooth grinding, until it cracked. Since then, the pain has varied from only noticable when I pay attention to the feeling of a raging rhinocerous rampaging inside my mouth.

I was supposed to attend a county commissioner's meeting at 8:30 the next morning, so I went to bed early for me, which was 12:30 a.m. Every time I hit the bed, the tooth agony waged war on me. I would get up and brush my teeth, which relieves some of the tension, but not enough. I would push at the tooth with my tongue, which only made it worse.

Tears wanted to flow from me, and a few screams did. Of course, with a voice that sounds like I'm a hoarse whisperer, my screams sounded more like an unusually quiet goat's annoyed grunts.

Finally, exhaustion overcame the pain, and I drifted into sleep some time after 5 a.m. When I woke up at 8 a.m., I decided a good night's sleep was too important given my health status, so I went back to sleep. And then I woke up an hour later, so, so much for a good night's sleep.

I missed the second county commission meeting of the day because I was getting a PET Scan in Tifton after fasting for nearly 24 hours. I won't get too technical, mostly because I don't understand it, but a PET Scan examines you from head to thigh looking for hot spots that might be cancer.

It's a nerve-rattlingly boring process. Tift Regional Medical Center does not have a PET Scan machine, but a van travels South Georgia offering its services to hospitals throughout the region. The technician, whose name I think was Jordan, led me to the van and then injected me with a radioactive substance.

"Maybe I'll get super powers," I told her.

Then you wait for 45 minutes in a dark room slightly warmer than a meat locker. After the 45 minute wait, you get to sit in the machine in an equally cold room, although well lit, with your arms extended over your head like a medieval torture victim.

As I descended into the machine, Jordan asked me a question.

"Are you the writer?" she asked.

She was one of the listeners of the Up and Vanished podcast, and she also read my blog. It was the first time anyone outside of Ocilla or Fitzgerald had ever recognized me, and it was, I'll admit, quite flattering. It brightened what had been an awful day, but considering how agonizing the day before was and how frightening and emotional the day after was, that day was actually one of the best of the week.

I bought some Orajel that night to calm some of the tooth misery, and it did help some, and overall, the pain was not like the previous night, but I still spent several hours sleepless in bed. It was not the most comfortable rest as I had weighing on my mind what I would learn the next day: Whether I had cancer or not.

I had an appointment with my pulmonologist who probably would have the results of the biopsy she performed last week on the mass in my lung, and she also might have the PET Scan results. I won't say I dwelled on those thoughts, but they did pass through my mind.

One idea that only briefly played among my thoughts was the idea of how I would react if I had cancer and it was untreatable. I thought that I might consider suicide rather than wasting away in a hospital bed, but I also determined I probably wouldn't have the courage to go through with it, even if I decided I wanted to.

I'm just being honest. It crossed my mind.

So then we arrived at the doctor's office this morning, and from the expression on her face when she entered the room, I could tell I wouldn't be hearing good news. She was so kind about it, and I could tell she didn't want to have to tell me, but she did.

I have lung cancer.

The doctor told me she did not think the cancer was operable, but she thought the oncologist would treat it with radiation and chemotherapy. We had a plan, and I felt, not confident, but not particularly frightened either. I had expected that I had cancer, so I wasn't shocked.

My mom is a 12-year survivor of a similar lung cancer, so I thought, even if I may have bad genes, I must have some good ones, too.

The doctor said I was her second youngest patient, at 41, to have lung cancer, and that made me feel, in a sad way, exceptional.

But the doctor was also concerned about my other issues, particularly the nerve attacks in my hands and teeth. She wanted me to go today to get an MRI of my brain to see if there were any issues there. She also wanted to do another bronchoscope on the next day, Friday, to determine the stage of my cancer, which she said seemed to be Stage 3.

There was only one moment where I felt brimming with sadness. Since I learned to make music 3 years ago, I've said several times that I wanted to fall in love one more time before I died, if for no other reason the love songs I would make, but that doesn't seem like it's likely to happen now.

I could just imagine myself coming up to a lady in a bar, and saying, "Hey baby. Want to have a tragic romance?"

So we went back to the hospital, where I was recognized in another way, because people are getting used to seeing me there. I had the MRI, which was similar but less boring that the PET Scan, even though you have to sit in the MRI machine longer. The machine makes a lot of rhythmic whirs and grinding sounds, which sounded a lot like bad techno music, but it was better than nothing.

Afterward, I went to have pre-op meetings about the bronchoscope scheduled for the next day. This is where things got really dramatic.

The nurse led me through a series of questions about my health and medical history. Then she got to what she said were some new questions she had to ask, but only for people 6 years old or older.

She asked if I had considered suicide. In what I consider now to be a mistake, I was what I usually am, honest. And I said, "Yes."

I'm usually far too honest. One time another nurse asked me if I had ever used illegal drugs. I bet most people lie and say "No." I didn't. Her eyes got larger and larger with each drug I listed. I had an interesting time in my 20s, but I may be paying the price now.

The pre-op nurse today said I was the first person to answer "yes" for her to the suicide question. Again, I felt, in a sad way, exceptional.

She asked if I would like to pray with her, and as many of you have learned, I don't believe in prayer, so I said "No." I doubt she had encountered that answer before either, and I could tell it bothered her.

She had to check with someone else about how to react to my answer, so she asked me to sit with my family while she spoke with some other officials. I wanted to keep this whole thing quiet because I thought it would upset my already very upset mom. My sister is tough though, and I told her what was going on, since my mom couldn't hear me anyway due to my hoarse voice and her poor hearing.

Our adventures trying to communicate during all these medical visits would have been amusing to an outside observer. I have to repeat myself more than a skipping record.

The crazy thing about this whole "ask if they might be thinking about suicide" policy is that it made me think far more about the subject of suicide than I had the previous night when it was just a passing thought in the mind of someone who thinks quite a lot about a variety of subjects. I was annoyed by it, and almost angry, or maybe I just needed something to be angry about in that particular moment.

But the policy was not the nurse's fault. She was extremely kind and warm-hearted, just wanting to do the right thing, the best thing.

So when the nurse called me back to her office, I could tell she was upset. And even though I was the one with cancer, facing the prospect of my own impending mortality, I wound up holding her hand as tears fell down her cheeks. I reassured her that I was nowhere near attempting suicide, that it was only something I would consider if I had no other options, which I think should be a person's right.

I finally reassured her by saying I would talk to my friend who was a pastor. I suggest everyone keep a pastor as a friend. They are useful for certain situations.

The hospital wanted me to talk to someone from some sort of crisis center, but I did not want to do so, mainly because it would have had to be explained to my mom, who I thought would freak out if she heard suicide had even passed through my thoughts. I didn't give her enough credit.

Because when we left the hospital shortly later, my doctor called to ask me about what happened. The pre-op folks had said I had left without finishing because I didnt talk to the crisis folks, which, I was led to believe it was optional. I assured her that I wasn't suicidal, but I was honest that it was something I might consider if I ran out of treatment options, again, which I think should be someone's right.

Of course, Mama overheard the entire conversation, so there was no hiding what had happened. She didn't freak out at all. She's a survivor and she saw both her parents go through cancer. She knows how awful the experience can be, and she must know the dark thoughts which can enter someone's mind in that situation. If I've got any wisdom, some of it must come from her.

Then again, maybe she just knows me well enough to know that I'm too cowardly to ever kill myself.

After leaving the hospital, we went to Zaxby's to eat, and as we were finishing, the doctor's office called me. Or my mom, as I don't, nor will I ever, own a cell phone. But I answered her phone. This is like my friend who thinks he's saving the environment by not getting a drivers license but he still rides with other people.

The nurse at the doctor's office said the doctor got the results from the MRI of my brain and she had talked to my oncologist, and they wanted to change my plan of care. The doctor wanted to see if we could come by if were still in Tifton, which we were.

Logic told me something from that exchange. I had some other type of cancer. If she had called the oncologist after seeing my MRI results, and they decided to change how I was treated, that means they found something more.

So I got to be exceptional all over again. How many people do you think are told they have cancer twice in the same day?

The doctor told me multiple abnormalities were found in my brain, which in retrospect isn't all that surprising. My mom asked what kind of abnormalities, and the doctor said multiple malignancies, on both sides of my brain. One of those tumors was putting pressure on my brain, and it seems likely to be the case of the nerve attacks I've been suffering.

Suddenly, the lung cancer was a secondary concern. She re-evaluted and said the cancer was probably Stage 4.

And look, I've joked that maybe the tumors are why I'm so smart, assuming I am. And I've kidded that maybe they give me some sort of super power like people in movies who get a brain tumor and can read minds or see the future. But the truth is, I'm scared to death, y'all.

I can watch the bloodiest, goriest horror movies ever made, but if the film shows something with brains, I cringe away in disgust. You know that scene in Hannibal where Hannibal Lecter eats Ray Liota's brains. Nuh uh.

To me, my mind is me. I've never cared about my body or how it looked, just look at my grooming habits, and I don't believe in the soul, but learning that I had cancer for a second time in less than 12 hours and learning that cancer was in my brain wrecked me. I had been brave, but I felt so small and helpless in that moment, even if I somewhat expected it even before the doctor called us while we were eating.

I'm scared spitless that either the cancer in my brain, or the treatment to stop it, will leave me... not me.

Of course, it could be worse, maybe. A fan of Up and Vanished wrote me today on Facebook and suggested that my symptoms sounded like HIV to her. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it's been so long since I had any type of person-on-person relations that I probably would have learned I had HIV many years ago, if I had it.

But it's not HIV. It's cancer. Right now, I think I might prefer HIV. It's not like less people would have sex with me.

I haven't heard any sort of prognosis or percentages or estimates, but I can't imagine how my chances long-term are all that good. I'm young, true, but I think I would qualify for that term "eat up with cancer." Not only is it in my lung and brain, it may be in my lymph nodes as well. I'm trying to stay positive, but I'm also a realist, but that's what most pessimists think they are.

My doctor was worried after my answer to the suicide question, so she asked my family not to leave me alone tonight. I'm worried that I'll start to feel watched or like I'm a prisoner, and I think that would be counterproductive to me maintaining a good attitude. So far, my mom has not tried to curtail my freedom to come and go, and I thank her for that. I need alone time, maybe more than most people.

And I'm not giving up. I'm not at rock bottom. I want to get drunk quite a bit, but I won't. I haven't drunk a drop in more than a month because I don't want it making me weaker. I want to smoke pot, because it's one of the few things that I really love doing, but I won't because it might make me cough and do damage to my already damaged lungs, even if some say that marijuana shrinks cancer cells. I'm not doing these things because I think trying to stay healthy is more important than finding momentary happiness.

That may not be fighting exactly, but it's sure not giving up.

I'm a writer. I have so much more left to say before I give up, and if the worst comes and I'm wasting away in a hospital bed, if I can still type at a laptop and my brain is still working enough to form sentences, then there is no danger of me chosing another option. I'll keep on writing.

I know I have a lot of prayers and well wishes. Because of my coverage of the Tara Grinstead case, I've gotten supportive messages from people all across the country, and even Canada. I'm glad I got to make an impression on the world if this winds up being terminal.

A lot of you know I don't believe in prayer, and I'm sorry that some of you find my beliefs offensive. If it helps, I set aside many of my disagreements with the beliefs of others that I find offensive. At least for the last year or so, I've tried to cultivate an environment of being cordial and respectful to each other, even in disagreement, through my online interactions. I think in this time of social media, many of us have forgotten the value of having manners and the value of treating each other like neighbors rather than enemies, even when we disagree.

I have disagreements with every friend I have. But they are still my friends.

And I know a lot of you held your tongue as I voiced my complaints about religion recently. I noticed, and I thank you for it. For too long, I've felt like I couldn't express my true beliefs for fear of reprisal from those who disagreed. Instead, I mostly got love from my neighbors, and even if those tongues were held in check because of concern for what I was suffering, I appreciate the freedom I was given to express my beliefs with only a minimum of anger and aggression directed at me.

Maybe I didn't give you enough credit.

Those few who decided they could not disagree without being insulting, I blocked them on Facebook because I don't have time to spend my energy angry and arguing. But I'll discuss and debate all day long, and I enjoyed some of my discussions lately quite a bit. Of course, one of those people I had fruitful debates with, who even convinced me of a different way to handle the offerings of prayer I received, she wound up blocking me. Fair enough, I suppose.

I still don't believe in prayer, but I've backed away from my "don't pray for me" stance. People are only praying because they think it will help and because it allows them to feel like they are helping when they otherwise feel helpless. It's also inevitable and a kindness.

But it's also meant to be a kindness when I tell you how I see things because I only want you to see that the world is not made of supernatural forces, but is instead a world of rationality and science. I worry that a world in which two religions, namely Christianity and Islam, cannot exist in peace will almost certainly end in, to borrow a phrase, fire and fury. I don't know if there is a way to save humanity from the smoldering Holy War, but I think you won't convince many Christians to become Muslims or Muslims to become Christians. I think our only hope is to present a different option to those two warring sides, a reasonable one.

I just want a better world in the one we know exists.

A young family member of mine recently talked to me about her thoughts about choosing a religion. She's mature enough to know she's not old enough to make a decision about such an important topic, but she's thinking about it. I didn't encourage her to choose any specific relgion or even to choose no religion at all. I simply said that no matter what she chooses, she should not reject science. I said we have to be able to agree on the facts or we are lost, and like it or not, science has the facts, at least the ones that are known.

I did say one more thing. Religion claims to have all the answers, but only has very few. Science has millions of answers, but does not claim to have all of them.

I'm always astounded when people say "So you believe we came from monkeys?" To me. I've gotten that question a few times lately, and it's not what evolution has shown. Evolution shows that we came from a common ancestor as monkeys, true, but it's not like there was a monkey, and then poof, there's a human. And even though some people treat evolution as if it's a belief, it's not really. It's whether you accept the fact of evolution or not.

I've had this argument since I was about 9 years old. I told a friend of mine of the same age about evolution, and he got mad. "I didn't come from no monkey. You might have, but I didn't!" Or something like that. It was the first time I encountered someone rejecting the facts because they wanted them not to be true. It wasn't the last, but it's a sentiment that still bothers and bewilders me. That sentiment invades and poisons our country like, well, like a cancer.

But like I said, I'm a realist. Or so I think. Maybe there's just something wrong with my brain.

I had an interesting idea today that you may find amusing. I was walking to my house and thought, "I might run into a rattlesnake," as if that was an encounter that would terrify me. But then I thought, "What does it matter?" I could pick up the rattlesnake now and what harm would it really do?

Then, I thought, if I picked up a rattlesnake and was able to put it down without getting bitten, I might actually pray then.

And no, I don't want to try. If some snake handler shows up with a rattlesnake for me to carry, I'm going to shoot them both. I'm not particularly afraid of going to jail right now either.

Of course, I'm kidding.

And guys, I know many of my friends are very upset now, but a lot worse has happened to a lot better people. I have an undeserved reputation as a "good guy" because of the way I handled some of my reporting, but it's mostly just the fact that I'm trying to promote being kind and cordial to each other, which is good, but I haven't always been nor am I always now so kind, cordial or good.

And there's no one but myself to blame for my problems. I smoked three packs a day for 20 years. I smoked a lot of marijuana and some weird things, like cacti and sage because I thought it might make me high. Like I said, my 20s were interesting. I ate a convenience store worth of junk food, lived in houses with black mold, never cleaned those houses, and generally treated my body like crap.

Then again, if I find out I only have about 42 years on this earth, I'm going to be pretty glad I didn't spend days of them mopping kitchens and scrubbing toilets. Or using cell phones.

I don't know what happens next. I'm scared. But I cannot tell you what it means to know so many people love me. I don't always have the highest opinion of people, but there is something so good about people when they consider you one of their own, and so many of you seem to consider me part of your tribe. I never thought I'd feel that kind of love in my life, but I do.

I love y'all.

I'm crying now. But I hope you found a few laughs in all this horror. I did, and boy did I need it.

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It'll All Be Clear

It'll All Be Clear

  10:51 AM    Unknown

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'It'll All Be Clear'

Today, August 3, I got a notice on Facebook that it was a year ago exactly that I discovered someone named Payne Lindsey was planning a podcast about the disappearance of Tara Grinstead. It feels like that was many years ago.

Seriously. I thought I had not talked to one of my friends online for 2 or 3 years, but when I sent her a message about my health this week, I noticed that we last spoke 11 months ago.

It's been that kind of year. The longest of my life.

But somehow during this year, I almost never discovered that Payne was also a pop singer.

I was looking through reddit posts about the podcast a few weeks ago when I noticed that someone had posted links to several music videos. Back in 2013 or so, Payne was apparently the front man of a pop/rap group called Right Side of the Tree.

Payne and I have a lot in common besides being best known for covering the same case. We were both Tenderfoots, which is the lowest rank of Boy Scout, which is why his company is called Tenderfoot TV. And before this year, I too was probably best known for a music video, my ode to life in Irwin County, "Irwinvillain."

Upon discovering his videos, I sent Payne a message saying "I didn't mind not being the best journalist between the two of us, but I thought, at least I have the most embarrassing rap video. I was completely wrong."

I really liked one of his songs, though, a simple but effective pop anthem called "My Life is Amazing." After listening to it only once, it easily resonated with me. I even showed it to the ladies I worked with at The Ocilla Star, which made twice that I listened to the catchy little tune, and I already had the chorus memorized.

"Every day's a movie, I'm rolling up a doobie, there's different girls in my bed, man, my life is amazing."

But the very next day after playing the song at work, I went to the doctor because the acid reflux medicine I was on had not restored the voice I lost more than a month earlier. After hearing a speech about staying positive had the entirely opposite effect, I was utterly convinced I probably had throat cancer.

That night as I laid in bed, I think I was running a fever. I certainly had night sweats, and when I run a fever I have the most monotonous fever dreams. Sometimes I will dream of standing in place for hours, doing nothing. But that night all I did was hear that damnable song I had only heard twice playing on repeat in my head.

And there's nothing more maddening than to have a song stuck in your heard about how amazing someone else's life is when you're scared to death you're dying. By the time I reached a restless morning, I hated "My Life is Amazing."

A few days later, this past Saturday, I woke up coughing blood so I went to the emergency room. A mass was discovered on my lung, but my throat was clear of cancer concerns. This set off a series of visits to medical professionals, which, on the bright side, has allowed me to spend a lot of quality time with my mom.

My mom claims she does not like music. She uses this as an excuse when she sits in obvious discomfort as I try to share my songs with her. It's true that she never listens to the radio or albums, although I think her reactions may be based more on the quality of my singing. It's why I wrote a blues song with the chorus, "I've got a face only Mama could love, but even she don't love my voice."

I've kidded her that with me losing my voice, at least she might not ever have to hear me sing again. She now says she would love to hear me sing again. I'm not so sure.

So Tuesday I went to a very nice pulmonologist, Dr. Rubal Patel, about setting up a biopsy on the mass they found in my lung in the ER Saturday. After the appointment, my mom and I went out to eat.

A song came on at the restaurant with familiar lyrics.

"Settle doooowwwn, it'll all be clear, don't pay no mind to the demons, they fill you with fear. the trouble it might drag you down, if you get lost, you can always be found, just know you're not alone, cause I'm going to make this place your home."

Mama said, "What is this guy's name? I love him."

"I thought you didn't like music?" I accused.

I was convinced the song was made by the Swedish DJ Avicii, whom I incorrectly called Avinicii. Mama said that wasn't right, and the couple at the table next to us proudly declared that the singer was Phillip Phillips of Leesburg, Georgia.

Even though she had forgotten his name, my mom became a big fan of Mr. Phillips when he won American Idol. She even said that buying his album for her would be a nice gift. I became convinced that if Phillip Phillips was her son, she wouldn't sit in discomfort as she listened to his songs.

So I decided then and there that I wasn't a fan of Phillip Phillips.

So the next day, yesterday, Dr. Patel performed a bronchoscope on me to try to figure out what is going on with my health. She discovered I have thrush on my vocal chords, so my lost voice and the mass in my lungs might not even be related. And since thrush is a yeast infection, I can't wait to hear my friends joke about how I should gargle Monistat 7.

I don't remember a whole lot from the procedure, but I remember coughing a lot. Whenever my nose gets stopped up, I tend to cough uncontrollably, and having a camera stuck up your nose is definitely one way to stop it up. I think all my coughing made it difficult to scrape material from the mass for a biopsy, so I may have to be put completely under for another bronchoscope. We'll see.

I was left with an unexplained blotchy rash on my face, I'm guessing from a reaction to the anesthesia, which explains why the waiter at lunch yesterday looked at me like I had a blotchy rash on my face. I coughed up far more blood than I did on Saturday.

And last night, I ran fevers off and on throughout the night, and at one point, as I lay in bed, those familiar lyrics popped into my head:

"Every day's a movie, I'm rolling up a doobie..."

"NOOOOO!" I thought to myself in horror, and I forced myself to internally recite another song instead.

"Settle doooowwwn, it'll all be clear..."

Anyway, thank you all for the love and support, and lively debates, I've received over the past several days. I'll keep you updated, but it may be a week before I know anything new.

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The Beach!

The Beach!

  4:38 AM    Unknown

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A Salty Review of

The Beach!

There are a lot of things I don’t understand the fascination with.

Fidget spinners. Horse racing. NASCAR racing. Drag racing. Watching golf. Nose rings. Lip rings. Indoor pets. Designer sunglasses. Jam bands. Wallet chains. Having children.

But there’s one particular fascination that particularly bewilders me. And no, I’m not talking about cell phones or even decorative cell phone accessories, which are dubiously troublesome in their own right.

No. I’m talking about the beach. Why do people love the beach?

Y’all realize that sand is just fancy dirt, right?

People who will spend hours each week cleaning every speck of dust from their homes, who would never dare to sit around their house in their underwear, will go to the beach wearing next to nothing and park their bottoms on smelly, hot grime. You know that just because something is splashed with water, it doesn’t make it clean, right?

And the water! If my bathtub water looked as disgusting as ocean water, I’d find some Liquid Plumber or an exorcist quick. Ocean water is a piquant broth of dead fish, pirate’s tears and whale pee.

And do you know how dangerous the beach is? Ignoring that the worst disaster in recorded human history, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, harmed exactly zero people who had the good sense to avoid nasty beaches, oceans are filled with the most dangerous creatures on earth, even if they aren’t technically “on” it.

The most venomous snakes and largest crocodiles all inhabit the ocean. All of the man-eating sharks, all of the jellyfish, all of the Portuguese men of war are waiting to greet you with something less refreshing than a wave gently lapping at your toes.

Then there are the not as deadly but somewhat annoying creatures like crabs, cawing seagulls, arrogant pelicans, gnawing sand fleas and sand gnats, and nibbling fish. Do you know how many friendly beasts are waiting to see you in the ocean like a happy puppy greeting its master? None!
(Except maybe dolphins, but they’re supposed to be smarter than us, and who needs to be reminded of how dumb we really are? We have politics for that.)

So you know what happens to you after sitting for a few hours on filthy sand, battling maddening critters, while occasionally risking a water-logged death in water I wouldn’t use to boil a bone for my worst enemy’s least favorite dog? You get sun-burned.

Have you ever been so sun-burned you actually blister? Your body festers with actual bubbles. Sorry, the only time I want something to be pink and bubbly is when I’m chewing Bubblicious or listening to Katy Perry.

Actually, listening to Katy Perry is worse than the beach, so never mind.

But the beach is fairly disgusting, and while all you crazy people are taking your coolers of Corona to Panama City or Mexico Beach or Daytona, I’m going to be sitting in the filth and grime of my own living room getting eaten by zero sharks and getting nibbled by regular South Georgia gnats looking at pictures of all of y’all enjoying the beach on Facebook.

And as I see y’all basking in tepid pools, toasting your margaritas, and putting your “Salt Life” stickers on the back of your 1999 Ford Focus, I’m going to wonder why it is I feel bored enough to write curmudgeonly stories like this one.

Cats can

I saw another something disturbing on Facebook. A cat had cancer. I think that’s sad about the cat, but what I found disturbing is this:

We live in a country where many human beings cannot afford medical care, but some cats can.
(Ironically, the cat’s owner afforded a CAT scan for the feline.)

I’ve come to love cats because they have the funniest videos on Facebook. Seriously. Nothing makes me laugh like cat videos, and I don’t even like cats all that much in person.

Sure we live in a world where the penalties for animal cruelty are sometimes worse than those for child abuse, but I still think human rights are what’s most important, and I believe we have a right to quality health care.

We need to decide, as a people, that we care enough about each other to ensure the lowest among us at least gets the same treatment as the highest cat.

The Beach Revisited

I was talking to someone about my review of the beach, which appeared in this week's edition of The Ocilla Star. Another, more serious reason that I dislike the beach came to mind.

It reminds me of the impermanence of it all.

The ocean is ever moving, the tides ever changing, unlike the soft tranquility of the surface of a calm pond or lake. The beach itself is a flurry of frantic activity with beachcombers running about and swimming and fleeing the occasional shark. I prefer the mountains, resolute and unmovable in their titanic majesty.

The thing I enjoyed most about the beach when I was a child on summer vacation was making sand sculptures of dolphins or sharks or mermaids or even the somewhat unoriginal sand castles. I would create these, to me, sand masterpieces, and everyone seemed to like them.

But then either the tide would come in and wash them away or some dope playing football would trample through it or my family would simply go home and I'd never see my masterpiece again.

It reminds me of how fleeting the joys of life really are, how fleeting life is, and how the highs make the everyday seem low by comparison. Maybe that's why I aim for contentment more than joy because while joy is often reliant upon others or circumstances, contentment is always in steady supply, if you let it be. If you let it be.

'The Filthy Ocean'

I often name instrumental songs after whatever's on my mind at the time I compose it. I started this song the night I wrote the story above, so it was dubbed "The Filthy Ocean." And even though it has nothing at all to do with the ocean or the beach, enjoy, if you will, a video of horrifying sharks with hopefully slightly less horrifying music.

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