A Thousand New Questions

A Thousand New Questions

  4:50 AM    Unknown

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(NOTE: For those who have read this blog entry previously, the theory I presented about the burglary charge against Ryan Duke is apparently wrong. I had speculated that the burglary may have happened after Tara Grinstead's murder, but the warrants for Ryan Duke's arrest allege that Duke entered the home to commit murder and aggravated assault).

The busiest day of my professional career was followed by another busy day on only two hours of sleep, but this time, the feverish frenzy of Thursday, February 23, 2017 was replaced by a more subdued day in Ocilla. If not for the presence of a few television network vans and camera crews, Friday, February 24 could have been mistaken for any other day in Ocilla, at least on the surface.

But social media and private conversations belied the truth. Our community and much of America was still abuzz with news, rumor and speculation. Ocilla had changed because an answer to the town's biggest question had seeded a thousand new questions in its wake.

To recap, on the previous day, Ryan Alexander Duke was charged with murder and other crimes in relation to the October 2005 disappearance of beloved teacher and former beauty queen Tara Grinstead.

As someone who investigated and reported on Tara's disappearance since the first week, I was befuddled to learn that someone of whom I had never heard was charged with Tara's murder. I almost felt like the investigation was starting over from zero.

And truly after years of speculation and potential leads discussed in the public and in the media, almost none of the many topics and names associated with the case seemed to be connected at all.

Since it seems clear from the charges that Tara's murder at least allegedly happened at her home in Ocilla, certain clues have gained added weight, at least in the realm of hypothesis. Certainly, the latex glove found in her front yard has always seemed ominous and seemed no less so after Duke's arrest.

Could the killer or an accomplice have worn the glove, and have matches been found to the DNA and fingerprint found in the glove? Could the broken lamp in her bedroom have been broken during a struggle on October 23, 2005? Could the beads on the floor and the broken clasps found by Dr. Maurice Godwin be further signs of a struggle?

These are questions asked before, but they gained added heft after more became known about the alleged facts of Tara's death.

(Note: Please read this section with caution. I later learned the theory I presented was incorrect. See the second note below).

One particular aspect of the facts of her death that seems to be generating much discussion is the burglary charge against Duke. People hear the word "burglary" and they might imagine a person prying a window open, sneaking inside a home and filling a sack full of stolen jewels. As someone who sees dozens of police incident reports every week, I can assure you most burglaries are committed by someone with the intention of robbing a home of its valuables. People hear Duke was charged with burglary and many assume Tara was killed in a "burglary gone wrong," which begs the question does a burglary ever truly go right?

Regardless, although most burglaries are perpetrated for the purpose of stealing, this is not the only type of burglary, at least in Georgia law.

According to the law, "A person commits the offense of burglary in the first degree when, without authority and with the intent to commit a felony or theft therein, he or she enters or remains within an occupied, unoccupied, or vacant dwelling house of another or any building, vehicle, railroad car, watercraft, aircraft, or other such structure designed for use as the dwelling of another."

Often in police reports, someone will break-in to a home, but they won't be charged with burglary. They will be instead be charged with the lesser charge of criminal trespass. The difference is that someone who commits criminal trespass does not illegally enter a place "with the intent to commit a felony or theft therein."
Essentially, you commit burglary if you illegally enter a place with intent to commit a crime other than the crime of breaking and entering, but that intended crime does not have to be theft. It can be any felony.

Because the arrest warrant on the burglary charge does not specify what theft or felony Duke is alleged to have intended, we can only speculate, but it does not necessarily mean that he broke-in with the goal of robbing her. He might not have "broke in" at all.

He could have broke in to assault her. He could have broke in to murder her. He could have been invited inside but refused to leave because he wanted to assault or kill her.

With all the rumors flying around, I've never heard an even remotely believable motive for Tara's murder, which is a question unto itself. Without investigation details that might not come out until a trial or after a plea, we may not know anything about a motive, but logic provides us some room for exploration.
It's frankly hard to imagine that Tara's very tiny home was the target of a random burglary with the intent of robbing her of valuables. There are larger, nicer homes in the area.

If she was targeted for sexual assault, and that was the intended crime of the burglary charge, it would seem likely that Duke would have been charged with some kind of sexual offense. He wasn't.

If he broke in to murder her, such as if he was some sociopathic burgeoning serial killer, why did he seem so broken at his bond hearing? Duke may be many things, but at least during that one glimpse of the man, he did not appear to be remorseless.

None of my speculation is in any way conclusive, but an idea I had sounds at least plausible. We know the murder and the burglary are alleged to have happened on the same date, October 23, 2005, but what if they did not happen at the same time. What if the murder happened before the burglary?

If Tara originally allowed Duke inside of her home that night, he might have killed her while he was otherwise lawfully inside. Then, he may have left, possibly to get latex gloves or an accomplice or for any number of reasons, and then he could have come back to move her body. Duke was charged with concealing a death, which could be the felony he is alleged to have intended which led to the burglary charge. If Tara was already dead when he returned, she could not have granted lawful authority for him to enter the house.

Time will tell if that is what happened.

(NOTE: I later had time to read Duke's arrest warrants and the warrants clearly indicate the intended crimes that led to the burglary charge were murder and aggravated assault, so my theory was wrong. However, there are some questions raised by the charges in the arrest warrants as well, so expect more to be written about them soon.)

I spent most of the morning of February 24 trying to find out conclusively if a search was being conducted for Tara's remains somewhere in South Georgia. On Thursday, I heard rampant rumors about Wilcox County, two counties away from Irwin County, but Ben Hill County, the county between Irwin and Wilcox, was the place I heard more resonantly on Friday morning. Of course, the specific area I was told by multiple sources may have overlapped between Ben Hill and Wilcox counties.

It was all just rumors, really, but there were reasons to suspect some truth to the rumors. Ocilla and Irwin County, which we know are alleged to be the location of Tara's murder, are part of the Tifton Judicial Circuit. Thursday, the Cordele Judicial Circuit District Attorney not only spoke at the press conference, he also sat in with the local assistant district attorney during Duke's bond hearing.

The Cordele Judicial Circuit has nothing to do with Ocilla and Irwin County, but if a body was moved to one of the counties in that circuit, a crime would have been committed there, and thus, the district attorney of that circuit would become involved. The Cordele Judicial Circuit includes both Ben Hill and Wilcox counties.
Ben Hill County may be further indicated by the presence of Ben Hill County Sheriff Lee Cone and some of his deputies at the press conference Thursday. While this might be explained because the Ben Hill Sheriff's Office was involved in search efforts for Tara through the years or even as extra security manpower for the conference, the presence of both the sheriff and the DA suggests some deeper connection to the case.

I called the clerks of court offices in both Wilcox and Ben Hill counties, but I could not find a search warrant. I wondered if the Georgia Bureau of Investigation might have used a federal judge or some other out-of-district judge to obtain a search warrant to avoid letting the press find it. A law enforcement officer told me I probably was one of dozens of media folks who were trying to find a search warrant, but they said the LEOs know all our tricks.

I heard members of a film crew later saying that their producers had somehow been denied the search warrant, but even though I asked, I couldn't learn much details. But I got the impression a search warrant existed, but the network could not obtain a copy. The producers even warned the film crew's reporter that she might be charged with trespassing if she tried to film at the location.

That, along with the overwhelming rumors, surely sounds like there is a search somewhere, but I never was able to conclusively find proof.

One of my closest friends lives near the area about which I keep hearing, so I had considered spending Saturday driving backroads with him looking for police tape or GBI vehicles, but I'm not sure I will. I want to prove there is a search because I want Tara to be found, and I want people to know that the law enforcement officers have an idea where her remains must be. It's great news that an arrest was made, but until we know Tara herself has been found, this is still a missing person case in many ways.

I want Wednesday's Ocilla Star headline to read "Tara Grinstead Found," and I think that would be a truly cathartic revelation for my community. The arrest is, at best, half the mystery solved, but the questions remaining leave many mysteries looming large.

Still, even if I found out with 100 percent proof that there is a search, if I found the address with yellow tape stretched from tree to tree, I don't think I would reveal the location. I don't always agree with the secrecy of law enforcement, but I want to see this case solved and don't want to do anything to jeopardize it. If everyone knew the location, Looky Lous and curious thrill-seekers might sneak onto the property and conduct their own searches. If a large property is being searched, it may be logistically impossible for the GBI to control the perimeter through any measure except secrecy.

I spent most of the afternoon interviewing law enforcement officers, running out of paper in my notebook along the way, and also talking with people who might point me toward more of the puzzling past of Ryan Duke. I got some good quotes and interesting leads, but I didn't learn anything that moved the earth.

Late Friday afternoon, Ocilla and I seemed to be winding down after a strange but eventful week. I just wanted to relax, eat some pizza with friends and sleep a long, long time. But Payne Lindsey of the Up and Vanished podcast and his manager Donald, both of whom I like and have helped and shared information with me, asked for me to appear with Payne on ABC's Niteline. After a bad experience years ago on the Nancy Grace program, I really, really did not want to do it, so I refused, but after some gentle begging I caved and said I would let them interview me.

So for 2 to 3 hours, a crew set up equipment in The Ocilla Star office, and finally, I sat down for my 15 to 20 minute interview. Compared to my performance on Nancy Grace and even though I told the reporter "I apologize that I have a face for radio and a voice for books," I thought I did well. I even got a little choked up talking about some of the more emotional aspects of the case, which absolutely surprised me.

But when Niteline aired, they didn't use any of my interview. I was shown for less than 10 seconds, and they mispronounced my name. I hope I never do television again.

I like the print media, which given that I'm using a blog now, perhaps I should say written media. With written words, we present a more in-depth, definitive view of a story.

Not that I'm finding as much definitive information as I'd like about Tara's case.
Still, through my many discussions, I've been told a few things off the record, which I can't print or say, and which puts me in an odd situation in this case especially. Someone might tell me something off the record, which I appreciate because it points me in the right direction, lets me ask the right questions, and frankly, satisfies my personal curiosity. But it also puts me in a situation where I might be told something off the record that I either already strongly suspected or have confirmed through other sources, so then I'm worried about saying what I know by other means because my off-the-record source might think I'm betraying their trust.

And then, by the end of more than 36 hours of non-stop discussion and investigation about this case on only one meal and two hours of sleep, I was so tired and hungry I barely knew what I was saying anymore.

I'll tell you what I definitely haven't been told, and that is an answer to probably the two most burning questions in everyone's minds. I have not been told anyone else was charged in relation to Tara's death. And I have not been told a body was found.

So, for now, the mystery continues.