The Unsolvable Mystery

The Unsolvable Mystery

  3:49 AM    Unknown

---

Pictured is a recent photo of the home where Tara Grinstead lived in 2005.

The Unsolvable Mystery

We're never going to know what happened to Tara Grinstead.

If you're reading this, you're probably one of the thousands of people who are intensely interested in solving the mystery of what happened to her. We're not going to solve that mystery.

Oh, we might have a strong suspicion or a flawless theory of what happened in Ocilla on the week of October 23, 2005, but we'll never know for certain if our suspicions or our theories are true. Someone will always have a competing theory, and probably, our theory will be propped up on speculation and rumor.

There won't be a smoking gun. There won't be photos or videos that spell out exactly what happened. There won't be an eyewitness who saw it all.

Or at least, the only eyewitnesses will never be fully believed because we'll suspect they were somehow involved in her death and its cover-up. And maybe they were.

I'll give you an example of how difficult it is to actually know something in this case. In my last blog entry, I asked the public to help me learn the 2005 address of Ryan Duke and Bo Dukes, the two men accused of crimes in association with Tara's death. According to stories that have emanated from Bo and his girlfriend, Brooke Sheridan, Bo and Ryan were roommates at the time Tara went missing.

People were more than willing to help with my request, as I got more than half a dozen responses from people about the address. Unfortunately, I got four different locations: One in Wilcox County, one in Fitzgerald, and two in Ocilla.

I haven't had one "eyewitness" though. Not one person has said, "I went to their house several times, and it was..." wherever. So unless such a person comes forward, how can I know which is the real address?

Even if Ryan or Bo told me where they lived, I wouldn't necessarily believe them, which is a situation we've run into with the case overall. No eyewitnesses have come forward, and we don't seem to believe Ryan or Bo.

Maybe that's because we're taking their stories, or what we've pieced together of their stories, together, as one integrated whole, when they should be considered separately. Maybe we're taking two conflicting narratives and expecting them to make sense, when their conflicts make the stories wholly incompatible.

More on that in a bit, but for now I want to express why the address is important to me.

If they lived in Wilcox County, it would cast doubt on Bo's apparent assertion that Ryan left their house to go to Tara's home in Ocilla after everyone passed out at their house, and also it would cast doubt on stories I've heard about Ryan being too "messed up" to remember details about what happened to Tara. It's hard to imagine a 21-year-old driving close to 30 miles after partying with his friends, and it's also hard to imagine he would not have sobered up after driving 30 miles and after the harrowing, adrenaline-filled events that would have transpired at that house.

I doubt they lived in Wilcox County though.

If they lived in Ocilla, it would mean Tara's house was within walking distance of their home, although neither possible location was particularly close to Tara's home. If they lived in Fitzgerald, or anywhere outside of Ocilla, it raises questions about how Ryan or anyone else got to Tara's home, although Bo has apparently said that Ryan took Bo's white truck. If someone drove to Tara's house, they had to park somewhere, which opens up a new line of questions.

All of these things may factor in to the possibility that Tara's car was driven somewhere that night, as certain clues or potential clues seem to point toward her car being driven after she came home from a barbecue some time after 11 p.m. October 22. For instance, I can imagine a scenario in which someone who walked to Tara's house might panic after she died and might have taken her car to go get help. Since that person might also have fished through her purse for the keys, and his fingerprints could have been left on both, that might explain why both her keys and purse were stolen and missing.

It's hard to flesh out any theory of what happened to Tara without knowing where Ryan and Bo lived. But even if I learn where they lived even somewhat conclusively, my theories will just be theories. The only people who know what really happened are the killer or killers, and we don't seem to believe them, so we'll never really know.

And I doubt that will satisfy many people out there.

After three months of theorizing and speculating about the case since Ryan Duke's arrest, the online community that has arisen about this case is still flourishing, but instead of eliminating possibilities like an investigator might do, the community seems to take every opportunity to introduce new possibilities. If this was a game of Clue, and the answer was that Colonel Mustard was the killer, I somehow think many in the online community would decide Mayor Mayonnaise hired Judge Juniper to do the deed and framed Colonel Mustard for it.

A pragmatic, realist friend of mine has been wary of this wheel of speculation for a while. He said that people don't want the story to die. He's right. The Tara Grinstead mystery has become, for good or ill, an important aspect of the lives of many people. For some, it is the center of their social lives, and if there was nothing to talk about, no new facet of the case to mull over, they would have to face the scary task of finding something else to do with their time.

I'm guilty of it myself, at least to some degree. And even if I wasn't, I would certainly be guilty of being one of the main people fanning the flames of the fervor surrounding the case. I've introduced a lot of the fodder for these online discussions and offline speculations.

Although I've tried, and sometimes failed, to present information in a rational, responsible way, there's an old saying about the road to Hell and good intentions. This was never more true than with the guy the community has taken to calling "Buddy" and the list of names that apparently came from his suicide note.

In my last blog entry, I wrote about how someone released the list to a private discussion group but that it was immediately leaked to people on the list. I wrote about how I wished the list had not been released publicly, even in a "private" group. I cautioned people that we didn't know the context of the list, and I expressed my concern about dozens of amateur investigators tearing apart the lives of people who were probably not involved in any way with Tara's death.

But I also wrote extensively about Buddy, and while I presented reasons to disbelieve his story, I inadvertantly poured fuel on the fire. I knew I failed to make my points clearly enough when someone commented on Facebook asking me for a link to the list.

I saw people saying the people on the list should just come forward. They said that the fact that they don't come forward is suspicious. It's not. Just because you think coming forward might be the best thing to do, even if it's what you would do, it's perfectly reasonable to be afraid of what the public response would be to speaking publicly about your inclusion on the list.

I think many or most people on the list are confused about their inclusion. They don't understand it, so how can they explain it? How can they defend it?

If someone on the list went on Up and Vanished, denied having anything to do with Tara's disappearance, but gave the very unsatisfactory answer of "I don't know" to question after question about the list, do you think the public would believe them? If you do, you haven't been paying attention.

Most people I've interviewed about the case want me to hide their identity because they know instinctively that going on the record can be a gamble. It's easy to sit back as an uninvolved person wanting answers and expect people to answer the questions you have, but it's another thing entirely when you know that coming forward can have deep repercussions on your life.

Consider Marcus Harper for just a moment. He attempted to explain his innocence on national television, yet he was still hounded by allegations for more than 11 years, enduring everything from public accusations to YouTube videos analyzing what his speech sounded like when played backwards. Coming forward did little to clear his name even though he was innocent.

Meanwhile, I've seen where people who were clearly not involved in Tara's disappearance were interviewed and have been vilified just because one person or another thought they were "sketch af" in their interview. I actually had to defend a friend who I don't think even lived here when Tara went missing because someone thought his wife's Facebook friends were suspicious. Not his Facebook friends. His wife's.

It doesn't take much for someone to seem suspicious to some people these days. Do you really think someone on the list talking publicly would clear his name when there are people who seriously believe that Bo Dukes' past talk about his love of Jim Beam whiskey is a coded reference to someone with the initials JB? That's an actual theory that has been circulating in online circles this week.

This isn't Mission Impossible. This probably isn't some vast conspiracy. It's a small town murder, and even though it is a complicated one, it's probably not as complicated as the rampant speculation and endless rabbit holes are making it seem to be.

After my last blog post, suddenly many people were more convinced than ever that Buddy knew something about what happened to Tara. I saw, and was dismayed, that some people were convinced that every person on the list knew something about what happened to Tara. We don't know that the author of the list knew anything, much less the people on his list! In fact, if I was pressed, I'd guess Buddy probably didn't know anything, but there's no way to be sure.

Even if Buddy did know something, which is possible, I sincerely doubt all or even most of the people on the list knew anything. Many of the people were close friends of Buddy, and most of them were not known to be close friends with Ryan Duke or Bo Dukes. In fact, members of Buddy's circle of friends and members of Bo's circle of friends were involved in a bloody fight against each other in Mystic in 2004, so it seems more likely that they were enemies than friends. I've heard that some people from those groups refuse to speak to each other even today.

I should note that I've never heard that Buddy, Bo, or Ryan were involved in that fight. I only bring it up to point out that it seems highly unlikely that Buddy's friends on the list were involved in some conspiracy with Bo or his friends.

Last week, someone publicly released the list of 16 names for everyone to see on the Up and Vanished discussion board. Dr. Maurice Godwin, who I was told was the original source of the list, also said that the complete list contains 18 names, and he hinted at the name of one of the undisclosed names on the discussion board. I've also heard that some people who thought they were on the list were not on the list, while some who were on the list were never interviewed by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which I had thought had investigated the people on the list.

All of this just makes me less convinced the list is meaningful.

But people are convinced that people on the list knew something... based on what? Gut instincts? Let your guts try to solve an algebra problem for you, and you'll see why Sherlock Holmes used his deductive skills instead of instinctive hunches.

Just because we don't understand something does not make it suspicious. It just makes it unknown.

We need good reason to be suspicious. We need stories with origins. We need reliable information. We need facts, and in the absence of facts, we need theories that make the puzzle fit together without the need to create a bunch of fantastical new pieces.

If someone out there had the complete story, if they knew every detail about what happened to Tara and knew everyone that was involved and what role they played, they could tell their story on the Up and Vanished discussion board or a similar online forum, and people would be fascinated with it. For a few days. Then they would add in their own theories and speculation, or they would find reasons to argue about it, or they would move on to other theories entirely.

I've already established that we're never really going to know what happened, so the idea that all the speculation is going to solve the case is, unfortunately, a fantasy. I'm not saying that it's completely without merit. The online community and its speculations have helped me personally narrow down my theories greatly, but one day I hope to arrive at a conclusion about this case, while the community as a whole probably never will. Individuals will, but probably not the whole community. There will always be a new or forgotten aspect to explore, a new rabbit hole to run down.

So, we as individuals, me included, need to use some foresight and compassion knowing that we're only really pursuing our own conclusions about the case, not truly solving it. We need to understand that our actions aren't necessary and that they have repercussions.

I've heard it said on several occasions that Tara was the only real victim in this case, but, with all due respect to her, that's simply not true. Family and friends continue to shed tears for her loss. For more than a decade, innocent men like Marcus Harper lived under a specter of suspicion. Now, these people on that list are suffering a taste of that same bitter suspicion, and most or all of them are probably just as innocent.

Although I was disappointed by the effect of my last blog post, at least some good came of it. An old friend of mine who follows the case heavily was gung ho about investigating people on the list, but he told me that after reading my blog, he decided not to pursue his sleuthing. To know that I had that kind of positive effect on someone meant as much or more than all the kind compliments my writing has received these past several months.

I realize that I've become an important voice in this case, and I hope I can do more good than bad with that voice, so hopefully more people will read and will leave the people on that list alone and come to treat the case with a softer touch and a bit more rationality.

To that end, I've going to do something that my pragmatic friend would appreciate: Present a simple solution.

You see, at this point, regarding what actually happened to Tara and the motive, I've narrowed down my theories to two. Basically.

There's a lot of wiggle room in both theories, and they don't really even touch on things like Buddy or the fire on Snapdragon Road or whether a pond or fire at a party were involved.

One of the theories has a lot of missing pieces, so I'm not ready to write about it. In fact, I may never be willing to write about it, even if I can't eliminate it as a possibility. Honestly, I may never get past these two theories, but then both of them could be wrong, and I might have a new theory next week if I learn something new.

What I will say is that the theory I won't write about depends on the idea that Bo Dukes is not telling the truth because the theory I am writing about is the possibility that Bo may be telling the truth or something close to it.

Judging from all I've read, I don't think people have given that idea much credence or considered it very deeply. I think people want Bo to be guilty of more than the GBI alleges. There's a general impression within the community that Bo is a bad guy that cannot be trusted.

He is a convicted felon who stole from the U.S. Army while he was serving, so he's no prince, and he seems to have admitted to burning a woman's body, which is a truly reprehensible act. But that doesn't mean he's lying. Some would say the Devil himself would tell the truth if it suited his purposes, and Bo, for all his faults, is not the Devil.

And there are compelling reasons to at least consider that he might be telling the truth. First, the GBI seems to believe him, at least to some extent. Second, it's possible that the GBI gave him a polygraph test, which, if they did, I doubt he failed it if the GBI was willing to give him a deal and base its case on his testimony.

The GBI must have interviewed everyone who was told by Bo through the years and many people close to both Bo and Ryan. They must have checked phone records and other evidence that might have corroborated his claims or disproved them. Yet the GBI continues to believe him, as I've said, at least to some extent.

Further, Bo's text messages to his friend, Dustin, that were revealed through Up and Vanished are consistent with the story his girlfriend is telling. Assuming that Bo and Dustin didn't set it up for their text messages to be revealed, Bo would not have likely expected his friend to betray him, but the story remained consistent. Although some collusion between Bo and Dustin is possible, and I've heard Bo is very smart and even manipulative, I doubt Bo is the type of Machiavellian criminal mastermind to plot such an elaborate, and not particularly necessary, scheme of text message deception.

And if Bo is making up his story, why include specific details such as that Bo did not see Tara's body until days after she disappeared. Brooke Sheridan, Bo's girlfriend, said on Up and Vanished that Ryan told Bo and their other roommate that he killed Tara, which regardless of whether the roommate confirmed or denied that claim to the GBI, why would you include such a falsifiable detail if the story was made up? It would be easier and more sensible to not mention the roommate being told if it wasn't true instead of introducing a point that could be denied by the roommate and could jeopardize the GBI's trust in Bo.

As I said in the beginning, I think we mesh Bo's story with what Ryan supposedly has said, and it doesn't make sense to us, but Bo's story could make sense on its own. Unfortunately, based on the arrest warrants and the indictments, the GBI seems to be meshing those stories together, too, so that leaves us all doubtful. Something feels wrong.

For instance, the indictments allege that Ryan broke-in to Tara's home to commit theft, but that doesn't make sense to us. Why would someone target Tara's small home when there were other more affluent homes in the immediate area? But Bo seems to have said that he doesn't know what Ryan's motive was. That too sounds doubtful, but it is, to me, less unlikely than the GBI's allegations about Ryan's motive.

Then we've heard stories that Ryan claimed to hit Tara, while Bo seems to have said strangulation was the manner of death. The prosecution, perhaps playing it safe, alleges that Ryan used "a hand," which would pretty much be true no matter what happened. Although it is possible that someone could die from a punch, I personally find strangulation to be more plausible.

To me, the glaring problems we've heard about the GBI's allegations must stem from Ryan, not Bo. In fact, in some ways, what we've heard from Bo is more believable than the GBI's allegations, but the GBI needs its allegations to fit whatever admissions Ryan may have made so they can use them against him in court.

Now look, I'm not defending Bo in any way. As I've said, I think it's possible that his story is full of lies or half-truths, as the other theory that I'm still considering is nothing like what he has said. I think it's highly possible that there's a kernel of truth to Bo's story but also important details left unsaid or large swaths of events entirely omitted. But to my hopefully rational mind there is no reason right now to eliminate Bo's story as a possibility, and like it or not, there are reasons to believe it could be true.

I hope that people out there will give some consideration to a simple solution, even if we find the source of that solution to be personally distasteful. Like you, there's a part of me that wants Bo's story to fall apart because I'm afraid he will walk away from this horrible crime without jail time, but just because we want him to be a liar doesn't mean he is lying.

I heard a story recently where someone had talked to a member of the GBI before the gag order was in place. This someone said that when all is revealed everything is going to be remarkably simple. Well, it's hard to imagine that what actually happened in this case was in any way simple, but it has to be simpler than some of the things people are imagining.

Unfortunately, we'll never really know.

Bo Dukes and Ryan Duke are innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.