Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BONUS: Did police ignore lead that could've solved Tara Grinstead murder decade ago?

Episode Date: March 19, 2019

With the trial of Bo Dukes, the man accused of helping Ryan Duke burn Tara Grinstead's body to cover up her murder in 2005, come new revelations in the case. One witness says he called police in 2008 to tell them Bo had shared details with him, but cops weren't interested in talking to him. Nancy Grace updates the latest in the trial with private investigator Vincent Hill and then she talks to Tara's close friend Maria Woods Harber. They are joined by Cold Case Research Institute director Sheryl McCollum and Los Angeles psycho analyst Dr. Bethany Marshall. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. On Saturday, October 22nd, 2005, Terry Grinstead went missing from her residence. As the hours turned into days, days into weeks, weeks into months, and eventually months into years, the search efforts never ceased. A few days ago, an individual came forward and reported that they had information

into Tara's disappearance. Enough probable cause was discovered so we could swear out an arrest warrant charging Ryan Alexander Duke with the murder of Tara Grinstead. We always believed that it would be solved. We just did not know when. The disappearance of a beautiful young teacher,

not only beautiful on the outside, but beautiful on the inside, smart to try to obtain her master's degree. I remember when Tara Grinstead went missing. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us right now. A development in the case of Tara Grinstead, who we now know was taken from her home in a tiny town in Georgia,

Osceola, and murdered. The man charged with helping conceal the body of the Georgia Beauty Queen high school teacher Tara Grinstead, also wanted for raping and kidnapping two women much later while he's awaiting trial in hiding Tara's body, is in court. Bo Dukes, charged with rape, sodomy, false imprisonment, on the run, was returned back to the law, and now he's answering up to charges he helped conceal the body of high school teacher Tara Grinstead. I remember when Tara went missing. She disappeared after she left a cookout party thrown by people involved at the school where she taught.

These two, Ryan Alexander Duke and Bo Dukes, no relation, stayed under the radar, although they had been students of Tara's many years before. Then they opened their yaps. They bragged about the murder. Mm-hmm. opened their yaps. They bragged about the murder. Then one confessed to murdering Tara after going to her home to steal money. Joining me right now at the scene, Vincent Hill, former cop turned PI, author of Playbook to a Murder. Vincent, tell me about jury selection. Nancy, first let me say yesterday was a very long day. Potential jurors had to arrive at 8 30 a.m. The judge took the bench at around 9 23 and jury selection began immediately after that. Now the

problem with the jury selection, Nancy, and why it took so long, and I'll get to how long it took, is most of the people inside the courtroom either knew Bo Dukes, they knew of Ryan Duke, they knew Bo Dukes' mom, they knew his family. There was also a lot of relatives that were potential jurors inside the courtroom. So the prosecution and the defense had to weed through that. At one point, juror number nine, a male, was asked, is there anything that would prevent you from being fair and impartial? And he basically said, Nancy, he's already convinced of Bo Duke's guilt.

So he was excused immediately. So at around 3.20, the judge excused the potential jurors, at which point the prosecution and the defense got the jury list. They did their strikethroughs, and then they picked their jury. That lasted about 25 minutes until about four o'clock when a jury was decided yesterday. Seven women, five men, three alternates, two alternates being male, one alternate being female. Opening statements were set to begin, but before that, Nancy, the judge excused their jury so that the GBI agent, Jason Shadel, who is the lead investigator, could give testimony. back and forth between the prosecution and the defense on whether Bo Dukes was read his Miranda when he should have been versus when they called him in for an interview. So once that was determined, or once that was concluded, rather, the judge called the jury back in for opening

statements. Now the prosecution, Nancy, led with a pretty powerful opening sentence, 1,200 degrees to burn human bones. And he went on to say, those are the words of this defendant, the words of Bo Dukes, 1,200 degrees to burn human bones. He described Tara Grinstead. He said those bones belong to Tara Grinstead. Take a listen to what the prosecution had to say, Nancy. This case is about Bo's secret. Bo's secret that he kept for Ryan. It's about his secret. That he helped Ryan destroy, burn, and dispose of her mom. The secret that he helped Ryan destroy, burn, and dispose of her mom. The secret that he kept here

in Wilcox County when he spoke with Asia Shadel on June 16th of 2016. This case is about Bo's lies. Lies that lasted from 2005 to 2016. It's about Bo's cover-up.

It's about Bo's concealment that his best friend Ryan had killed Terry Grinston. And then they both burned a bottle. And it's about Bo's pecan wood and his family's pecan wood that burns hot at 1,200 degrees. Where it burned the bones. Burns the flesh

and burned the bones. After you've heard the evidence in this case, burns the flesh, and burns the bones. It's an action scene. After you've heard the evidence in this case, the state will approve of you beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant is guilty of all the crimes. Now, Nancy, one of the other things that came up during jury selection was to talk about the podcast and any other times that Tara Grinstead's case had made it on the news because the prosecution and the

defense, Nancy, wanted to see if anybody's mind would already have been made up regarding this case. Now, the defense, of course, told the jury that jury that hey this case is not Bo Dukes on trial for the murder of Tara Grinstead. This case is about him concealing the death of Tara Grinstead. He also pointed out the fact that Bo Dukes is facing other charges in another county and that it is the jury's duty not to pay attention to those charges and only focus on the evidence and the facts of this trial. Here's what the defense had to say in his opening statements, Nancy. This case deals statements made during the interview on June 16, 2016. The issue of whether he burned her body, concealed her death, tampered with the evidence, and hindered Ryan Duke's apprehension.

Those specific acts are charged in end-cure, and again, that is a job for a different jury to weigh on a different day in a different trial. The statement I know a lot of people are going to do is that this case is not about some allegation that Bo Dukes murdered Tara Faye Brinson. This is not Ryan Duke's murder trial that begins April 1 a couple weeks from now you know Vincent Hill joining me at the beginning

of the trial for Bo Dukes he's answering up to charges he helped conceal the body of high school teacher Tara Grinstead what type of questions are being asked, Vincent? Nancy, the first witness to take the stand was a very emotional witness. It was Kim Allen Sheridan. Now, she is the mother of Bo Duke's girlfriend. That's right, Nancy, the mother of Bo Duke's girlfriend. Now, she testified to learning knowledge of what Bo Duke's claims

occurred to Tara Grinstead. She also talked about, and she got very tearful when she talked about this, Nancy, she also talked about the rift it caused between her and her daughter because she said her and her husband decided not to let Bo Dukes back into their home because he's not the type of guy she wants around her daughter. But she said she eventually let Bo Dukes back into the home because, as she put it, Nancy, she loves her daughter and she knew if she didn't let Bo Dukes in the home, she wouldn't have a relationship with her daughter. But she also testified, Nancy, that she knew a prosecutor in the county, a local prosecutor, that she actually called to get help, to get advice on what to do about what she heard secondhand from her daughter that Bo Dukes claimed. Take a listen.

She was very frazzled, just and very angry. I don't want to go into the specifics of what Bert told you on that occasion, but did you come to learn information that you felt needed to report into law enforcement? Yes, I did. And that particular information, did it relate to what you knew to be an ongoing case? Yes. And what was that ongoing case? The case of Tara Grinstead. When Brooke told you this information, was there ever any doubt in your mind that you reported to law enforcement? No.

And how quickly was it that you did report? That evening, we started reaching out. Who did you reach out to? To Tim Vaughn. Who is Tim Vaughn? He's a district attorney here in the southern area of Georgia. He's also a lifelong friend of mine. Did you know at that time that Tim Vaughn had any connection to the disappearance,

the case involving the disappearance of Mr. Renstead? No, I had no idea. I didn't know that there was a task force or anything. I just was looking for someone to guide me, to point me in the right direction, and I thought that Tim would be a good place to start. Did you have concerns about reporting this to law enforcement? The only concerns that I actually had were that we get it to the right person and that it concerned me that Brooke had known for a couple of weeks and I needed to make sure that my daughter didn't need legal counsel as well. Do you recall what month that was in 2017 where that conversation took place with Brooke? That was in February, I believe. After speaking with Mr. Vaughn, did you ever come into contact

with anyone who worked for GBI? Jason contacted me. Based on that, did you know if Jason had a meeting with your daughter, Brooke Sheridan? He did. Were you present for that meeting? I was not. Have you ever heard the recording of that meeting? I have not. Do you have any personal knowledge as to what your daughter told the GBI that day?

I do not. Now, at the time that your daughter met with the GBI, what was the status of her relationship with the defendant, in this case Bo Deeks? They were broken up. Subsequent to that, do you know if your daughter ever reinitiated or started a relationship back with the defendant? She did. And as of today's date, what is the status of their relationship? They are still in a relationship.

Now, before we go into your specific conversations with Bo, let me kind of back up and talk to you. You said Brooke is how old again? I'm sorry. I'm 34-ish. Is she the oldest daughter? She's the baby. She's the baby. You talked to us earlier about her job. Where did she get her degree from?

South University in Savannah. After you learned about the situation involving Bo and Ms. Grinstead, was Bo ever allowed back in your home? Not for a while. Wow. It was devastating. Her father and I didn't approve of her continued alliance with Bo it had it broke us that situation just broke the family and had caused so much just emotional stress and turmoil

and there were so many we didn't want him back we wanted to get out of the limelight it it it wasn't our battle to fight and we wanted to step away as much as we could and we just didn't think that Bo was the kind of man that we wanted around our family. But did you allow him back? We did. Why? Because I love my daughter and if if we didn't allow Bo back in, then she wouldn't come around. And I wasn't going to have that. I love my kids.

After a time period when you had allowed Bo back in your home, did you ever speak with him directly about the situation about a caregiver? It was a while after that. Mostly the original time had been at family gatherings and it just wasn't the place to bring it up. We just kind of avoided the situation. But then Brooke moved into, we had moved Brooke while they were

broken up into a home. She had rented a home and I went over there and to kind of break the ice because at this point, if I'm not mistaken, this was during the time when maybe even before he was allowed back in our home, I was going over to visit Brooke and see her, and he was there, and we had some conversations. And I asked him questions, you know. Before I go into that, let me ask you, you said that this conversation may have taken place before he was allowed back in your home.

It may have. I'm not real good with dates. It was me. Oh, yes. Especially with my husband. Well, I mean, it was, it finally got to him too and we had to have that that discussion that if we were gonna if we wanted to see our daughter if we wanted to celebrate holidays if we wanted to be around her we had to allow about Bo back in the house because those were her stipulations that Bo was the

love of her life and he was part of her life and if we didn't want him in her home she would not come into our home. When you had this conversation with Bo, what did you ask him? Basically was what Brooke told us true. Had he helped to dispose of Tara's body and he said yes. Why didn't he tell body and he said yes. Why didn't he tell people? And he said that he had told people over the years, but not law enforcement. And I asked him specifically why Ryan killed her. Within seconds. He said he never

asked him why. Did you ever ask David if he was responsible for the murder of Terry Rousseau? Maybe not in so many words. Kind of like, are you sure that's all there is to it? It was just so hard for me to fathom the whole thing anyway. It was like living in a surreal bubble, but he assured me otherwise. You said earlier that you essentially asked him if the things that Brooke had told you were true.

What was his response to that? That it was true. And based on the conversation that you were having, that you had with Brooke, and then what you had with the defendant, what was your understanding of the role that you played as it related to the disappearance of Tara Grinstead? Things that he told me were that he had helped to dispose of the body, that they had burned it in the pecan orchard, that he had been there that night when it all happened,

or, you know, when they burned the body, and that it had been his truck that was used to transport the body. And I think you mentioned this, but I want to make sure that I ask you specifically. Did the defendant indicate whether or not he ever asked Ryan Duke why he had murdered Terry Brinson? He said he did not ask him. Bo Dukes charged with rape, sodomy, false imprisonment. Now he's answering up to charges he helped conceal the body of high school teacher Tara Grinstead.

Bo Dukes just apparently helped get rid of the body and never said a word about it until he bragged. How does the defendant, Bo Dukes, appear in court? I guess he's dressed up all in a tailored suit with a manicure and a haircut sitting flanked by all of his lawyers, right? Nancy, Bo Dukes had on a suit and tie. He looked very professional. He was very attentive to the jury, Nancy. He listened to every question that was asked during jury selection. He made a lot of eye contact, and he took his own notes about potential jurors. There was a lot of back and forth whispering between he and his attorney, Mr. Fox, but Bo Dukes was very attentive during jury selection. Had there been any outbursts in the courtroom?

Nancy, surprisingly, there were no outbursts in the courtroom. I did, however, notice that after the jury was picked, Tara Grinstead's father and her stepmother were seated in the front row. And during testimony from Bo Duke's girlfriend's mother, the stepmother of Tara Grinstead actually started crying during that testimony, Nancy. Vincent Hill joining me at the beginning of the trial. Is Tara Grinstead's family in court? The father and the stepmother of Tara Grinstead were seated in the front row, just like they were during the bond hearing for Ryan Duke, the co-defendant in this case. Has all the focus been on the defendant or focus on Tara Grinstead? In this case, Nancy, all of the attention has been focused on Bo Dukes.

Now, although Tara Grinstead's name has come up, the focus in this case for now has all been on Bo Dukes, what he told GBI investigators, and what his involvement was in the disposal of Tara Grinstead's remains. Is there a lot of media? Nancy, I lost count of how many news trucks were outside the courtroom. When I arrived here Sunday, there was already the local Albany NBC truck parked at the courtroom. Of course, many of us pulled from their news truck, but I lost count, honestly, Nancy, of how many local media and even national media,

because CNN was here as well during the jury selection. Where are they keeping the jury pool in the courthouse? I mean, they've got to be kept away from the cameras and the media. Nancy, I don't know if it's small-town USA or what it is, but during the break, the jurors were free to roam the hallways. And during the lunch break, they just walked out the same front door as everyone else. So there's really no seclusion, at least during jury selection, of any potential jurors from anyone just walking down the hall. Now, what the judge did instruct once the jury was selected,

don't talk about this case outside in the hall because you never know who is who. And you never know who may be a potential witness in this case. It's been a long and winding road to justice for the family of Tara Grinstead. What a long road they've had to hoe. It all started the night she went to a cookout, like a barbecue pool type party, with a lot of other teachers, the principal, people from the community in her small town of Osceola, not too far from where I grew up, where there's nothing but tall pine trees and soybean fields as far as the eye could see. She goes home that night and she's never seen again, dead or alive. Special guest joining us is Tara Grinstead's best friend, Maria Harbour. Maria,

when you talk about Tara Grinstead, what effect does that have on you? Well, it's just a lot of years of missing her and just remembering the good things that happened. And it's just been a lot of healing and trying to recover from what happened. Maria, let's go back in your mind to then. The day that she went missing that night, what happened? Well, the last thing we knew is that she had gone to the pageant, which she had planned on going to the whole week. She had helped the girls get ready for that, and then she'd gone to the pageant. After that, she went to a party.

You know, no big deal. She was leaving, going home. Nobody thought anything out of the ordinary. She went home. What I thought was she probably got in the bed. And then, you know, so we didn't know anything after that. No one talked to her or saw her after that. She was supposed to come home the next day. So obviously we knew something was going on when she didn't come home and we couldn't get her on the phone. Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Back it up. Back it up. She wasn't at her home. When you say home, what do you mean by that? Okay, she lived in Osceola, which is a very small town, about 50 minutes from where she was originally home. So when I say home, I mean Hawkinsville, because that's where we grew up. You know, that's where her mom lived. Yep, yep, yep. She lived in Osceola, so the next day she was coming home to see her mom and me. And she did that often because she's very close to her mother as you remember she's very you know she watched over her mother even even though she was 50 miles away

and she was planning the whole week to come there on that Sunday and bring her dog and when she didn't come you know we knew something was going on and her mother and I were were worried but it was we thought well maybe you know there's just something to going on, and our mother and I were worried, but we thought, well, maybe, you know, there's just something to it. She is old enough to make her own decisions and go shopping, you know, one day or do something that she doesn't have to call and tell us. So we kind of brushed off maybe it was just something she had planned. You know, we didn't know. That night, we definitely got more worried,

and our mother was just beside herself in worry. And we just really didn't know what to do. I wish now we had called the police then. I mean, obviously, I wish we had done things differently. But, you know, she was old enough to make her own decisions. And we just really thought there's no way something's wrong. I mean, you know, there's just no way. And I get it.

You know, she's a grown woman. You don't want to call her and go, why aren't you here? Yeah. With me is Tara Grinshead's best friend, Maria Harbert. Maria, that afternoon you said she was at a, what, a pageant or prepping people for a pageant or what? She had helped Saturday. She was helping girls get ready. She was all into pageants, as you know. So she was helping them get ready. So that afternoon, she was actually helping the girls at a pageant. And then she went,

what was this grill out she went to that evening? It was with some of her co-workers. Like I said, it's a very small town. So in the school, you know, think about a high school has about 300 kids in it. So it's a very small school with the faculty that's very tight-knit. So it was a lot of faculty members, you know, just kind of at a cookout. It was just cooking out on a Saturday night. And then she went home. Then she went home. How do you know that?

Well, we don't know that. That's the thing. After she left that cookout, we really don't know what happened. I mean, it really comes down to speculation. know that that's the thing after she left that cookout we really don't know what happened i mean it really comes down to speculation now i i know that at some point during the night or during the day she uh had been watching someone's dog so she had taken them the dog and i want to say that may have been how they established she had gotten to the house but either way you know her car was at home tell me about the dog and how they established

that she made it to her home. I know her car was there all muddy. Right. Tell me about the dog. She was like taking care of someone's dog. And it was somebody in the neighborhood, you know, as a younger boy, but she knew the family. So she had met up with him to give him the dog back. Okay. At some point. I think think i think a lot of it is just assumption because you know her car was back at her home didn't they find the clothes that she was wearing that night yes because we had a picture of her that night which obviously that didn't come to a little later because you know like this was years ago so we didn't have cameras on phones and text messaging and all that kind of stuff so we didn't have immediately what she had on. We just knew about what we thought. So yeah, we did end up finding

out that she had come home and changed. And her bedroom to me was very obvious that she had been in the bed because it was unmade. And I know she wouldn't have had her room unmade with her, with people in and out of her house. Like she was going to have it very neat and clean so she had gotten into the bed but we could we never found her pocketbook her pocket was gone her phone was there but her pocketbook was was gone so y'all expect her on sunday she on sunday she doesn't show up then what happened well um monday morning going to, her mother and I was just going to call the school and, you know, check on her like that. Well, before I could even do that, they called me and said, she didn't show up. We're going in the house. So I left immediately and went down and met them at the house. And we went in and obviously couldn't find her.

Wasn't, she was no trace. I mean, she was gone. Nobody knows what happened. No body, no ransom note, no clues, no nothing. Just gone. I'm talking about Tara Grinstead. Maria Harbor with us, Tara's best friend. Maria, what did they ask you? What type of questions did the police first ask you?

Immediately, they started thinking that she had just run off. You know, maybe she's shopping. Shopping? Yeah. I know. I said, yeah. But wait, didn't she have to be at work on Monday morning? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. And she would have never. You can't. When you're a schoolteacher, you can't just not show up. I mean, you know, you can't do that. Like, that's not going to happen. And that's what I told them. I said, there's no way she would have just not gone to work.

So that was in their mind, you know, oh, maybe she's just not wanting to be here. You know, I'm like, no, that's not it. But immediately that's their, you know, response. She would have at least called in a sub. She would have at least called for a sub. I know. Oh, yeah. So then when did it hit you she really was gone?

I mean, this whole idea that she would just leave and go shopping, that doesn't even make sense to me. It was ridiculous. I mean, they called around to see if there was any identified someone, you know, at the hospitals. You know, they checked that kind of thing. But, you know, for several hours, they were just convinced that she just didn't want to be here anymore

because her pocketbook was gone and her phone was there. Let me ask you a question. With me is Tara Grinstead's best friend, Maria Woods-Harbert. Maria, many people have, let's just say, capitalized on Tara's disappearance and investigated it and written about it. You know, a lot of investigation has gone on. Many people have speculated she was in some kind of a sex relationship with her killers, who we now believe to be two of her two former students at

her high school that she was in a state of mind that night where she wanted to walk on the wild side and ended up at some bonfire out in a pecan orchard and then things went sideways but basically what they're saying is because she put herself in a bad situation. To me, that's a victim shaming. There's no evidence of any of that whatsoever that I know of. Maybe somebody knows something. I don't know. But what?

You're her best friend. Could you speak to what has been said about Tara since her death? When it happened, she was just gone. I mean, we had nobody, no clues, nothing. And it was very, very upsetting. There's a million theories about what she did and like you said, what she did to deserve this. And it's been years of defending that. And you can't, you know, I had to take a lot of time away from it because it was just, I constantly try to defend her because there's, you know, it was just so silly.

Some of the stuff was just so ridiculous. But like what? Oh, I mean, it was like, you know, she had a conspiracy and that she paid these people to come do this so she could get attention. And, you know, it was one so silly that, you know, we were, we, that I helped her plan this getaway and, you know, And the reason they weren't finding her is because I was paying for my, oh my goodness, really.

Every boyfriend she had from the time she was 15, 16 on up to when she was missing, I had to tell them everything about. And they had the jerk. And it was so, it's been so bad that anyone that was in her life has been drug through mud and everything.

It's just ridiculous. What do you make of the theories that have been put out there that the night she went missing, she was in a state of mind that she wanted to go to some crazy alcohol-slash-drug-fueled bonfire out at a pecan orchard or something to that effect. I've never heard anything like it in my life. Well, it is silly, and it's really extremely stupid because it's such a, you know, first of all, I don't believe she would do that.

She's just not like that. But even if she did, I mean, who cares? The point is she's not here anymore. That's just like saying if you go to a bar, you know, and you get, you know, taken or killed or whatever, then you deserve it because you're at a bar. I mean, it just doesn't make sense. I mean, do you really think she went out to some party with a bunch of kids in a pecan orchard? I mean, that's the last thing I want to do at one o'clock in the morning is go out with some former students at a pecan orchard and watch them drink booze out of a keg.

If you've got a brain, you'd understand that's ridiculous. A schoolteacher would be fired the next day, you know, because it would not be like you could keep that a secret. I mean, she would be fired. Like, why herself and her career in that position? Because she worked so hard. It's not like her parents paid for her college tuition. She worked to pay that. There's no way she would have for her college tuition. She worked to pay that.

There's no way she would have thrown her career away for just a night like that. There's just no way. That's stupid. Well, I'm telling you, I hear you. John Limley, Crime Stories contributing reporter. Finally, what is the break? Well, let's go back to 2008. The case received renewed attention at that time with a report on the CBS News show 48 Hours Mystery, which noted a similarity in the case to the disappearance of another young woman in Orlando, Florida. In connection with that news story, police at that time revealed that they had found DNA on a latex glove in the front yard, in Grinstead's front yard, just a stone's throw away from her front door. Now, in February 2009, some videos surfaced on the internet featuring a self-proclaimed serial killer who called himself the Catch Me Killer. The man in the videos details what he

claims are 16 female victims that he has murdered, and one of these women he sort of hints at is Tara Grinstead. Though the man's face and voice were digitally obscured, police eventually determined the videos were that of 27-year-old Andrew Haley, and a police investigation ultimately revealed the videos to be part of a bizarre, elaborate hoax, and Haley was ultimately eliminated as a suspect. Then in 2011, 2011, the chief GBI, that's the Georgia Bureau of Investigation investigators, said that the case had gone cold, adding that leads still come in on a weekly basis. announced that they had received a tip, and this is the big break that Maria was talking about, that led to the arrest of Ryan Alexander Duke for murder. About three years before Tara's disappearance, Ryan Duke had attended Irwin County High School, the same school where Grinstead was

employed as a history teacher. According to warrants read in court, Duke had burglarized Tara's home, and when discovered, he strangled her and removed her body from the house. Another arrest, fairly quickly after this, on March 3rd, 2017, was made public in connection with Tara's disappearance. Bo Dukes, and this is Duke with an S on the end, and there's no relation between the Duke and the Dukes. Bo Dukes, a former classmate of Ryan Alexander Duke, was charged with attempting to conceal a death, hindering apprehension and tampering with evidence. At this time, Tara's sister, Anita Gaddis, said she had known Bo D's family for years, but had never connected him with any part of her sister's disappearance. Nancy, as we continue to cover the trial of Bo Duke's going on in a Wilcox County, Georgia courtroom, more than 13 years after the Georgia beauty queen and teacher Tara Grinstead vanished,

we learn, despite this being the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's biggest case ever, they could have solved it a decade earlier if only police had responded to one major lead called into them. On the second day of the trial, the prosecution called as a witness a former Army buddy of Bo Dukes, who says Bo told him about his role in covering up Tara's murder in 2006, just a year after she was killed. They played a recording of John McCullough's interview with the GBI. Did he say that they burned the body? He told you that they burned her, right? Yes, he said they burned the body and then threw it up the field and nobody would ever find anything. You know, like talking s*** kind of.

McCullough told the GBI that it weighed on his mind for years. It sucks. Well, I remember when you called it in, you were like, I don't know if this is true or not. You know, I need to get this off my chest. You've been, you know, because you told me that you saw something on the internet and you looked it up and you were like, wow, I thought that case would have been solved way back then and it wasn't. That's what prompted you to call the first time. You know, I mean, I originally, I originally called, you know, way, like way before just to, hey, you know, what's going on with this and, you know, stuff like that.

You know, and that was probably in 2008-ish, or late 2008, early 2009. Got out in February. So you contacted Bo in 2008 and 9? Police department. Do you remember who? What police department? I want to say it was the one that was at Osceola. It was either Osceola or Fitzgerald,

but it was a local police department, and I was just asking questions. And then it kind of went to nowhere, and then I was just like, okay, well, I'm going to get guessing since nobody wants to talk to me. So you called and asked to get somebody to call you, but nobody ever called you back? Yeah, nobody ever called me. Nobody ever did anything.

Okay, well, I guess, you know, whatever. I can't do anything about it. You know? And then that's whenever I started, you know, calling again. And then, you know, it was the weirdest shit ever. Like, I had a crazy-ass dream. And, I mean, that's what I told you whenever I called you. I was like, man, you know, I had this crazy-ass dream.

And I just, I got to call, man. I got to, you know, do all this stuff. Because if I don't, it's just going to eat away at my damn brain. Which, I mean, it's still kind of dead anyways. It's been a long and winding road to justice for the family of Tara Grinstead. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.