Missing Woman: Tara Grinstead - GA - 10/22/2005
Started by
Kathylene
, May 14 2007 02:24 PM
105 replies to this topic
#51
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:41 PM
http://www.macon.com...on/14237737.htm
Posted on Sat, Apr. 01, 2006
Another Grinstead search planned
FITZGERALD - A team of cadaver dogs will conduct another search in Middle Georgia for popular teacher and beauty queen Tara Grinstead, who has been missing for five months.
Angela Batten, a K-9 handler for Dogsouth in Jesup, said she expected to bring about eight cadaver dogs to the area this weekend.
Ben Hill County Sheriff Bobby McLemore said the dogs would check an area about 10 miles west of Fitzgerald.
Batten said the dogs "alerted" at two of the ponds that were checked last weekend.
Since divers were unable to locate a body, water samples from the ponds will be analyzed to determine if chemicals, such as ammonia, may have misled the dogs, Batten said.
"I truly believe the dogs were hitting on decaying vegetation," the sheriff said. "I think that's all it was."
Grinstead, a high school history teacher in neighboring Irwin County, was last seen last Oct. 22.
Her highly publicized disappearance attracted search teams from as far away as Texas and for a while they conducted almost weekly searches in Irwin and Ben Hill counties.
Now searches are conducted only when authorities, or Grinstead's family, receive specific tips.
The sheriff said the latest search was organized by Grinstead's family.
Posted on Sat, Apr. 01, 2006
Another Grinstead search planned
FITZGERALD - A team of cadaver dogs will conduct another search in Middle Georgia for popular teacher and beauty queen Tara Grinstead, who has been missing for five months.
Angela Batten, a K-9 handler for Dogsouth in Jesup, said she expected to bring about eight cadaver dogs to the area this weekend.
Ben Hill County Sheriff Bobby McLemore said the dogs would check an area about 10 miles west of Fitzgerald.
Batten said the dogs "alerted" at two of the ponds that were checked last weekend.
Since divers were unable to locate a body, water samples from the ponds will be analyzed to determine if chemicals, such as ammonia, may have misled the dogs, Batten said.
"I truly believe the dogs were hitting on decaying vegetation," the sheriff said. "I think that's all it was."
Grinstead, a high school history teacher in neighboring Irwin County, was last seen last Oct. 22.
Her highly publicized disappearance attracted search teams from as far away as Texas and for a while they conducted almost weekly searches in Irwin and Ben Hill counties.
Now searches are conducted only when authorities, or Grinstead's family, receive specific tips.
The sheriff said the latest search was organized by Grinstead's family.
#52
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:41 PM
Grinstead Supporters Plan New Search for Missing School Teacher
April 11, 2006 by Seamus McGraw
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) - Supporters of missing schoolteacher and beauty queen Tara Grinstead say they have some promising leads and plan to rally their volunteers for yet another search later this week.
As they have on several recent occasions, supporters are keeping the precise location of the search a secret, fearing, they say, that any advance publicity might compromise their efforts. But according to Larry Gattis, the missing woman's brother in law, the new search, scheduled for Thursday, Friday and possibly Saturday, will focus on an area that has already been combed by volunteers. The location, which will be disclosed to volunteers on Thursday when they convene at what has become the command center for the Find Tara effort, was picked because during one of the earlier searches six out of eight trained cadaver dogs responded to something in the immediate area.
That, Gattis said, convinced Grinstead's supporters that the area warranted a closer look.
So far, of course, neither searchers nor police have found any tangible evidence to indicate what happened to Grinstead. The missing woman's family and supporters have long suspected that the now 31-year-old teacher, who vanished on Oct. 22, may have been abducted. In recent weeks they have said they become increasingly convinced that she was killed, in all likelihood, they maintain, by someone who knew her.
Investigators, including members of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the local police and sheriff's department, have been far less definitive in their statements about the case. Officially, it remains a missing person's case, and authorities say they don't have any evidence that indicates conclusively whether she was a victim of a violent crime or a young woman, under immense pressure from her studies and emotionally overwrought by her troubled love life, who simply ran away.
Old leads never die, they just return as rumors
In the months since her disappearance, they have interviewed several people, including her former boyfriend, and have run down countless leads. While authorities have received dozens of tips suggesting that she may have been a victim of foul play, they have also explored others that might have indicated that Grinstead engineered her own disappearance, or may even have taken her own life. Several have been discounted, though many of the leads and rumors continue to be recycled on various Internet sites. Early on, in the investigation for example, authorities learned that Grinstead, who was known for her punctuality and her unflagging willingness to keep her commitments, had been scheduled to judge a local beauty pageant in mid November. But shortly before her disappearance, authorities learned, she had asked to be relieved of that responsibility. As it turned out, sources said, that lead came to naught. The pageant had been scheduled for the weekend of Grinstead's 31st birthday, a source said, and Grinstead had apparently made other plans.
Authorities are continuing their probe.
But the lingering mystery over the young woman's whereabouts has fueled intense local and national interest. In just the past few days, several national television news programs, including NBC's "Dateline," have compiled reports on the probe.
And in recent weeks, family members have also drawn support from criminology professor Maurice Godwin, a professor who specializes in geographic profiling, and have turned to psychics, including Court TV's psychic profiler Carla Baron.
Based in part on information provided by them, and on tips from the public, teams of searchers last week scoured some ponds and swamps in the region, Gattis said.
Divers probed two sections of a murky 32-foot deep pond that matched a description given to them by Baron, and cadaver dogs were also deployed. "That pond does fit some of the characteristics that Carla had talked to us about," Gattis said. "She said we wouldn't find Tara there, but we may find some clues." While data from that search is still being analyzed and has yet to yield any solid clues, Gattis said there was cause for further investigation. "We had dog alerts on one pond, and we're still in the process of trying to find out what the dogs hit on," Gattis said. "We're sending some water samples off to see if there's any chemicals that might have made the dogs hit."
http://www.crimelibrary.com
April 11, 2006 by Seamus McGraw
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) - Supporters of missing schoolteacher and beauty queen Tara Grinstead say they have some promising leads and plan to rally their volunteers for yet another search later this week.
As they have on several recent occasions, supporters are keeping the precise location of the search a secret, fearing, they say, that any advance publicity might compromise their efforts. But according to Larry Gattis, the missing woman's brother in law, the new search, scheduled for Thursday, Friday and possibly Saturday, will focus on an area that has already been combed by volunteers. The location, which will be disclosed to volunteers on Thursday when they convene at what has become the command center for the Find Tara effort, was picked because during one of the earlier searches six out of eight trained cadaver dogs responded to something in the immediate area.
That, Gattis said, convinced Grinstead's supporters that the area warranted a closer look.
So far, of course, neither searchers nor police have found any tangible evidence to indicate what happened to Grinstead. The missing woman's family and supporters have long suspected that the now 31-year-old teacher, who vanished on Oct. 22, may have been abducted. In recent weeks they have said they become increasingly convinced that she was killed, in all likelihood, they maintain, by someone who knew her.
Investigators, including members of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the local police and sheriff's department, have been far less definitive in their statements about the case. Officially, it remains a missing person's case, and authorities say they don't have any evidence that indicates conclusively whether she was a victim of a violent crime or a young woman, under immense pressure from her studies and emotionally overwrought by her troubled love life, who simply ran away.
Old leads never die, they just return as rumors
In the months since her disappearance, they have interviewed several people, including her former boyfriend, and have run down countless leads. While authorities have received dozens of tips suggesting that she may have been a victim of foul play, they have also explored others that might have indicated that Grinstead engineered her own disappearance, or may even have taken her own life. Several have been discounted, though many of the leads and rumors continue to be recycled on various Internet sites. Early on, in the investigation for example, authorities learned that Grinstead, who was known for her punctuality and her unflagging willingness to keep her commitments, had been scheduled to judge a local beauty pageant in mid November. But shortly before her disappearance, authorities learned, she had asked to be relieved of that responsibility. As it turned out, sources said, that lead came to naught. The pageant had been scheduled for the weekend of Grinstead's 31st birthday, a source said, and Grinstead had apparently made other plans.
Authorities are continuing their probe.
But the lingering mystery over the young woman's whereabouts has fueled intense local and national interest. In just the past few days, several national television news programs, including NBC's "Dateline," have compiled reports on the probe.
And in recent weeks, family members have also drawn support from criminology professor Maurice Godwin, a professor who specializes in geographic profiling, and have turned to psychics, including Court TV's psychic profiler Carla Baron.
Based in part on information provided by them, and on tips from the public, teams of searchers last week scoured some ponds and swamps in the region, Gattis said.
Divers probed two sections of a murky 32-foot deep pond that matched a description given to them by Baron, and cadaver dogs were also deployed. "That pond does fit some of the characteristics that Carla had talked to us about," Gattis said. "She said we wouldn't find Tara there, but we may find some clues." While data from that search is still being analyzed and has yet to yield any solid clues, Gattis said there was cause for further investigation. "We had dog alerts on one pond, and we're still in the process of trying to find out what the dogs hit on," Gattis said. "We're sending some water samples off to see if there's any chemicals that might have made the dogs hit."
http://www.crimelibrary.com
#53
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:41 PM
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12317826/
April 28, 2006 | 3:01 p.m. ET
How could a teacher go missing in a small Georgia town? (Jason Samuels, Dateline producer)
Fly to Atlanta. Fly on to Valdosta. Then drive a couple of hours more and you will hit Ocilla, Georgia -- population 3,500. If it is after 8 p.m. and you want something to eat, go past the town's only two stop lights, walk inside the corner gas station and there is a Subway sandwich counter inside. If you are from Ocilla chances are you will know just about everyone coming in to eat, gas up, or working inside. Which is why most everybody we met is shaken up by the sudden and mysterious disappearance of Tara Grinstead, a local, and much beloved, history teacher and beauty pageant queen. There is not much that investigators have been able to put together about her whereabouts, at least not much that they're saying publicly, but her disappearance has sent shock waves through this community and divided it in a surprising way.
Retracing Tara's last known moments and the history of her life make up the meat of our Dateline NBC report but being on the ground, walking and talking to the residents of Ocilla makes this case so puzzling. As one woman we interviewed told us "in Ocilla people know where you are at all times." So then how is it possible that in this town of a little more then 3,000 people a young woman could have just literally vanished without a trace? Canvassing the area around Tara's house makes it clear that if someone abducted Tara against her will, the neighborhood would have seen or heard something. At night the blocks around Tara's house are so quiet, it seemed as if even the crickets whispered.
Although authorities have not named any suspects, many folks in town told us off-camera in their minds there is only one suspect and each whispered the same name. But there is another camp, just as fervent, of people who disagreed and were angered even by the suggestion that one of "Ocilla's own" could be responsible. It seems this once tight-knit community is now a town sharply divided, with folks taking sides.
Being in Ocilla one also can't help but notice that while working hard the Ocilla Police Department and the Irwin County Sheriff's Office are not blessed with a great deal of manpower or experience. The Georgia Bureau of Investigations has stepped in to "assist" the search for Tara but the Ocilla police department has one detective on staff, and by his own admission the disappearance of Tara Grinstead is the first missing case he has investigated.
Also complicating efforts to find Tara is the fact that the area law enforcement is searching, some 350 square miles, is largely composed of swampland, unkempt woods, lakes, and wells. As the man in charge of searching for Tara, Sheriff Deputy Allen Morgan told us, searching for Tara is like "searching for a needle in a haystack."
Edie Magnus' report on the missing teacher airs Sunday, April 30, 7 p.m. on Dateline.
April 28, 2006 | 3:01 p.m. ET
How could a teacher go missing in a small Georgia town? (Jason Samuels, Dateline producer)
Fly to Atlanta. Fly on to Valdosta. Then drive a couple of hours more and you will hit Ocilla, Georgia -- population 3,500. If it is after 8 p.m. and you want something to eat, go past the town's only two stop lights, walk inside the corner gas station and there is a Subway sandwich counter inside. If you are from Ocilla chances are you will know just about everyone coming in to eat, gas up, or working inside. Which is why most everybody we met is shaken up by the sudden and mysterious disappearance of Tara Grinstead, a local, and much beloved, history teacher and beauty pageant queen. There is not much that investigators have been able to put together about her whereabouts, at least not much that they're saying publicly, but her disappearance has sent shock waves through this community and divided it in a surprising way.
Retracing Tara's last known moments and the history of her life make up the meat of our Dateline NBC report but being on the ground, walking and talking to the residents of Ocilla makes this case so puzzling. As one woman we interviewed told us "in Ocilla people know where you are at all times." So then how is it possible that in this town of a little more then 3,000 people a young woman could have just literally vanished without a trace? Canvassing the area around Tara's house makes it clear that if someone abducted Tara against her will, the neighborhood would have seen or heard something. At night the blocks around Tara's house are so quiet, it seemed as if even the crickets whispered.
Although authorities have not named any suspects, many folks in town told us off-camera in their minds there is only one suspect and each whispered the same name. But there is another camp, just as fervent, of people who disagreed and were angered even by the suggestion that one of "Ocilla's own" could be responsible. It seems this once tight-knit community is now a town sharply divided, with folks taking sides.
Being in Ocilla one also can't help but notice that while working hard the Ocilla Police Department and the Irwin County Sheriff's Office are not blessed with a great deal of manpower or experience. The Georgia Bureau of Investigations has stepped in to "assist" the search for Tara but the Ocilla police department has one detective on staff, and by his own admission the disappearance of Tara Grinstead is the first missing case he has investigated.
Also complicating efforts to find Tara is the fact that the area law enforcement is searching, some 350 square miles, is largely composed of swampland, unkempt woods, lakes, and wells. As the man in charge of searching for Tara, Sheriff Deputy Allen Morgan told us, searching for Tara is like "searching for a needle in a haystack."
Edie Magnus' report on the missing teacher airs Sunday, April 30, 7 p.m. on Dateline.
#54
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:41 PM
http://www.crimelibr....stead_dna.html
Could DNA Hold A Clue To Tara Grinstead's Fate?
May 16, 2006 by Seamus McGraw
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) - It is, perhaps, a tantalizing clue an orphan speck of DNA recovered during the search for missing schoolteacher and beauty queen Tara Grinstead.
But despite a massive effort by state and local law enforcement officials, authorities still don't know whom it came from, says criminologist Dr. Maurice Godwin, or whether it might hold the key to solving the mystery of Grinstead's disappearance.
Officially, authorities will not even confirm the existence of the DNA evidence, or any of the other leads Godwin has claimed to uncovered in the months since he launched his own probe into the schoolteacher's disappearance. "The issues are not something we're going to comment on," said John Bankhead, a spokesman for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The case, officials say, remains a missing persons investigation, and authorities have uncovered no evidence to suggest that the young teacher was the victim of foul play. In the past, authorities have been circumspect in their comments on Godwin's assertions about the case.
But Godwin, who says he has been working "fourteen or 15 hours a day on the case" at the behest of Tara's family, contends that GBI officials not only have the DNA evidence but have taken it seriously enough that they have collected DNA samples from a number of men in Tara's life. "They're swabbing people right and left," Godwin said. "You don't swab people without having something to compare it to."
With no matches, cops are still in the dark
So far, Godwin says, the GBI has not come up with a match, not from Tara's former boyfriend, not from a police captain in a nearby community with whom she enjoyed a close friendship, not from any of the other men in her life, though, he says there is at least one man, also a friend of Tara's with links to law enforcement who has not yet been swabbed.
Precisely where the evidence was recovered also remains a closely guarded secret. "I know," Godwin told Crime Library. "I can't tell you."
In the meantime, Godwin says, he has turned over to investigators information he obtained last month regarding two witnesses who claim to have spotted a black Chevy pickup near Tara's house on the night nearly eight months ago when she disappeared after attending the local Sweet Potato festival and beauty pageant. One of those witnesses, he says, claimed to have exchanged words with the driver of the pickup. Again, GBI officials declined to comment on Godwin's assertion, other than to say that the probe remains open and investigators are aggressively tracking every lead.
Could DNA Hold A Clue To Tara Grinstead's Fate?
May 16, 2006 by Seamus McGraw
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) - It is, perhaps, a tantalizing clue an orphan speck of DNA recovered during the search for missing schoolteacher and beauty queen Tara Grinstead.
But despite a massive effort by state and local law enforcement officials, authorities still don't know whom it came from, says criminologist Dr. Maurice Godwin, or whether it might hold the key to solving the mystery of Grinstead's disappearance.
Officially, authorities will not even confirm the existence of the DNA evidence, or any of the other leads Godwin has claimed to uncovered in the months since he launched his own probe into the schoolteacher's disappearance. "The issues are not something we're going to comment on," said John Bankhead, a spokesman for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The case, officials say, remains a missing persons investigation, and authorities have uncovered no evidence to suggest that the young teacher was the victim of foul play. In the past, authorities have been circumspect in their comments on Godwin's assertions about the case.
But Godwin, who says he has been working "fourteen or 15 hours a day on the case" at the behest of Tara's family, contends that GBI officials not only have the DNA evidence but have taken it seriously enough that they have collected DNA samples from a number of men in Tara's life. "They're swabbing people right and left," Godwin said. "You don't swab people without having something to compare it to."
With no matches, cops are still in the dark
So far, Godwin says, the GBI has not come up with a match, not from Tara's former boyfriend, not from a police captain in a nearby community with whom she enjoyed a close friendship, not from any of the other men in her life, though, he says there is at least one man, also a friend of Tara's with links to law enforcement who has not yet been swabbed.
Precisely where the evidence was recovered also remains a closely guarded secret. "I know," Godwin told Crime Library. "I can't tell you."
In the meantime, Godwin says, he has turned over to investigators information he obtained last month regarding two witnesses who claim to have spotted a black Chevy pickup near Tara's house on the night nearly eight months ago when she disappeared after attending the local Sweet Potato festival and beauty pageant. One of those witnesses, he says, claimed to have exchanged words with the driver of the pickup. Again, GBI officials declined to comment on Godwin's assertion, other than to say that the probe remains open and investigators are aggressively tracking every lead.
#55
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:42 PM
http://www.crimelibr....er_harper.html
Marcus Harpers Activities Were Well Documented Before Tara Grinstead Vanished
by Seamus McGraw May 25, 2006
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) - In the days after school teacher and beauty Tara Grinstead mysteriously vanished, investigators methodically tracked down and interviewed many of the men who had played a key role in her life, among them, Marcus Harper, a former police officer, Iraqi war veteran, and Tara's former long-time boyfriend.
And while, among some in Ocilla, suspicion loomed large around Harper, authorities determined that Harper could easily account for his whereabouts and his activities during most of the critical hours between the time Tara was last seen and the time she was reported missing. And while authorities are not prepared to rule out any possible scenario in the still unsolved mystery they have acknowledged among other things that they don't know the precise moment when Tara actually disappeared — they have noted that Harper has been able to back up his account with official documents and witnesses.
According to his own account, and statements by others, Marcus Harper had been at a local tavern on the night that Tara vanished a friend of Tara's had even spotted him there, according to Dr. Maurice Godwin, a criminologist who has been working on the case at the behest of Tara's family, and she called Tara between 10:15 and 10:30 that night, presumably to tell her so.
Sometime after 1 a.m., Harper left the bar and drove to Ocilla looking for a friend of his, Sgt. Sean Fletcher, an Ocilla police officer. Fletcher, of course, had known both Harper and Tara. In fact, he had been one of the officers who responded to a call at Tara's house earlier in the year when another young man in Tara's life, Anthony Vickers, was arrested for disorderly conduct after allegedly banging on Tara's door and then cursing out the officers who tried to calm him. Some have even speculated that Tara may have had some hard feelings toward Fletcher, suspecting it has been said, that Fletcher had told Harper that there was another man, a police officer from a nearby community, in Tara's house at the time. Fletcher has denied that, noting that in a small town like Ocilla, details like that have a way of making themselves known.
At about 1:49 a.m., Fletcher was checking doors in downtown Ocilla when he received a call from the dispatcher telling him that Harper was looking for him, according to the account Fletcher has given to authorities. Fletcher contacted Harper, the two joined up, and they walked Fletcher's beat together. In the course of the next hour, Fletcher had at least one conversation with another police officer.
Fletcher and Harper searched for Bennie Merritt
Shortly after 2:45 a.m., Fletcher was summoned to a house on West 4th Street where a local man, Bennie Merritt, known for his erratic behavior, had allegedly walked inside and had refused to leave. Harper joined Fletcher on that call, as did two other police officers from the Irwin County Sheriff's Department. By the time they arrived, Merritt, who had already been the subject of a prior minor police call earlier that night, was gone. But according to Fletcher and the records investigators have reviewed, while there, Harper chatted with the residents.
A few minutes later, Fletcher and Harper left the residence and searched for Merritt, a neighbor of Tara's, who had allegedly frightened the couple on West 4th Street. Authorities reported that the man appeared intoxicated and was later apprehended by a sheriff's deputy, but not before he had allegedly frightened the night clerk at a local gas and convenience store about a mile outside of Ocilla.
According to records reviewed by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, both Fletcher and Harper responded to the call at the all-night service station and market, and by the time they were done, it was 4:28 a.m.
A few minutes later, Harper headed home.
In the days following Tara's disappearance, investigators reviewed the details of Harper and Fletcher's activities, activities for which the pair were able to identify some nine witnesses, two of them police officers, one of them a dispatcher, and the rest citizens, including Merritt who had been the focus of so much of their attention that morning.
They also took a close look at Merritt, as well, authorities have said.
But so far, the investigators have turned up no evidence to suggest that any of them were involved in Tara's disappearance, which remains, now seven months, as she vanished, a missing person's case. Harper, along with several other men questioned during the probe, has denied involvement in the teacher's disappearance, and law enforcement officials have repeatedly said that they have no suspects in the case.
But that has done little to dampen suspicion in some quarters. Nor has the detailed and apparently well-documented account of Harper and Fletcher's travels that night.
Godwin, who has said that neither he nor the GBI have ruled Harper in or out as a potential person of interest in the case, put this way in an email exchange Wednesday with Crime Library: "Marcus's alibi is too perfect."
Marcus Harpers Activities Were Well Documented Before Tara Grinstead Vanished
by Seamus McGraw May 25, 2006
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) - In the days after school teacher and beauty Tara Grinstead mysteriously vanished, investigators methodically tracked down and interviewed many of the men who had played a key role in her life, among them, Marcus Harper, a former police officer, Iraqi war veteran, and Tara's former long-time boyfriend.
And while, among some in Ocilla, suspicion loomed large around Harper, authorities determined that Harper could easily account for his whereabouts and his activities during most of the critical hours between the time Tara was last seen and the time she was reported missing. And while authorities are not prepared to rule out any possible scenario in the still unsolved mystery they have acknowledged among other things that they don't know the precise moment when Tara actually disappeared — they have noted that Harper has been able to back up his account with official documents and witnesses.
According to his own account, and statements by others, Marcus Harper had been at a local tavern on the night that Tara vanished a friend of Tara's had even spotted him there, according to Dr. Maurice Godwin, a criminologist who has been working on the case at the behest of Tara's family, and she called Tara between 10:15 and 10:30 that night, presumably to tell her so.
Sometime after 1 a.m., Harper left the bar and drove to Ocilla looking for a friend of his, Sgt. Sean Fletcher, an Ocilla police officer. Fletcher, of course, had known both Harper and Tara. In fact, he had been one of the officers who responded to a call at Tara's house earlier in the year when another young man in Tara's life, Anthony Vickers, was arrested for disorderly conduct after allegedly banging on Tara's door and then cursing out the officers who tried to calm him. Some have even speculated that Tara may have had some hard feelings toward Fletcher, suspecting it has been said, that Fletcher had told Harper that there was another man, a police officer from a nearby community, in Tara's house at the time. Fletcher has denied that, noting that in a small town like Ocilla, details like that have a way of making themselves known.
At about 1:49 a.m., Fletcher was checking doors in downtown Ocilla when he received a call from the dispatcher telling him that Harper was looking for him, according to the account Fletcher has given to authorities. Fletcher contacted Harper, the two joined up, and they walked Fletcher's beat together. In the course of the next hour, Fletcher had at least one conversation with another police officer.
Fletcher and Harper searched for Bennie Merritt
Shortly after 2:45 a.m., Fletcher was summoned to a house on West 4th Street where a local man, Bennie Merritt, known for his erratic behavior, had allegedly walked inside and had refused to leave. Harper joined Fletcher on that call, as did two other police officers from the Irwin County Sheriff's Department. By the time they arrived, Merritt, who had already been the subject of a prior minor police call earlier that night, was gone. But according to Fletcher and the records investigators have reviewed, while there, Harper chatted with the residents.
A few minutes later, Fletcher and Harper left the residence and searched for Merritt, a neighbor of Tara's, who had allegedly frightened the couple on West 4th Street. Authorities reported that the man appeared intoxicated and was later apprehended by a sheriff's deputy, but not before he had allegedly frightened the night clerk at a local gas and convenience store about a mile outside of Ocilla.
According to records reviewed by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, both Fletcher and Harper responded to the call at the all-night service station and market, and by the time they were done, it was 4:28 a.m.
A few minutes later, Harper headed home.
In the days following Tara's disappearance, investigators reviewed the details of Harper and Fletcher's activities, activities for which the pair were able to identify some nine witnesses, two of them police officers, one of them a dispatcher, and the rest citizens, including Merritt who had been the focus of so much of their attention that morning.
They also took a close look at Merritt, as well, authorities have said.
But so far, the investigators have turned up no evidence to suggest that any of them were involved in Tara's disappearance, which remains, now seven months, as she vanished, a missing person's case. Harper, along with several other men questioned during the probe, has denied involvement in the teacher's disappearance, and law enforcement officials have repeatedly said that they have no suspects in the case.
But that has done little to dampen suspicion in some quarters. Nor has the detailed and apparently well-documented account of Harper and Fletcher's travels that night.
Godwin, who has said that neither he nor the GBI have ruled Harper in or out as a potential person of interest in the case, put this way in an email exchange Wednesday with Crime Library: "Marcus's alibi is too perfect."
#56
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:42 PM
Ocilla - - It's been nearly 9 months since Ocilla school teacher Tara Grinstead disappeared. But her friends and family are still desperately searching for her. Today, representatives of a North Caolina based missing persons center visited Ocilla.
http://www.walb.com/...y.asp?S=5037109
http://www.walb.com/...y.asp?S=5037109
#57
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:42 PM
http://www.walb.com/...037109&nav=5kZQ
Tara Grinstead's family not giving up
June 15, 2006
Ocilla - - It's been nearly 9 months since Ocilla school teacher Tara Grinstead disappeared. But her friends and family are still desperately searching for her. Today, representatives of a North Caolina based missing persons center visited Ocilla.
Tara Grinstead's name has made national headlines. Police have been investigating for months. Still no word on what happened or how Tara went missing. Her family is praying for answers before there's any closure.
They're faces of hope. Many smile, as their family members mourn. Tara Grinstead's smile stands out from the rest.
"She missed all the holidays with her family. She missed her birthday, she missed the funeral of one of her favorite uncles who passed away. Things that she would be doing in our normal life and I'm just angry that she's not here to be a part of that with us," says Tara's sister Anita Gattis.
She tries to smile but can't come to grips that her only sister is still missing. Today, representatives from the Center for Missing Persons in North Carolina visited the family. They're bringing awareness all over the country about people like Tara who haven't been found.
"I realize Tara has had a lot of media attention, but people need to know that she still is missing. People need to know that she is still missing. When people fade from the headlines, the community automatically assume that they've been located or something has transpired in their case and that's simply not the truth here," says Monica Caison from the center.
Family and friends are also doing their part. Their using a new building for support, it's called the Tara Center. Someone is on hand everyday to answer calls and take tips.
"Toward whoever would've done this to Tara becasue we know she didn't just leave on her own and someone is responsible for her not being here. That's where my anger has been," Gattis says.
The anger is tamed by a flame. One that burns in the hearts of those who knew Tara and knew her smile that sparkled to everyone she encountered.
"That's been my light at the end of the tunnel...just to get her back," Gattis says.
Though the pain is still hard to quench.
The family also created a new website in Tara's honor, it's www.missingtara.com. They're offering up to a $200,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
The Center for Missing Persons is traveling across the country this week to visit with other families. They're headed to Naples, Florida now.
Tara Grinstead's family not giving up
June 15, 2006
Ocilla - - It's been nearly 9 months since Ocilla school teacher Tara Grinstead disappeared. But her friends and family are still desperately searching for her. Today, representatives of a North Caolina based missing persons center visited Ocilla.
Tara Grinstead's name has made national headlines. Police have been investigating for months. Still no word on what happened or how Tara went missing. Her family is praying for answers before there's any closure.
They're faces of hope. Many smile, as their family members mourn. Tara Grinstead's smile stands out from the rest.
"She missed all the holidays with her family. She missed her birthday, she missed the funeral of one of her favorite uncles who passed away. Things that she would be doing in our normal life and I'm just angry that she's not here to be a part of that with us," says Tara's sister Anita Gattis.
She tries to smile but can't come to grips that her only sister is still missing. Today, representatives from the Center for Missing Persons in North Carolina visited the family. They're bringing awareness all over the country about people like Tara who haven't been found.
"I realize Tara has had a lot of media attention, but people need to know that she still is missing. People need to know that she is still missing. When people fade from the headlines, the community automatically assume that they've been located or something has transpired in their case and that's simply not the truth here," says Monica Caison from the center.
Family and friends are also doing their part. Their using a new building for support, it's called the Tara Center. Someone is on hand everyday to answer calls and take tips.
"Toward whoever would've done this to Tara becasue we know she didn't just leave on her own and someone is responsible for her not being here. That's where my anger has been," Gattis says.
The anger is tamed by a flame. One that burns in the hearts of those who knew Tara and knew her smile that sparkled to everyone she encountered.
"That's been my light at the end of the tunnel...just to get her back," Gattis says.
Though the pain is still hard to quench.
The family also created a new website in Tara's honor, it's www.missingtara.com. They're offering up to a $200,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
The Center for Missing Persons is traveling across the country this week to visit with other families. They're headed to Naples, Florida now.
#58
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:42 PM
http://www.crimelibr....grinstead.html
Court TV Psychic Hunts for Tara Grinstead
By Seamus McGraw July 17, 2006
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) - To some, they are gifted seers, virtual mystics who can at times peer into the unseen world. On occasion, believers claim, the truly gifted can catch glimpses of the past and from those glimpses, if they're lucky, they can divine clues to help unravel seemingly unsolvable mysteries.
To others, they are nothing more than charlatans and opportunists, hucksters who shamelessly promote themselves as they prey on anguished families of crime victims, tantalizing them with obscure references laced with mystical numbers or vague references to common items or broad description of common locales.
But regardless of the controversy, psychic detectives, as some have dubbed them, have become increasingly visible in modern criminal investigations. Among the most visible is Carla Baron, a self-described psychic profiler whose exploits are detailed in the Court TV series "Haunting Evidence." Earlier this year, Baron joined the hunt for missing schoolteacher and beauty queen Tara Grinstead, who vanished last October after attending a local beauty pageant. Details of Baron's psychic investigation, conducted in March, will air tonight. In it, Baron meets with family members, does a reading, and discusses with them some of their fears and her own feelings about Tara Grinstead's fate.
But Baron, who has remained involved with the Grinstead family and with the search since the filming was completed, was not the only psychically gifted person to weigh in on Grinstead's disappearance, which has remained a maddeningly intractable mystery for nearly nine months. In the aftermath of Grinstead's disappearance, several lesser known seers have also offered their impressions to family members and police. And while family members have said that they remain skeptical about the psychics' contributions to the case, they have also been impressed, they said, by the precision and accuracy of some of their observations, particularly observations about Grinstead's personality and habits.
That the psychic tips have thus far produced few actionable leads in the case, has done little to shake the faith of believers, or to assuage the skepticism of those who doubt them. In fact, on Court TV's own message board on the case, debate about the veracity of psychics in criminal cases continues to rage.
Debate over psychic detectives spans four decades
It is a debate that has been going on in the United States for more than 40 years, since psychics first emerged as players in criminal investigations; a history that is marked by a few notable successes and host of less successful outcomes. But regardless of their track record, there is evidence that psychics are gaining a measure of respectability.
In fact, according to an article published by the Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine dedicated to debunking paranormal claims, by 1996, more than a third of all urban police departments in the United States and nearly 20 percent of the rural departments had reported using psychics at least once on unsolved cases.
And while skeptics downplay the contributions some of these psychics have made, there have been cases where psychics have provided information that in hindsight appears chillingly accurate.
Katherine Ramsland detailed one such case in her story on psychic detectives for Crime Library in which she recounts the case of Mary Cowsett, who vanished while in the company of her boyfriend. According to Ramsland's account of the case, Cowsett's boyfriend was arrested in connection with the woman's slaying, admitting to a family member that he had stabbed the young woman 10 times and dumped her body somewhere in Illinois. But he refused to tell authorities precisely where her body had been dumped. Police then turned to psychic Greta Alexander. The psychic, according to Ramsland's account, provided what seemed an eerie and esoteric description of the woman's final resting place. She told police that the letter "s" would play a role, and that the woman's body would be recovered in a place where a dog had been barking. More importantly, she said that when the body was found, it would be found by a man with "a bad hand" and when it was recovered, the hair would be separated from the body.
Sure enough, according to Ramsland's account, when Cowsett's body was found, it was by a searcher with a deformed hand. What's more, the young woman had been decapitated and her head and a wig were found nearby.
GBI says it has no use for psychic seers, prefers old fashioned police work
Despite the occasional success, and the periodic use of psychics by police, many law enforcement officials and the agencies they represent remain unconvinced.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the agency leading the probe of Grinstead's disappearance is among them.
Nothing the psychics have turned up has advanced the investigation into Grinstead's disappearance, which officially remains classified as a missing person's case, said GBI spokesman John Bankhead.
The agency, he said, officially frowns on the use of psychics. "We don't use them," he said. "There's really no evidence that they help at all and there's tons of evidence that their only effect is to waste law enforcement's time."
"They prey on the families' need to try to find something out about their loved one: Bankhead said. "The family feels like, well maybe this will help and they call in these psychics and then the family puts pressure on police to follow up on it."
Perhaps, Bankhead said, the GBI would be less skeptical if the army of psychics who regularly contact them would call us and say, 'this person is at this specific site and go there, you'll find her'...but that's never happened."
"Typically what they'll do is call and say, 'well, the name Fred comes to mind, or the number 5 or water', and after you solve the crime through normal police procedures they come back and...retrofit to make what they had guessed fit what law enforcement found with the help of the public."
"That's historically the case," Bankhead said, 'and anybody who says any different is just a dreamer."
For her part, Baron is unfazed by such criticism.. During her career, and even recently, she says, skeptics have targeted her, and the upshot has been that the more she is criticized the more she is contacted by police and television networks to weigh in on cases. "I'm not looking to change belief systems," she said, adding that people are entitled to believe or disbelieve And her goal, she said, remains the same; "to gain movement within the case, but in the right direction, not to let it remain stagnant but to add something that will actually propel it forward."
*Project Jason does not recommend the use of psychics in missing persons' cases. Please see http://voice4themiss...ics-and.htmlfor additional information.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last edited by Kelly : 07-24-2006 at 10:12 PM.
Court TV Psychic Hunts for Tara Grinstead
By Seamus McGraw July 17, 2006
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) - To some, they are gifted seers, virtual mystics who can at times peer into the unseen world. On occasion, believers claim, the truly gifted can catch glimpses of the past and from those glimpses, if they're lucky, they can divine clues to help unravel seemingly unsolvable mysteries.
To others, they are nothing more than charlatans and opportunists, hucksters who shamelessly promote themselves as they prey on anguished families of crime victims, tantalizing them with obscure references laced with mystical numbers or vague references to common items or broad description of common locales.
But regardless of the controversy, psychic detectives, as some have dubbed them, have become increasingly visible in modern criminal investigations. Among the most visible is Carla Baron, a self-described psychic profiler whose exploits are detailed in the Court TV series "Haunting Evidence." Earlier this year, Baron joined the hunt for missing schoolteacher and beauty queen Tara Grinstead, who vanished last October after attending a local beauty pageant. Details of Baron's psychic investigation, conducted in March, will air tonight. In it, Baron meets with family members, does a reading, and discusses with them some of their fears and her own feelings about Tara Grinstead's fate.
But Baron, who has remained involved with the Grinstead family and with the search since the filming was completed, was not the only psychically gifted person to weigh in on Grinstead's disappearance, which has remained a maddeningly intractable mystery for nearly nine months. In the aftermath of Grinstead's disappearance, several lesser known seers have also offered their impressions to family members and police. And while family members have said that they remain skeptical about the psychics' contributions to the case, they have also been impressed, they said, by the precision and accuracy of some of their observations, particularly observations about Grinstead's personality and habits.
That the psychic tips have thus far produced few actionable leads in the case, has done little to shake the faith of believers, or to assuage the skepticism of those who doubt them. In fact, on Court TV's own message board on the case, debate about the veracity of psychics in criminal cases continues to rage.
Debate over psychic detectives spans four decades
It is a debate that has been going on in the United States for more than 40 years, since psychics first emerged as players in criminal investigations; a history that is marked by a few notable successes and host of less successful outcomes. But regardless of their track record, there is evidence that psychics are gaining a measure of respectability.
In fact, according to an article published by the Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine dedicated to debunking paranormal claims, by 1996, more than a third of all urban police departments in the United States and nearly 20 percent of the rural departments had reported using psychics at least once on unsolved cases.
And while skeptics downplay the contributions some of these psychics have made, there have been cases where psychics have provided information that in hindsight appears chillingly accurate.
Katherine Ramsland detailed one such case in her story on psychic detectives for Crime Library in which she recounts the case of Mary Cowsett, who vanished while in the company of her boyfriend. According to Ramsland's account of the case, Cowsett's boyfriend was arrested in connection with the woman's slaying, admitting to a family member that he had stabbed the young woman 10 times and dumped her body somewhere in Illinois. But he refused to tell authorities precisely where her body had been dumped. Police then turned to psychic Greta Alexander. The psychic, according to Ramsland's account, provided what seemed an eerie and esoteric description of the woman's final resting place. She told police that the letter "s" would play a role, and that the woman's body would be recovered in a place where a dog had been barking. More importantly, she said that when the body was found, it would be found by a man with "a bad hand" and when it was recovered, the hair would be separated from the body.
Sure enough, according to Ramsland's account, when Cowsett's body was found, it was by a searcher with a deformed hand. What's more, the young woman had been decapitated and her head and a wig were found nearby.
GBI says it has no use for psychic seers, prefers old fashioned police work
Despite the occasional success, and the periodic use of psychics by police, many law enforcement officials and the agencies they represent remain unconvinced.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the agency leading the probe of Grinstead's disappearance is among them.
Nothing the psychics have turned up has advanced the investigation into Grinstead's disappearance, which officially remains classified as a missing person's case, said GBI spokesman John Bankhead.
The agency, he said, officially frowns on the use of psychics. "We don't use them," he said. "There's really no evidence that they help at all and there's tons of evidence that their only effect is to waste law enforcement's time."
"They prey on the families' need to try to find something out about their loved one: Bankhead said. "The family feels like, well maybe this will help and they call in these psychics and then the family puts pressure on police to follow up on it."
Perhaps, Bankhead said, the GBI would be less skeptical if the army of psychics who regularly contact them would call us and say, 'this person is at this specific site and go there, you'll find her'...but that's never happened."
"Typically what they'll do is call and say, 'well, the name Fred comes to mind, or the number 5 or water', and after you solve the crime through normal police procedures they come back and...retrofit to make what they had guessed fit what law enforcement found with the help of the public."
"That's historically the case," Bankhead said, 'and anybody who says any different is just a dreamer."
For her part, Baron is unfazed by such criticism.. During her career, and even recently, she says, skeptics have targeted her, and the upshot has been that the more she is criticized the more she is contacted by police and television networks to weigh in on cases. "I'm not looking to change belief systems," she said, adding that people are entitled to believe or disbelieve And her goal, she said, remains the same; "to gain movement within the case, but in the right direction, not to let it remain stagnant but to add something that will actually propel it forward."
*Project Jason does not recommend the use of psychics in missing persons' cases. Please see http://voice4themiss...ics-and.htmlfor additional information.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last edited by Kelly : 07-24-2006 at 10:12 PM.
#59
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:43 PM
http://www.crimelibr...._innuendo.html
Privacy Also A Victim in the Tara Grinstead Mystery
By Seamus McGraw August 2, 2006
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) - It's been this way for months now, a fetid cloud of suspicion and rumor rising up from the swamps outside Ocilla, spreading through the Internet, sometimes reaching thousands of miles, and infecting people with a taint rooted in blind innuendo.
In the nine months since beauty queen and school teacher Tara Grinstead vanished, authorities and family members have tracked down scores of possible leads, they've interviewed old boyfriends, and others close to the woman, they've scoured her bank accounts and studied her mental state in the days leading up to her disappearance.
Just recently, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation dispatched crime scene technicians to Ocilla to reexamine sites they had already visited, and investigators, both official and freelance, continue to probe the woman and the circumstances surrounding her sudden and mysterious vanishing.
Despite it all, however, authorities say they still don't know whereTara is or what happened to her. Though privately some concede that they no longer believe there is any hope that she alive, they have found no proof of that, much less any evidence that would lead them to conclude whether she died accidentally, by her own hand, at the hands of someone else, or perhaps even some combination of all or some of those scenarios.
"We don't have a clue," one law enforcement official told Crime Library.
But the lack of hard and conclusive evidence has done little to chill the heated speculation in some quarters about Tara's fate. Nowhere is that more true than on the Internet's message boards where sleuths, some of them amateurs, some of them partisans of one particular theory about Tara's disappearance or another, trade tips and theories, and sometimes little more than unvarnished suspicions.
Old boyfriend sees his personal life discussed in the Net
To some degree the boards are a new and useful tool in investigations. They provide a forum for an exchange of ideas, and investigators in cases like Tara's often monitor them closely. But they can also be intrusive and potentially harmful.
Jim Perry, a young man in Ohio, now going through a rocky time in his marriage, has learned that lesson firsthand.
Perry, who lives in northeastern Ohio but was raised in the Hawkinsville area where Tara grew up, had long ago dated a very young Tara Grinstead. In an interview with Crime Library, he said that the two had become close while she was a high school freshman and he an older student at the school, and though they didn't date long, they remained friends for years afterwards.
They would speak a couple of times a year on the phone, he said, and whenever he found himself in Ocilla, he would touch base with Tara's mother, and if possible, get together briefly with his old friend.
It was a purely platonic relationship, and the two developed romantic interests in others. He ultimately met and married a young veterinarian, originally from Cleveland Heights and though the two are now separated, they are raising a young child. For her part, Tara fell in love with a former police officer, Marcus Harper, a man who shared her Christian faith and her love of athletics and competition, she had told Perry.
Though Tara had always remained an important figure in his life, Perry and his old friend had not spoken since the late summer of 2004, around the time that Perry wed. There was no acrimony between them, their bond was very much intact, he said, but both he and Tara seemed to have decided without really deciding that since he was married and she was hoping to be, that propriety dictated that there be fewer calls, less contact. Both had their own lives.
For the most part, Perry says he said little about his long friendship to his wife, not because he wanted to hide anything, but because it simply was not at the center of his new world.
A message of grief, dissected by strangers
That all changed not long after Tara vanished. Deeply distressed by news that his boyhood girlfriend had vanished, he said, he sent a simple note of solidarity to her family.
In it, he said, "Tara is one of the most dynamic and beautiful people I have ever had the pleasure to be close to. I dated her for a long time, and unlike most girls that are no longer with me, I have nothing but great things to say about her. She is a loving, caring, intelligent woman, and anyone that could do her any harm must be close to (S)atan. I hope that somehow she shows up smiling and as brilliant as ever and we can all wake up from this awful dream. From across the globe, I am begging for this.
I will always love Tara Faye Grinstead...J.P."
That should have been an end to it.
But in recent days, as the investigation into Tara's disappearance grinds into its ninth month without resolution, Perry has found his words, meant as a tender expression of support for a grieving family, parsed and analyzed, in most cases by complete strangers, and the details of his personal life exposed on the Internet.
In recent days, Perry has watched as people discussed his marriage and his baby, and has seen the painful fact of his recent separation from his wife, a separation that had nothing to do with his long-ago relationship with Tara, bandied about with what he regards as little thought for his family or for him. In several cases, statements presented as key facts about him and his family have been simply wrong
In short, in the absence of fact, Perry and, by association, his estranged wife, have been intruded upon and their lives have been turned into a kind of parlor game for amateur sleuths.
To some degree, Perry says, he understands the hunger for information about Tara's disappearance. He too wants to know what became of his old companion. But he also believes that he, and others who have been the target of speculation, deserve the right to keep their private lives private. Wild speculation isn't the answer. "Speculation should only follow investigation," he said.
"I don't think you should speculate without looking into things first, because people get hurt by people just speculating and throwing things out recklessly," he said.
Privacy Also A Victim in the Tara Grinstead Mystery
By Seamus McGraw August 2, 2006
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) - It's been this way for months now, a fetid cloud of suspicion and rumor rising up from the swamps outside Ocilla, spreading through the Internet, sometimes reaching thousands of miles, and infecting people with a taint rooted in blind innuendo.
In the nine months since beauty queen and school teacher Tara Grinstead vanished, authorities and family members have tracked down scores of possible leads, they've interviewed old boyfriends, and others close to the woman, they've scoured her bank accounts and studied her mental state in the days leading up to her disappearance.
Just recently, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation dispatched crime scene technicians to Ocilla to reexamine sites they had already visited, and investigators, both official and freelance, continue to probe the woman and the circumstances surrounding her sudden and mysterious vanishing.
Despite it all, however, authorities say they still don't know whereTara is or what happened to her. Though privately some concede that they no longer believe there is any hope that she alive, they have found no proof of that, much less any evidence that would lead them to conclude whether she died accidentally, by her own hand, at the hands of someone else, or perhaps even some combination of all or some of those scenarios.
"We don't have a clue," one law enforcement official told Crime Library.
But the lack of hard and conclusive evidence has done little to chill the heated speculation in some quarters about Tara's fate. Nowhere is that more true than on the Internet's message boards where sleuths, some of them amateurs, some of them partisans of one particular theory about Tara's disappearance or another, trade tips and theories, and sometimes little more than unvarnished suspicions.
Old boyfriend sees his personal life discussed in the Net
To some degree the boards are a new and useful tool in investigations. They provide a forum for an exchange of ideas, and investigators in cases like Tara's often monitor them closely. But they can also be intrusive and potentially harmful.
Jim Perry, a young man in Ohio, now going through a rocky time in his marriage, has learned that lesson firsthand.
Perry, who lives in northeastern Ohio but was raised in the Hawkinsville area where Tara grew up, had long ago dated a very young Tara Grinstead. In an interview with Crime Library, he said that the two had become close while she was a high school freshman and he an older student at the school, and though they didn't date long, they remained friends for years afterwards.
They would speak a couple of times a year on the phone, he said, and whenever he found himself in Ocilla, he would touch base with Tara's mother, and if possible, get together briefly with his old friend.
It was a purely platonic relationship, and the two developed romantic interests in others. He ultimately met and married a young veterinarian, originally from Cleveland Heights and though the two are now separated, they are raising a young child. For her part, Tara fell in love with a former police officer, Marcus Harper, a man who shared her Christian faith and her love of athletics and competition, she had told Perry.
Though Tara had always remained an important figure in his life, Perry and his old friend had not spoken since the late summer of 2004, around the time that Perry wed. There was no acrimony between them, their bond was very much intact, he said, but both he and Tara seemed to have decided without really deciding that since he was married and she was hoping to be, that propriety dictated that there be fewer calls, less contact. Both had their own lives.
For the most part, Perry says he said little about his long friendship to his wife, not because he wanted to hide anything, but because it simply was not at the center of his new world.
A message of grief, dissected by strangers
That all changed not long after Tara vanished. Deeply distressed by news that his boyhood girlfriend had vanished, he said, he sent a simple note of solidarity to her family.
In it, he said, "Tara is one of the most dynamic and beautiful people I have ever had the pleasure to be close to. I dated her for a long time, and unlike most girls that are no longer with me, I have nothing but great things to say about her. She is a loving, caring, intelligent woman, and anyone that could do her any harm must be close to (S)atan. I hope that somehow she shows up smiling and as brilliant as ever and we can all wake up from this awful dream. From across the globe, I am begging for this.
I will always love Tara Faye Grinstead...J.P."
That should have been an end to it.
But in recent days, as the investigation into Tara's disappearance grinds into its ninth month without resolution, Perry has found his words, meant as a tender expression of support for a grieving family, parsed and analyzed, in most cases by complete strangers, and the details of his personal life exposed on the Internet.
In recent days, Perry has watched as people discussed his marriage and his baby, and has seen the painful fact of his recent separation from his wife, a separation that had nothing to do with his long-ago relationship with Tara, bandied about with what he regards as little thought for his family or for him. In several cases, statements presented as key facts about him and his family have been simply wrong
In short, in the absence of fact, Perry and, by association, his estranged wife, have been intruded upon and their lives have been turned into a kind of parlor game for amateur sleuths.
To some degree, Perry says, he understands the hunger for information about Tara's disappearance. He too wants to know what became of his old companion. But he also believes that he, and others who have been the target of speculation, deserve the right to keep their private lives private. Wild speculation isn't the answer. "Speculation should only follow investigation," he said.
"I don't think you should speculate without looking into things first, because people get hurt by people just speculating and throwing things out recklessly," he said.
#60
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:43 PM
From the family website:
"There will be a luminary service for Tara Grinstead on Sunday, October 22, 2006, from 7pm to 9pm at the courthouse in Irwin county. It will be a solemn remembrance in Tara's honor.
Luminary bags will be made available for those who wish to come and place a luminary in her honor. Markers will be provided so guests may write a personal note to Tara or her parents on their luminary bag (or whatever sentiments their heart leads them to share).
For those who wish to have a luminary bag placed in their honor but are unable to attend, please mail your luminary bag (a brown lunch bag will do) and it will be placed for you. Mail bags to:
Tara's Luminary Service
c/o Irwin County Commission Office
207 S. Irwin Ave.
Ocilla, GA 31774"
"There will be a luminary service for Tara Grinstead on Sunday, October 22, 2006, from 7pm to 9pm at the courthouse in Irwin county. It will be a solemn remembrance in Tara's honor.
Luminary bags will be made available for those who wish to come and place a luminary in her honor. Markers will be provided so guests may write a personal note to Tara or her parents on their luminary bag (or whatever sentiments their heart leads them to share).
For those who wish to have a luminary bag placed in their honor but are unable to attend, please mail your luminary bag (a brown lunch bag will do) and it will be placed for you. Mail bags to:
Tara's Luminary Service
c/o Irwin County Commission Office
207 S. Irwin Ave.
Ocilla, GA 31774"
#61
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:43 PM
Ocilla, police looking for breakthrough a year after Tara Grinstead's disappearance
Posted on Sun, Oct. 15, 2006 By Tim Sturrock TELEGRAPH STAFF WRITER
OCILLA - Her picture is still on storefront windows of restaurants and gas stations in this rural south Georgia town.
A billboard showing her beauty-queen smile welcomes people driving into town and asks for their help.
For almost a year now, people here have been asking the same question: What happened to Tara Grinstead?
The Irwin County High School history teacher, who was 30 when she vanished sometime after 11 p.m. Oct. 22, 2005, hasn't been seen or heard from since.
People still wonder whether, while she was studying for a doctorate in education, her life just became too much for her. Maybe, as some people suggest, she simply left to escape the stress.
But others fear something far darker happened to Grinstead, a former Miss Tifton who competed in the Miss Georgia pageant in 1999.
This town of 3,000, surrounded by swamps, cotton fields and pastures, has drawn national attention since her disappearance. Numerous television shows and newspaper articles have covered her story.
Macon Telegraph | 10/15/2006 | Ocilla, police looking for breakthrough a year after Tara Grinstead's disappearance
Posted on Sun, Oct. 15, 2006 By Tim Sturrock TELEGRAPH STAFF WRITER
OCILLA - Her picture is still on storefront windows of restaurants and gas stations in this rural south Georgia town.
A billboard showing her beauty-queen smile welcomes people driving into town and asks for their help.
For almost a year now, people here have been asking the same question: What happened to Tara Grinstead?
The Irwin County High School history teacher, who was 30 when she vanished sometime after 11 p.m. Oct. 22, 2005, hasn't been seen or heard from since.
People still wonder whether, while she was studying for a doctorate in education, her life just became too much for her. Maybe, as some people suggest, she simply left to escape the stress.
But others fear something far darker happened to Grinstead, a former Miss Tifton who competed in the Miss Georgia pageant in 1999.
This town of 3,000, surrounded by swamps, cotton fields and pastures, has drawn national attention since her disappearance. Numerous television shows and newspaper articles have covered her story.
Macon Telegraph | 10/15/2006 | Ocilla, police looking for breakthrough a year after Tara Grinstead's disappearance
#62
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:43 PM
COMMENTARY: Spotlight fades as story goes cold
Posted on Sun, Oct. 15, 2006 By Joe Kovac Jr. TELEGRAPH STAFF WRITER
The Tara Grinstead saga, covered intermittently by print, cable and network news outlets since word of the former beauty queen's disappearance emerged nearly a year ago, had all the trappings of a talk-TV soap opera: an attractive school teacher; a country-town backdrop where ugly things aren't supposed to reside; and a victim with a talkative relative.
Then something happened. The one roadblock to most any story hurtled into the prime-time realm of news-as-high-speed-police-pursuit: Nothing.
Shows that make their hay at the intersection of spectacle and speculation cannot go on night after night when the subject matter keeps offering up the headline "Nothing New to Report."
Believe it or not, disappearances don't always make good TV.
As much as coverage of whodunit disappearances might have conditioned us to anticipate conclusions, sometimes there are no tidy, or twisted, endings. Not to mention the cultural stereotypes that would have us believe small towns are open books. Contrary to those cliche sound bites, tiny towns like Ocilla are not necessarily just places where "everybody knows everybody else." They can be places where secrets go into cold storage.
Unlike investigations in big cities, where newspapers and broadcast news outlets press detectives for details and scrutinize all angles of sensational cases, in backwater towns where satellite trucks rarely tread, mysteries can burrow into the deepest of graves. A home-grown killer can keep as low a profile as a passer-through.
If anything, small towns are the real world. And reality TV has nothing on them.
Macon Telegraph | 10/15/2006 | COMMENTARY: Spotlight fades as story goes cold
Posted on Sun, Oct. 15, 2006 By Joe Kovac Jr. TELEGRAPH STAFF WRITER
The Tara Grinstead saga, covered intermittently by print, cable and network news outlets since word of the former beauty queen's disappearance emerged nearly a year ago, had all the trappings of a talk-TV soap opera: an attractive school teacher; a country-town backdrop where ugly things aren't supposed to reside; and a victim with a talkative relative.
Then something happened. The one roadblock to most any story hurtled into the prime-time realm of news-as-high-speed-police-pursuit: Nothing.
Shows that make their hay at the intersection of spectacle and speculation cannot go on night after night when the subject matter keeps offering up the headline "Nothing New to Report."
Believe it or not, disappearances don't always make good TV.
As much as coverage of whodunit disappearances might have conditioned us to anticipate conclusions, sometimes there are no tidy, or twisted, endings. Not to mention the cultural stereotypes that would have us believe small towns are open books. Contrary to those cliche sound bites, tiny towns like Ocilla are not necessarily just places where "everybody knows everybody else." They can be places where secrets go into cold storage.
Unlike investigations in big cities, where newspapers and broadcast news outlets press detectives for details and scrutinize all angles of sensational cases, in backwater towns where satellite trucks rarely tread, mysteries can burrow into the deepest of graves. A home-grown killer can keep as low a profile as a passer-through.
If anything, small towns are the real world. And reality TV has nothing on them.
Macon Telegraph | 10/15/2006 | COMMENTARY: Spotlight fades as story goes cold
#63
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:44 PM
Dateline Interview about Tara's disappearance.
Aired April 30,2006
MSNBC Video
Click on the link above to watch the video.
Aired April 30,2006
MSNBC Video
Click on the link above to watch the video.
#64
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:44 PM
Georgia town moves on, but still wants to mystery solved
OCILLA, Ga. The mysterious disappearance of a popular high school teacher and former beauty queen is still sending shock waves throught the south Georgia town of Ocilla.
Thirty-one-year-old Tara Grinstead disappeared last year on October 22nd.
The disappearance touched off a massive investigation that included extensive searches by hundreds of volunteers in the forests and ponds of Irwin County.
But, still, all that remain are fading memories and her image on a missing-persons billboard on the town's main drag.
Georgia town moves on, but still wants to mystery solved
OCILLA, Ga. The mysterious disappearance of a popular high school teacher and former beauty queen is still sending shock waves throught the south Georgia town of Ocilla.
Thirty-one-year-old Tara Grinstead disappeared last year on October 22nd.
The disappearance touched off a massive investigation that included extensive searches by hundreds of volunteers in the forests and ponds of Irwin County.
But, still, all that remain are fading memories and her image on a missing-persons billboard on the town's main drag.
Georgia town moves on, but still wants to mystery solved
#65
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:44 PM
Georgia town moves on, but still wants to mystery solved
The Associated Press - OCILLA, Ga.
Splashed across a billboard on one of the town's main streets is a color photo of a smiling young woman wearing an understated black dress and a plain, silver necklace. She looks poised, confident and destined for a life of achievement.
All of her hope and potential seemingly evaporated a year ago, when 31-year-old Tara Grinstead, a popular high school teacher and beauty queen, vanished without a trace.
Her disappearance on Oct. 22, 2005, sent shock waves through the community and touched off a massive investigation that included extensive searches by hundreds of volunteers in the forests and ponds of Irwin County and surrounding counties in south Georgia.
All that remains are fading memories and her haunting image on that missing person billboard along with some posters around town.
AccessNorthGa.com - North Georgia's Newsroom
The Associated Press - OCILLA, Ga.
Splashed across a billboard on one of the town's main streets is a color photo of a smiling young woman wearing an understated black dress and a plain, silver necklace. She looks poised, confident and destined for a life of achievement.
All of her hope and potential seemingly evaporated a year ago, when 31-year-old Tara Grinstead, a popular high school teacher and beauty queen, vanished without a trace.
Her disappearance on Oct. 22, 2005, sent shock waves through the community and touched off a massive investigation that included extensive searches by hundreds of volunteers in the forests and ponds of Irwin County and surrounding counties in south Georgia.
All that remains are fading memories and her haunting image on that missing person billboard along with some posters around town.
AccessNorthGa.com - North Georgia's Newsroom
#66
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:44 PM
A Year After She Vanished, Tara Grinstead Still Haunts Investigators
By Seamus McGraw October 19, 2006
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) - The leaves have started to turn again, and once more, they gather on the grass outside the modest white house on the corner of Park Street, just as they did on a crisp October night a year ago when Tara Grinstead left that house for the last time.
No one in her neighborhood saw her leave the house that night, except perhaps for her loyal dog, who may have barked a farewell. No one can say for certain whether she left alone, or whether she left willingly. The only thing that is certain is that when the former beauty queen and schoolteacher left her house sometime after 11 pm on that October night she left behind what is arguably the most intractable mystery in the history of Georgia law enforcement.
In the year since she vanished, Tara Grinstead has been the subject of one of the most comprehensive missing person investigations ever undertaken in Georgia. More than 40 investigators from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, together with local law enforcement officers, have dedicated more than 5,500 man-hours to the hunt. They've tracked down hundreds of leads and interviewed scores of people, from her estranged boyfriend and others with whom she had romantic links, family members, to near strangers. They have dutifully copied their notes into casebooks, filling nearly 50 of them, 15 times the number of volumes used in an average murder investigation. And though they now have a stack of books as tall as a man, they are, authorities say, no closer to finding out what happened to Tara Grinstead than they were a year ago.
In fact, a year after Tara Grinstead vanished, seemingly into thin air, no one — not the police or her family, not the friends or the students she left behind — can say with any degree of certainty whether she simply became overwhelmed by the complex demands of her rigid and rigorous life and ran away, whether she collapsed under the weight of her own broken heart and emotional upheavals and might have taken her own life, or whether she was, as most who knew her suspect, a victim of foul play.
Despite massive searches conducted by armies of volunteers, despite high-tech assistance from Texas EquuSearch, despite the prognostications of psychics and the theorizing of at least one freelance criminologist, not a single clue has turned up in the past year that could lead police to conclusively determine what happened to Tara.
Of course that has not stopped the speculation by those who knew her, and even those who didn't. In the year since Tara vanished, theories about her fate have been bandied about on cable television shows, on the Internet and over coffee in Ocilla and the nearby communities where Tara lived her life. Accusations and recriminations, perched precariously on shards of fact, if facts are involved at all, have been traded. In the process they have ripped open a deep wound in the community, say those who know the place well.
And yet, despite it all, the mystery of what happened to Tara Grinstead remains.
Privacy Also A Victim in the Tara Grinstead Mystery - The Crime library
By Seamus McGraw October 19, 2006
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) - The leaves have started to turn again, and once more, they gather on the grass outside the modest white house on the corner of Park Street, just as they did on a crisp October night a year ago when Tara Grinstead left that house for the last time.
No one in her neighborhood saw her leave the house that night, except perhaps for her loyal dog, who may have barked a farewell. No one can say for certain whether she left alone, or whether she left willingly. The only thing that is certain is that when the former beauty queen and schoolteacher left her house sometime after 11 pm on that October night she left behind what is arguably the most intractable mystery in the history of Georgia law enforcement.
In the year since she vanished, Tara Grinstead has been the subject of one of the most comprehensive missing person investigations ever undertaken in Georgia. More than 40 investigators from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, together with local law enforcement officers, have dedicated more than 5,500 man-hours to the hunt. They've tracked down hundreds of leads and interviewed scores of people, from her estranged boyfriend and others with whom she had romantic links, family members, to near strangers. They have dutifully copied their notes into casebooks, filling nearly 50 of them, 15 times the number of volumes used in an average murder investigation. And though they now have a stack of books as tall as a man, they are, authorities say, no closer to finding out what happened to Tara Grinstead than they were a year ago.
In fact, a year after Tara Grinstead vanished, seemingly into thin air, no one — not the police or her family, not the friends or the students she left behind — can say with any degree of certainty whether she simply became overwhelmed by the complex demands of her rigid and rigorous life and ran away, whether she collapsed under the weight of her own broken heart and emotional upheavals and might have taken her own life, or whether she was, as most who knew her suspect, a victim of foul play.
Despite massive searches conducted by armies of volunteers, despite high-tech assistance from Texas EquuSearch, despite the prognostications of psychics and the theorizing of at least one freelance criminologist, not a single clue has turned up in the past year that could lead police to conclusively determine what happened to Tara.
Of course that has not stopped the speculation by those who knew her, and even those who didn't. In the year since Tara vanished, theories about her fate have been bandied about on cable television shows, on the Internet and over coffee in Ocilla and the nearby communities where Tara lived her life. Accusations and recriminations, perched precariously on shards of fact, if facts are involved at all, have been traded. In the process they have ripped open a deep wound in the community, say those who know the place well.
And yet, despite it all, the mystery of what happened to Tara Grinstead remains.
Privacy Also A Victim in the Tara Grinstead Mystery - The Crime library
#67
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:44 PM
Ga. Beauty Queen Missing for 1 Year
Web Editor: Leigha Baugham
Last Modified: 10/21/2006 6:37:19 PM
Sunday marks the one year anniversary of the disappearance of a South Georgia beauty queen.
Tara Grinstead, 30, disappeared from her Oscilla home on October 22.
Police said her cell phone and car were found at the home, but her keys and purse were missing. http://www.11alive.c....?storyid=86410
Web Editor: Leigha Baugham
Last Modified: 10/21/2006 6:37:19 PM
Sunday marks the one year anniversary of the disappearance of a South Georgia beauty queen.
Tara Grinstead, 30, disappeared from her Oscilla home on October 22.
Police said her cell phone and car were found at the home, but her keys and purse were missing. http://www.11alive.c....?storyid=86410
#68
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:45 PM
Video Clips Regarding theTara Grinstead Investigation [/hr]- The Crime library
__________
Grinstead Anita Gattis1
Grinstead Anita Gattis2
Beth Twitty 1
video plane feeds
Grinstead Anita Gattis3
airboat searcher volunteer
Click on the provided links above to watch some of the videos in reference to Tara's diappearance.
If you have seen any of our missing persons, please call the law enforcement agency listed on the post. All missing persons are loved by someone, and their families deserve to find the answers they seek in regards to the disappearance.
__________
Grinstead Anita Gattis1
Grinstead Anita Gattis2
Beth Twitty 1
video plane feeds
Grinstead Anita Gattis3
airboat searcher volunteer
Click on the provided links above to watch some of the videos in reference to Tara's diappearance.
If you have seen any of our missing persons, please call the law enforcement agency listed on the post. All missing persons are loved by someone, and their families deserve to find the answers they seek in regards to the disappearance.
#69
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:45 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One year since Tara Grinstead's disappearance
October 22, 2006
Ocilla - - One year ago today an Ocilla beauty queen went missing, leaving a permanent shock to family, friends, and students where she taught. Tonight, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the disappearance of Tara Grinstead.
Those who knew Tara and those who heard of her after his disappearance attended a candle light vigil tonight. As they search for answers, they're also searching for peace.
A hug of comfort from one friend to another. They share a common bond tonight...grief over a woman who touched many lives in one way or another.
"We wish you were here with us. We miss you and love you dearly. Come home soon," says Anslie Paulk.
It started while it was still daylight. News, Weather, and Sports for Albany, Valdosta, and Thomasville, from WALB. Leading the way for South Georgia. - One year since Tara Grinstead's disappearance
One year since Tara Grinstead's disappearance
October 22, 2006
Ocilla - - One year ago today an Ocilla beauty queen went missing, leaving a permanent shock to family, friends, and students where she taught. Tonight, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the disappearance of Tara Grinstead.
Those who knew Tara and those who heard of her after his disappearance attended a candle light vigil tonight. As they search for answers, they're also searching for peace.
A hug of comfort from one friend to another. They share a common bond tonight...grief over a woman who touched many lives in one way or another.
"We wish you were here with us. We miss you and love you dearly. Come home soon," says Anslie Paulk.
It started while it was still daylight. News, Weather, and Sports for Albany, Valdosta, and Thomasville, from WALB. Leading the way for South Georgia. - One year since Tara Grinstead's disappearance
#70
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:45 PM
Texas EquuSearch Expands Its Goals For Finding Missing Loved Ones
By David Lohr December 12, 2006
DICKINSON, Texas. (Crime Library) - Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with Tim Miller, who is the founder and leader of Dickinson-based search and recovery team Texas EquuSearch. You may remember reading about them in an exclusive Crime Library article Katherine Ramsland wrote last year. EquuSearch is made up of over 350 members and they have been active in over 600 missing persons searches. In recent years they received national publicity for their active participation in the disappearances of Tara Grinstead, Natalee Holloway and Renee Fox.
"I don't know how to say no. I can't do it," Tim said. "When a family calls us we know they are desperate and I do everything in my power to help them. I've been in their shoes and I know what it's like."
Tim has first-hand experience when it comes to the loss of a loved one. In 1984, his 16-year-old daughter Laura disappeared. Her body was found 17 months later in a field.Hers was the forth body recovered from the same field since April 1984. Two of those bodies have never been identified and are called Jane and Janet Doe.
"Before Laura disappeared I never realized how many missing persons were out there." It was that realization, along with his own desire for justice, which led Miller to form Texas EquuSearch. "I discovered we could do something to help families in similar situations."
During my conversation with Tim, I asked him if it still bothered him that Laura's killer has never been caught. His response is typical of his big heart and willingness to help others.
"Nothing is worse than having a murdered child, but I can live with that. If I had my choice, if her killer could be found or if Jane and Janet Doe could be identified, I would want to know who those girls are. There is a family out there searching for them right now. Every time the phone rings or there is a knock on the door they jump, wondering if it is their missing loved one. They've never been able to say goodbye. Never been able to put their lives back together. I've been blessed. I can visit Laura at the cemetery whenever I want and sit and talk with her."
EquuSearch has had successful results in over 100 cases to date, however Tim is not even close to being satisfied. Not yet anyway.
Texas EquuSearch Expands Its Goals For Finding Missing Loved Ones - The Crime library
By David Lohr December 12, 2006
DICKINSON, Texas. (Crime Library) - Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with Tim Miller, who is the founder and leader of Dickinson-based search and recovery team Texas EquuSearch. You may remember reading about them in an exclusive Crime Library article Katherine Ramsland wrote last year. EquuSearch is made up of over 350 members and they have been active in over 600 missing persons searches. In recent years they received national publicity for their active participation in the disappearances of Tara Grinstead, Natalee Holloway and Renee Fox.
"I don't know how to say no. I can't do it," Tim said. "When a family calls us we know they are desperate and I do everything in my power to help them. I've been in their shoes and I know what it's like."
Tim has first-hand experience when it comes to the loss of a loved one. In 1984, his 16-year-old daughter Laura disappeared. Her body was found 17 months later in a field.Hers was the forth body recovered from the same field since April 1984. Two of those bodies have never been identified and are called Jane and Janet Doe.
"Before Laura disappeared I never realized how many missing persons were out there." It was that realization, along with his own desire for justice, which led Miller to form Texas EquuSearch. "I discovered we could do something to help families in similar situations."
During my conversation with Tim, I asked him if it still bothered him that Laura's killer has never been caught. His response is typical of his big heart and willingness to help others.
"Nothing is worse than having a murdered child, but I can live with that. If I had my choice, if her killer could be found or if Jane and Janet Doe could be identified, I would want to know who those girls are. There is a family out there searching for them right now. Every time the phone rings or there is a knock on the door they jump, wondering if it is their missing loved one. They've never been able to say goodbye. Never been able to put their lives back together. I've been blessed. I can visit Laura at the cemetery whenever I want and sit and talk with her."
EquuSearch has had successful results in over 100 cases to date, however Tim is not even close to being satisfied. Not yet anyway.
Texas EquuSearch Expands Its Goals For Finding Missing Loved Ones - The Crime library
#71
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:45 PM
The search for Tara Grinstead continues
March 26, 2007 05:39 PM CDT
Ocilla -- A year and five months ago, a popular Ocilla school teacher disappeared. Ocilla Police continue to work with the GBI to search for Tara Grinstead.
There are no solid leads in the case, but police still hang a sign with Tara's picture outside their building. Officers say they aren't giving up hope.
"The case is still being actively pursued. Were still hoping that somebody out there has some information that would help resolve this matter," said Ocilla Police Chief Billy Hancock.
Hancock says he's frustrated because he believes someone out there has information that can help them solve this case. Police continue to work with Tara's family for leads.
WALB.com News, Weather and Sports for Albany, Valdosta and Thomasville. Leading the way for South Georgia. - The search for Tara Grinstead continues
March 26, 2007 05:39 PM CDT
Ocilla -- A year and five months ago, a popular Ocilla school teacher disappeared. Ocilla Police continue to work with the GBI to search for Tara Grinstead.
There are no solid leads in the case, but police still hang a sign with Tara's picture outside their building. Officers say they aren't giving up hope.
"The case is still being actively pursued. Were still hoping that somebody out there has some information that would help resolve this matter," said Ocilla Police Chief Billy Hancock.
Hancock says he's frustrated because he believes someone out there has information that can help them solve this case. Police continue to work with Tara's family for leads.
WALB.com News, Weather and Sports for Albany, Valdosta and Thomasville. Leading the way for South Georgia. - The search for Tara Grinstead continues
#72
Kathylene
Kathylene
-
- Guests
Posted 14 May 2007 - 02:46 PM
Where is Tara?
OCILLA - In 2005, 834,536 missing persons cases were logged into the National Crime Information Center database by the FBI. But it was the one reported in a rural South Georgia town that launched what investigators have called an unprecedented investigation, involving hundreds of local, state and federal agents all tasked with one goal: to find Tara.
The Irwin County High School history teacher and former beauty queen Tara Grinstead was last seen on Oct. 22, 2005, when she left a pageant presumably headed home.
The events between the time she left the pageant that Saturday evening and the time she was reported missing after failing to show up for work Monday morning are still shrouded in mystery.
Ocilla is a shadow of the way it was immediately after she was reported missing. The thousands of volunteers who flocked to the town to help search the countryside for Grinstead have returned to their homes. The flyers that once peppered most every light pole and many trees are now mostly gone. An answering machine is now the lone sentry at the once buzzing Tara Command Center.
Grinstead's house, the epicenter of the investigation and the place where many believe was the last place she was before her disappearance, has been cleared out and leased to a new tenant.
But Tara is still on the minds of the people of Irwin County.
At the place where she used to energize and inspire area youth as a teacher, a student- run group "Teens for Tara" has sponsored their own searches and continue to support search efforts.
Grinstead's colleagues at Irwin County High School have formed their own group aptly named "Teachers for Tara."
School staff members have set up the Tara Grinstead Recognition Award, given to people who participate in the Miss Red and Black pageant all of their years in high school. Grinstead organized and directed the pageant for six years.
And the case still garners the occasional media coverage. Television stations and newspapers sporadically sport features on the missing teacher, barely resembling the deluge of reporters and photographers that rolled in casting the eyes of the nation onto the case.
Court TV's "Haunting Evidence" recently featured Grinstead on their international broadcast earlier this month, which prompted responses on the findtara.com guest book from far away lands such as Northern Ireland and England.
CHIEF "FRUSTRATED" WITH CASE
Law enforcement officials admit that with their investigation trudging into its 18th month of operation, they’re frustrated with a lack of credible leads, good information and physical evidence.
One who knows this more than most is Ocilla Police Chief Billy Hancock. A community supporter as well as its top law man, Hancock says that after 18 months, the Grinstead case haunts him.
"I think about her and the case everyday," Hancock said. "It's there when I wake up and there when I go to bed. I need a conclusion to this, the family needs a conclusion to this and the community needs a conclusion to this."
Hancock said that he communicates with family members periodically and prays everyday that the one piece of information that is still out there, will come in.
"It's amazing," Hancock said. "She literally has vanished off the face of the Earth. I know there has to be someone out there that has some kind of information about where she is."
Hancock said that people hold their breaths when human remains or a body turns up in a neighboring county.
Just this week the body of a female was found floating in a pond in neighboring Tift County. Investigators quickly identified the woman as the 76-year-old landowner, but Hancock said that it was too close for comfort.
"I debated on whether or not to go over there or call over and ask if the body matched her (Tara) description, but I knew that if it was her, they'd let us know."
Hancock says that he can't imagine the plight of Grinstead's family.
"Its one thing to suffer the death of a loved one," Hancock said. "But just not knowing has got to be unimaginable. It's frustrating not to be able to bring them some kind of comfort."
And while Hancock's frustration grows with every day that the Grinstead case remains open, he has hope for a resolution.
"I truly think this case is solvable," Hancock said.
GBI: GRINSTEAD CASE "UNPRECEDENTED"
Gary Rothwell knows the value of patience. Just recently he was able to make an arrest in a 20-year-old case that involved a woman who, like Grinstead, had seemingly vanished until she popped up two years after being reported missing.
The head of the GBI operations in Perry, Rothwell has overseen the Grinstead investigation from day one. According to him, it has been one unprecedented in GBI history.
"This office basically shut down outside operations for about a year to focus on the Grinstead investigation," Rothwell said. "At its peak, we had 60 or more agents working the case."
Rothwell said that while tips come in slower these days, the GBI is just as involved in pursuing leads now as they were when Grinstead first went missing.
"Some people think that we've just stopped investigating because they don't see the flurry of activity that there was when we had 60 agents on the case," Rothwell said. "But there is rarely a day that goes by that someone isn't working some aspect of the case. It's far from being a cold case."
As recently as April 12, GBI agents served a search warrant on a Tift County home and excavated a portion of the property off Third Avenue after receiving information that Grinstead's body may have been buried there. The search turned out fruitless, but agents continue to search out leads in the case.
In the GBI database, Grinstead's file is coded as a "25 Cas" or 'other' investigation, meaning that even though investigators are treating the case as a murder investigation, until they find any evidence of foul play or a body, it will technically be listed as a missing persons case.
Agents haven't discounted the possibility that Grinstead may have just packed up and moved away, and that she may still be alive somewhere and for whatever reason hasn’t contacted anyone. But, as a matter of practice, agents often treat missing person cases as murder investigations until they can disprove foul play.
Rothwell said that agents frequently monitor message boards set up by those associated with Ocilla and Grinstead for any possible clues that could come up. And while some users may bash the work of his investigators, Rothwell said that these types of cases can't be rushed to a conclusion and that often, a case can break with one small piece of information.
"There are a lot of people out there that don't know the difference between suspicion and proof of involvement," Rothwell said. "These investigations are a lot like a math formula. We have a bunch of the variables compiled, but until we get that one piece that can connect them all together, we just can't solve it."
The GBI's file on Grinstead is massive. Currently it's the largest single investigation on record with the bureau, taking 20 minutes just to download the thousands of pages of information from servers.
And while there haven't been any major breaks in the case, at least none made public, Rothwell remains optimistic that they will ultimately find the missing Irwin County teacher. "This case is far from closed and until it is, we won't stop trying to find what happened to her," Rothwell said.
Albany Herald 20070422n4.htm
OCILLA - In 2005, 834,536 missing persons cases were logged into the National Crime Information Center database by the FBI. But it was the one reported in a rural South Georgia town that launched what investigators have called an unprecedented investigation, involving hundreds of local, state and federal agents all tasked with one goal: to find Tara.
The Irwin County High School history teacher and former beauty queen Tara Grinstead was last seen on Oct. 22, 2005, when she left a pageant presumably headed home.
The events between the time she left the pageant that Saturday evening and the time she was reported missing after failing to show up for work Monday morning are still shrouded in mystery.
Ocilla is a shadow of the way it was immediately after she was reported missing. The thousands of volunteers who flocked to the town to help search the countryside for Grinstead have returned to their homes. The flyers that once peppered most every light pole and many trees are now mostly gone. An answering machine is now the lone sentry at the once buzzing Tara Command Center.
Grinstead's house, the epicenter of the investigation and the place where many believe was the last place she was before her disappearance, has been cleared out and leased to a new tenant.
But Tara is still on the minds of the people of Irwin County.
At the place where she used to energize and inspire area youth as a teacher, a student- run group "Teens for Tara" has sponsored their own searches and continue to support search efforts.
Grinstead's colleagues at Irwin County High School have formed their own group aptly named "Teachers for Tara."
School staff members have set up the Tara Grinstead Recognition Award, given to people who participate in the Miss Red and Black pageant all of their years in high school. Grinstead organized and directed the pageant for six years.
And the case still garners the occasional media coverage. Television stations and newspapers sporadically sport features on the missing teacher, barely resembling the deluge of reporters and photographers that rolled in casting the eyes of the nation onto the case.
Court TV's "Haunting Evidence" recently featured Grinstead on their international broadcast earlier this month, which prompted responses on the findtara.com guest book from far away lands such as Northern Ireland and England.
CHIEF "FRUSTRATED" WITH CASE
Law enforcement officials admit that with their investigation trudging into its 18th month of operation, they’re frustrated with a lack of credible leads, good information and physical evidence.
One who knows this more than most is Ocilla Police Chief Billy Hancock. A community supporter as well as its top law man, Hancock says that after 18 months, the Grinstead case haunts him.
"I think about her and the case everyday," Hancock said. "It's there when I wake up and there when I go to bed. I need a conclusion to this, the family needs a conclusion to this and the community needs a conclusion to this."
Hancock said that he communicates with family members periodically and prays everyday that the one piece of information that is still out there, will come in.
"It's amazing," Hancock said. "She literally has vanished off the face of the Earth. I know there has to be someone out there that has some kind of information about where she is."
Hancock said that people hold their breaths when human remains or a body turns up in a neighboring county.
Just this week the body of a female was found floating in a pond in neighboring Tift County. Investigators quickly identified the woman as the 76-year-old landowner, but Hancock said that it was too close for comfort.
"I debated on whether or not to go over there or call over and ask if the body matched her (Tara) description, but I knew that if it was her, they'd let us know."
Hancock says that he can't imagine the plight of Grinstead's family.
"Its one thing to suffer the death of a loved one," Hancock said. "But just not knowing has got to be unimaginable. It's frustrating not to be able to bring them some kind of comfort."
And while Hancock's frustration grows with every day that the Grinstead case remains open, he has hope for a resolution.
"I truly think this case is solvable," Hancock said.
GBI: GRINSTEAD CASE "UNPRECEDENTED"
Gary Rothwell knows the value of patience. Just recently he was able to make an arrest in a 20-year-old case that involved a woman who, like Grinstead, had seemingly vanished until she popped up two years after being reported missing.
The head of the GBI operations in Perry, Rothwell has overseen the Grinstead investigation from day one. According to him, it has been one unprecedented in GBI history.
"This office basically shut down outside operations for about a year to focus on the Grinstead investigation," Rothwell said. "At its peak, we had 60 or more agents working the case."
Rothwell said that while tips come in slower these days, the GBI is just as involved in pursuing leads now as they were when Grinstead first went missing.
"Some people think that we've just stopped investigating because they don't see the flurry of activity that there was when we had 60 agents on the case," Rothwell said. "But there is rarely a day that goes by that someone isn't working some aspect of the case. It's far from being a cold case."
As recently as April 12, GBI agents served a search warrant on a Tift County home and excavated a portion of the property off Third Avenue after receiving information that Grinstead's body may have been buried there. The search turned out fruitless, but agents continue to search out leads in the case.
In the GBI database, Grinstead's file is coded as a "25 Cas" or 'other' investigation, meaning that even though investigators are treating the case as a murder investigation, until they find any evidence of foul play or a body, it will technically be listed as a missing persons case.
Agents haven't discounted the possibility that Grinstead may have just packed up and moved away, and that she may still be alive somewhere and for whatever reason hasn’t contacted anyone. But, as a matter of practice, agents often treat missing person cases as murder investigations until they can disprove foul play.
Rothwell said that agents frequently monitor message boards set up by those associated with Ocilla and Grinstead for any possible clues that could come up. And while some users may bash the work of his investigators, Rothwell said that these types of cases can't be rushed to a conclusion and that often, a case can break with one small piece of information.
"There are a lot of people out there that don't know the difference between suspicion and proof of involvement," Rothwell said. "These investigations are a lot like a math formula. We have a bunch of the variables compiled, but until we get that one piece that can connect them all together, we just can't solve it."
The GBI's file on Grinstead is massive. Currently it's the largest single investigation on record with the bureau, taking 20 minutes just to download the thousands of pages of information from servers.
And while there haven't been any major breaks in the case, at least none made public, Rothwell remains optimistic that they will ultimately find the missing Irwin County teacher. "This case is far from closed and until it is, we won't stop trying to find what happened to her," Rothwell said.
Albany Herald 20070422n4.htm
#73
Denise
-
- Members
-
- 5,184 posts
Advanced Member
- LocationMetropolitan St. Louis
Posted 18 June 2007 - 06:18 AM
http://www.ajc.com/m.../0618where.html
Disappearance of Tara Grinstead got attention, few clues
By BILL MONTGOMERY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/18/07
The photograph of the vanished brunette beauty queen and high school history teacher graces the Web and has been grist for TV crime show mavens Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren. Her face smiled from a "missing person" billboard on a main street in Tifton.
As more time elapses since her students in Ocilla last saw her 21 months ago, authorities suspect that whatever happened to Tara Grinstead was nothing good.
"Nobody's ready to make a public call, but we go into these missing person cases assuming there is foul play, that the worst has occurred, though we hope for the best," said Special Agent Gary Rothwell, head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's office in Perry. "We cover both alternatives, so we treat the scene where she was last believed to be, in this case, her house, as if a crime had occurred."
A $200,000 reward, $100,000 for her safe return and $100,000 for information leading to an arrest, is posted for Grinstead, who was 30 years old when she was last seen about 11 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2005, at a neighborhood cookout about six blocks from her house in Ocilla, a town of about 3,300 in south-central Georgia's Irwin County.
A popular teacher at Irwin County High School in Ocilla and a Hawkinsville native, Grinstead was an experienced pageant contestant and a three-time Miss Tifton; she spent the last day she was seen helping other contestants do their hair and makeup for the Miss Sweet Potato Pageant in nearby Fitzgerald. That night, at the cookout, she received a call on her cellphone, "the last contact we're aware of," Rothwell said.
Known for her punctuality, her fellow teachers knew something was seriously amiss when Grinstead did not appear at school the following Monday.
In her eighth year of teaching high school, she was pursuing a doctoral degree in U.S. History at Valdosta State University and, according to her older sister Anita Gattis, had ambitions of becoming of school principal or perhaps teaching at the college level.
Investigators found her cellphone in her house, along with her dog and cat, both unharmed. Her purse and car keys were gone but her white Mitsubishi was in the driveway, unlocked.
There were no conclusive signs of a struggle inside the house, although a broken lamp was found in her bedroom.
"We believe had there been an altercation, there would be more signs than a broken lamp," said GBI spokesman John Bankhead. "Her credit cards haven't been used since she went missing, but no contact was ever made with any family member.
"It was uncharacteristic of her not to contact anybody. That's why it doesn't look good."
Investigators have looked at the possibility she was forced at gunpoint from her home, but have no evidence to support that theory, Bankhead said. "We don't know what happened to her ... she didn't travel in a crowd that would have made her a high-risk victim. She wasn't involved in the drug culture or the nightclub culture.
"Most of her time was devoted to education, and the risk factors we find in many missing person cases were not there."
The GBI has interviewed "anyone that we could associate with her, including past boyfriends and acquaintances," said Rothwell. The case file, "adding up all the contacts of people who knew her and the research and interviews involved," is more than 5 feet thick, he said.
"We're not just sitting by the phone, waiting for it to ring," said Bankhead. "We're generating our own leads, and the major way to do that is to reassess everything we've done to see what we've overlooked."
Rothwell said Grinstead's relationship with an Army Ranger who had served in Iraq had broken up "some time previously and had left her distraught." The former boyfriend has been questioned by the GBI, as has a former student who once broke into her house. Neither has been linked to her disappearance, he said.
"The key word is 'evidence,' and a lot of people confuse 'suspicion' with evidence," Rothwell said.
Tara's mother, Faye Grinstead of Hawkinsville, said the boy who broke into her daughter's home "had an obsession of some kind about her."
She said her daughter always let her know when she returned home safely from Valdosta and her night graduate classes. "She knew I was a worrier, so she always called that she was OK."
Tara's father, Billy Grinstead, is an executive in Birmingham with Liberty National Insurance, which has put up $50,000 of the reward fund. His wife Connie, Tara's stepmother, said she still gets calls of possible sightings and keeps in frequent contact with the GBI.
"Some feel she just ran away, but I don't think so," Connie Grinstead said. "She was planning a future, and she was the kind to always think ahead. There were too many things going for her."
Tara's stepmother said she had a call once suggesting the young woman had been spotted at a [Birmingham] truck stop. "We talked to people on every shift, who described a very attractive girl with long brown hair ... it turned out not to be her.
"People might think that would be annoying, but I'm grateful that people are willing to call. ... We get very sad and discouraged, but we have not completely shut the door on hope."
DO YOU HAVE A TIP?
Anyone with information on Tara Grinstead is asked to call the GBI at 478-987-4545 or the toll-free tip line at 1-800-567-8477.
Disappearance of Tara Grinstead got attention, few clues
By BILL MONTGOMERY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/18/07
The photograph of the vanished brunette beauty queen and high school history teacher graces the Web and has been grist for TV crime show mavens Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren. Her face smiled from a "missing person" billboard on a main street in Tifton.
As more time elapses since her students in Ocilla last saw her 21 months ago, authorities suspect that whatever happened to Tara Grinstead was nothing good.
"Nobody's ready to make a public call, but we go into these missing person cases assuming there is foul play, that the worst has occurred, though we hope for the best," said Special Agent Gary Rothwell, head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's office in Perry. "We cover both alternatives, so we treat the scene where she was last believed to be, in this case, her house, as if a crime had occurred."
A $200,000 reward, $100,000 for her safe return and $100,000 for information leading to an arrest, is posted for Grinstead, who was 30 years old when she was last seen about 11 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2005, at a neighborhood cookout about six blocks from her house in Ocilla, a town of about 3,300 in south-central Georgia's Irwin County.
A popular teacher at Irwin County High School in Ocilla and a Hawkinsville native, Grinstead was an experienced pageant contestant and a three-time Miss Tifton; she spent the last day she was seen helping other contestants do their hair and makeup for the Miss Sweet Potato Pageant in nearby Fitzgerald. That night, at the cookout, she received a call on her cellphone, "the last contact we're aware of," Rothwell said.
Known for her punctuality, her fellow teachers knew something was seriously amiss when Grinstead did not appear at school the following Monday.
In her eighth year of teaching high school, she was pursuing a doctoral degree in U.S. History at Valdosta State University and, according to her older sister Anita Gattis, had ambitions of becoming of school principal or perhaps teaching at the college level.
Investigators found her cellphone in her house, along with her dog and cat, both unharmed. Her purse and car keys were gone but her white Mitsubishi was in the driveway, unlocked.
There were no conclusive signs of a struggle inside the house, although a broken lamp was found in her bedroom.
"We believe had there been an altercation, there would be more signs than a broken lamp," said GBI spokesman John Bankhead. "Her credit cards haven't been used since she went missing, but no contact was ever made with any family member.
"It was uncharacteristic of her not to contact anybody. That's why it doesn't look good."
Investigators have looked at the possibility she was forced at gunpoint from her home, but have no evidence to support that theory, Bankhead said. "We don't know what happened to her ... she didn't travel in a crowd that would have made her a high-risk victim. She wasn't involved in the drug culture or the nightclub culture.
"Most of her time was devoted to education, and the risk factors we find in many missing person cases were not there."
The GBI has interviewed "anyone that we could associate with her, including past boyfriends and acquaintances," said Rothwell. The case file, "adding up all the contacts of people who knew her and the research and interviews involved," is more than 5 feet thick, he said.
"We're not just sitting by the phone, waiting for it to ring," said Bankhead. "We're generating our own leads, and the major way to do that is to reassess everything we've done to see what we've overlooked."
Rothwell said Grinstead's relationship with an Army Ranger who had served in Iraq had broken up "some time previously and had left her distraught." The former boyfriend has been questioned by the GBI, as has a former student who once broke into her house. Neither has been linked to her disappearance, he said.
"The key word is 'evidence,' and a lot of people confuse 'suspicion' with evidence," Rothwell said.
Tara's mother, Faye Grinstead of Hawkinsville, said the boy who broke into her daughter's home "had an obsession of some kind about her."
She said her daughter always let her know when she returned home safely from Valdosta and her night graduate classes. "She knew I was a worrier, so she always called that she was OK."
Tara's father, Billy Grinstead, is an executive in Birmingham with Liberty National Insurance, which has put up $50,000 of the reward fund. His wife Connie, Tara's stepmother, said she still gets calls of possible sightings and keeps in frequent contact with the GBI.
"Some feel she just ran away, but I don't think so," Connie Grinstead said. "She was planning a future, and she was the kind to always think ahead. There were too many things going for her."
Tara's stepmother said she had a call once suggesting the young woman had been spotted at a [Birmingham] truck stop. "We talked to people on every shift, who described a very attractive girl with long brown hair ... it turned out not to be her.
"People might think that would be annoying, but I'm grateful that people are willing to call. ... We get very sad and discouraged, but we have not completely shut the door on hope."
DO YOU HAVE A TIP?
Anyone with information on Tara Grinstead is asked to call the GBI at 478-987-4545 or the toll-free tip line at 1-800-567-8477.
#74
Denise
-
- Members
-
- 5,184 posts
Advanced Member
- LocationMetropolitan St. Louis
Posted 21 October 2007 - 04:34 PM
http://www.13wmaz.co...x?storyid=44573
Family Remembers Grinstead
Last Update:10/21/2007 6:49:20 PM
Web Editor: Kate Harrison
Dozens gathered in Tifton Saturday afternoon to honor and remember a missing Irwin County teacher.
Two years ago, 30-year-old Tara Grinstead of Ocilla disappeared. Her case received national attention and led to a number of searches for the former beauty queen.
According to Ocilla Police Chief Billy Hancock, local police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation pursued leads for more than a year, even offering multiple rewards for information about Grinstead.
On Saturday, no searching went on, but friends, family and community members did pay their respects to a young woman whom they say was close to everyone.
After a prayer ceremony honoring Tara, they released hundreds of balloons into the sky to pay tribute to her life.
Grinstead's father Billy said even after all this time, no one's giving up hope. He and his wife Connie, who is Tara's stepmom, continue to look for clues and information everyday that could lead to Tara's whereabouts.
In fact, local volunteers who helped the Grinstead's start the "Find Tara" campaign right after Tara disappeared, said nobody's prepared to stop searching for answers.
It's that type of support and committment that stepmom Connie says keeps her and her husband going strong, despite their grief.
"In the beginning, there was so much information coming at us, it was hard to process all of it," said Connie Grinstead. "Now that we're two years into this, we can go back and think about things that were said and done that maybe we've forgotten about, and we could possibly find the missing piece of the puzzle that we all so desperately want to find."
Ocilla Police Chief Billy Hancock says his department, as well as many local volunteers, still actively pursue leads concerncing Tara's disappearance.
If you have any information about Tara Grinstead, you can contact the Ocilla Police Department at 229-468-7494, or the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Family Remembers Grinstead
Last Update:10/21/2007 6:49:20 PM
Web Editor: Kate Harrison
Dozens gathered in Tifton Saturday afternoon to honor and remember a missing Irwin County teacher.
Two years ago, 30-year-old Tara Grinstead of Ocilla disappeared. Her case received national attention and led to a number of searches for the former beauty queen.
According to Ocilla Police Chief Billy Hancock, local police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation pursued leads for more than a year, even offering multiple rewards for information about Grinstead.
On Saturday, no searching went on, but friends, family and community members did pay their respects to a young woman whom they say was close to everyone.
After a prayer ceremony honoring Tara, they released hundreds of balloons into the sky to pay tribute to her life.
Grinstead's father Billy said even after all this time, no one's giving up hope. He and his wife Connie, who is Tara's stepmom, continue to look for clues and information everyday that could lead to Tara's whereabouts.
In fact, local volunteers who helped the Grinstead's start the "Find Tara" campaign right after Tara disappeared, said nobody's prepared to stop searching for answers.
It's that type of support and committment that stepmom Connie says keeps her and her husband going strong, despite their grief.
"In the beginning, there was so much information coming at us, it was hard to process all of it," said Connie Grinstead. "Now that we're two years into this, we can go back and think about things that were said and done that maybe we've forgotten about, and we could possibly find the missing piece of the puzzle that we all so desperately want to find."
Ocilla Police Chief Billy Hancock says his department, as well as many local volunteers, still actively pursue leads concerncing Tara's disappearance.
If you have any information about Tara Grinstead, you can contact the Ocilla Police Department at 229-468-7494, or the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
#75
Denise
-
- Members
-
- 5,184 posts
Advanced Member
- LocationMetropolitan St. Louis
Posted 21 October 2007 - 04:59 PM
http://www.albanyher.../20071020n4.htm
Grinsteads family to hold memorials
A missing Irwin County High School teacher was last seen on Oct. 25, 2005.
J.D. SUMNER j.d.sumner@.at.albanyherald.com
OCILLA According to Connie Grinstead, the last few weeks have been tough.
Each day, as the sun rises and fades at her familys Birmingham home, the new dawn ushers them a day closer to what Grinstead describes as an ominous date: Oct. 22.
It was on that day two years ago that her stepdaughter was last seen alive.
By all accounts, Tara Grinstead was a vibrant, friendly and outgoing teacher at Irwin County High School when she went missing from her home in Ocilla on Oct. 22, 2005. Since then, countless searches by family, friends and law enforcement have yielded very few answers in what has become one of South Georgias greatest unsolved mysteries.
Its to commemorate that solemn anniversary that Tara Grinsteads family and friends will honor her during two separate events Sunday afternoon.
The first will be held at the Chapel of All Faiths on the campus of Abraham Baldwin College in Tifton at 1 p.m. The second will be in Ocilla at 5 p.m.
The last few weeks have just been terrible, Connie Grinstead said. It just seems like whenever the anniversary rolls around, we are forced to relive it.
Connie Grinstead said her husband, Taras father, Billy, has been especially wrought with grief since her disappearance, blaming himself for not protecting his little girl.
But Connie Grinstead, like countless others in Ocilla, clings to a waning hope that somewhere, her stepdaughter is alive.
We know its slim, but we think that she may be out there alive, Connie Grinstead said.
Gary Rothwell, the GBI Special Agent who has overseen the Grinstead investigation, said the case is still open and that he, more than anyone, wants to see the mystery solved.
That case is definitely still open, Rothwell said. Theres been a lot of talk about it being a cold case or whatever, but I can assure you that we have agents still working that case.
Rothwell says the flurry of activity that once defined the Grinstead case has now slowed, but hes hopeful that someone has that one piece of information that may crack the case.
Despite a total of $200,000 that has been offered for information in the case, no arrests have been made and the family admits theyre no closer to finding Tara Grinstead than they were when she first went missing.
But hope, even as slim as Connie Grinstead believes it may be, is still enough to get the family through.
There isnt a day that we dont think about having her back, Connie Grinstead said. And maybe one day we will.
Grinsteads family to hold memorials
A missing Irwin County High School teacher was last seen on Oct. 25, 2005.
J.D. SUMNER j.d.sumner@.at.albanyherald.com
OCILLA According to Connie Grinstead, the last few weeks have been tough.
Each day, as the sun rises and fades at her familys Birmingham home, the new dawn ushers them a day closer to what Grinstead describes as an ominous date: Oct. 22.
It was on that day two years ago that her stepdaughter was last seen alive.
By all accounts, Tara Grinstead was a vibrant, friendly and outgoing teacher at Irwin County High School when she went missing from her home in Ocilla on Oct. 22, 2005. Since then, countless searches by family, friends and law enforcement have yielded very few answers in what has become one of South Georgias greatest unsolved mysteries.
Its to commemorate that solemn anniversary that Tara Grinsteads family and friends will honor her during two separate events Sunday afternoon.
The first will be held at the Chapel of All Faiths on the campus of Abraham Baldwin College in Tifton at 1 p.m. The second will be in Ocilla at 5 p.m.
The last few weeks have just been terrible, Connie Grinstead said. It just seems like whenever the anniversary rolls around, we are forced to relive it.
Connie Grinstead said her husband, Taras father, Billy, has been especially wrought with grief since her disappearance, blaming himself for not protecting his little girl.
But Connie Grinstead, like countless others in Ocilla, clings to a waning hope that somewhere, her stepdaughter is alive.
We know its slim, but we think that she may be out there alive, Connie Grinstead said.
Gary Rothwell, the GBI Special Agent who has overseen the Grinstead investigation, said the case is still open and that he, more than anyone, wants to see the mystery solved.
That case is definitely still open, Rothwell said. Theres been a lot of talk about it being a cold case or whatever, but I can assure you that we have agents still working that case.
Rothwell says the flurry of activity that once defined the Grinstead case has now slowed, but hes hopeful that someone has that one piece of information that may crack the case.
Despite a total of $200,000 that has been offered for information in the case, no arrests have been made and the family admits theyre no closer to finding Tara Grinstead than they were when she first went missing.
But hope, even as slim as Connie Grinstead believes it may be, is still enough to get the family through.
There isnt a day that we dont think about having her back, Connie Grinstead said. And maybe one day we will.
0 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users
Thank you for visiting the website of Project Jason, a 501c 3 nonprofit organization. Your presence means that you care about the missing, and that means so much to us and the families of the missing.