Disappearance of Tara Grinstead

Early life

A native of Hawkinsville, Georgia, Grinstead loved beauty pageants. In 1999, she won the title of Miss Tifton and competed in the Miss Georgia pageant. Her winnings from this pageant and many others she had entered helped her pay for college. She graduated from Middle Georgia College in Georgia and, in 2003, earned a master's degree in education at Valdosta State University. In 1998, she began teaching history at Irwin County High School in Ocilla.

Disappearance

The night before her disappearance, Grinstead visited a beauty pageant (she was active as a coach to young beauty contestants) and attended a barbecue. On October 24, 2005, a Monday morning, she did not show up for work. Co-workers called police, who went to the home where she lived alone. They found her cell phone inside the house. Her car was outside, unlocked. Her purse and keys were gone.

Local police immediately called in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, feeling that "something was wrong" and the case was beyond the resources of the small town police department. The GBI found no signs of forced entry and no sign of a struggle.

Irwin County High School principal Bobby Conner was quoted by the Atlanta Journal and Constitution as saying "We're a small community and this has really touched home because it is something you read about happening elsewhere. This is someone with a tremendous, magnetic personality, and the kids just love her."

Follow-up

In 2008, the case received renewed attention with a report on the CBS News show 48 Hours Mystery, which noted the similarity of this case to the disappearance of another young woman, Jennifer Kesse, in Orlando, Florida, three months later.

In connection with that news story, police revealed that they had found DNA on a latex glove, which was found in Grinstead's yard, "just a stone's throw from her front stoop," according to a 2008 interview with Gary Rothwell of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation:

Rothwell did not identify as a suspect the person whose DNA was found in the glove, but he said that person could help lead to a break in the case. "We believe it is a critical element to solving the case," Rothwell said.
Rothwell said the DNA has been analyzed and agents know it's a man's DNA. But they haven't identified the man. Over the course of the investigation, he said, agents have compared the DNA to dozens of men who knew Grinstead or who were associated with her. "None of them matched," Rothwell said. The DNA also has been entered into Georgia and national databases, but still no matches."

In February 2009, videos surfaced on the Internet featuring a self-proclaimed serial killer. Dubbing himself the "Catch Me Killer", the man in the videos details what he claims are his 16 female victims, and one of these women was determined by authorities to be Grinstead. Though the man's face and voice are digitally obscured, police eventually determined the videos' source to be 27-year-old Andrew Haley. A police investigation ultimately revealed the videos to be part of a bizarre, elaborate hoax, and Haley was ultimately eliminated as a substantial lead in Grinstead's disappearance.

In 2011, the chief GBI investigator said: "this case has never gone cold," adding that leads still come in on a weekly basis.

In 2016, documentarian Payne Lindsey began producing a podcast called Up and Vanished reviewing the evidence on Grinstead's case and investigating it further. The series features interviews with members of the community, friends of Grinstead, and former investigators.

On February 23, 2017, after a lengthy investigation, it was announced by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that they had received a tip that led to the arrest of Ryan Alexander Duke for murder. About three years before Grinstead's disappearance, Ryan Duke had attended Irwin County High School, the same high school where Grinstead was employed as a teacher. According to warrants read in court, Duke burglarized Grinstead's home, and when discovered he strangled her and removed her body from the house. Another arrest, on March 3, 2017, was made public in connection with Tara's disappearance. Bo Dukes, a former classmate of Ryan Alexander Duke with no familial relation, was charged with attempting to conceal a death, hindering apprehension and tampering with evidence. Grinstead's sister, Anita Gattis, said she has known Bo Dukes’ family for years, but never connected him with any part of her sister’s disappearance.