Going West: True Crime - Tara Grant // 57

Episode Date: February 13, 2020

In 2007, a hardworking mother of 2 disappears after getting into an argument with her husband in their home. With a business trip to Puerto Rico planned, police originally thought she had gone there on her own free will and that she wasn't missing at all. But within the first 2 weeks, suspicious emails, secret affairs, and a dismembered body are discovered. This is the murder of Tara Grant. ____________ REMRISE Remrise is a personalized formula based on YOUR sleep issues and patterns. After taking a short quiz, Remrise will recommend the perfect blend of amino acids plus Eastern and Western herbs ground and placed in convenient capsules to get you to sleep - and keep you asleep. Click this link to get your first week FREE!! https://tinyurl.com/remrisegoingwest Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on to crime fans? I'm your host Tee and I'm your other host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. We have decided that as part of our Patreon, we're going to start doing vlogs and kind of show you guys a little bit more into who we are and what we do and how we do the show. So if you're not a Patreon member, head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast. You'll get bonus episodes and now you'll get vlogs and you'll be able to get to know Heath and I a little bit better. Yes, and we're also going to be coming out with a new bonus episode. Sometime this week, so stay tuned for that, it's going to be a really exciting one.

Before we get into this episode today, we would like to give Big Shoutouts to everyone who gave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts last week. Big shoutout to Coco D from Chicago, Kelly from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Lanes from Not Sure Where, but thank you. In a big thanks to Maria from Redmond, Washington, Christina from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Eric from Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Wow, that sounds like a really cool name. Thank you to DJ and Ab in Tacoma, Washington, who listen to our show together. Love you guys.

And Jenny from Norman, Oklahoma, and last but not least, Marcy from Maryland and Cassie from South Bend, Indiana. And thank you to our newest patrons, Katie, Christina, Molly, and Nicole. You guys help keep the going, West going. Thank you guys so much for subscribing. And like Daphne said, if you want some bonus episodes Or you want to check out our vlog head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast and hit the subscribe button All right guys, this is episode 57 of going west. So let's get into it She appeared to have it all. Two beautiful children, a successful career, and a husband at her side.

What many people didn't know was Tara Grant was living in nightmare. It's been four years since her death, but not a day goes by that Tara Grant's mother doesn't think about her daughter. Tara went missing in February 2007 in Macomb County. Her husband, Steven Grant, now sits in prison convicted of second-degree murder. Steven Grant has been sentenced to 50 to 80 years in prison for killing his wife and dismembering her body. in prison for killing his wife and dismembering her body. Tara Lynn Distram was born on June 28, 1972 in Perkins, Michigan to Mary and Gerald Distramp along with her sister Alicia. And Perkins is a very small quiet town where Tara's family had a little hobby farm, which is basically just a farm that you have as additional income and just for fun, not for your main

source of income. Tara and her sister spent their days caring for and playing with their cats and animals on the property along with their daily chores. Mary, Tara's mom, worked as a dental assistant and taught the girls how to grow vegetables and garden, and her husband Gerald was a wastewater treatment operator at Sawyer Air Force Base. Tara was always known to be very friendly and talkative and her teachers even stated that she talked too much, but she just really enjoyed being social rather than causing trouble. Tara was a girl scout and had a very happy upbringing, going to camp and being awarded many pins and patches on her sash.

Her and her sister Alicia also loved rollerblading in their school's gym on the weekends, going for long bike rides and exploring local rivers. They raised sheep, cows, pigs, chickens, horses, and rabbits on the farm who they absolutely loved. They were also taught firearm safety at a young age by their father and Tara eventually won awards on her BB gun team. Every March, the Distramps would tap maple trees on their farm and produce maple syrup, so her childhood was heavily revolved around being outdoors and around family, which was just the kind of idealic lifestyle that Perkins Michigan provided. Tara also had a great high school experience where she was a cheerleader, as well as a

first chair-clair-net player in the school's band, and she also played basketball and ran track. On top of all that, she played piano and sang for fun. I mean, it just seems like there's nothing this girl can't do. By the time she was in high school, she had already developed so many skills, so props to her parents for being so encouraging and motivating. Yeah, it seems like she just was an all around busy body and that she had a really nice childhood. After Tara graduated from mid-pennensula school district in Perkins, which is where she went to high school, in 1990, she began attending Bay-Denoc community college in Eskanova, Michigan, which is only about 30 minutes away from her hometown, making it a very easy commute.

After two years of community college, Tara transferred to Michigan State University in East Lansing. And this would be her first time living away from home since the school was a five and a half hour drive from her parents' farm, which was a difficult transition for her, but she was excited about moving forward in her life and following her dreams. At university, she studied business administration. She dated a few different guys casually in college, but she was really focused on her studies. On top of school, she worked at a clothing store, so she didn't have much time for dating anyways. But just months before her graduation, and after Tara had just turned 22 years old,

her roommate introduced her to a young man named Stephen Grant, who was about 25 years old at the time. Tara didn't like Steven too much when they initially met. He was a in fact, Steven had asked Tara out and she said no. Her excuse was that she was seeing someone from her hometown, but Steven didn't want to give up on a potential relationship with her. Just a few months later, Tara's grandmother passed away, so she flew back home to attend the funeral with the rest of the family. But to her surprise, Steven Grant also showed up. And to make the situation more awkward, Tara's hometown boyfriend was also there. According to Steven, he went to dinner with her family after, but he didn't feel welcome considering he didn't know any of them and they were all mourning. So he

went back to East Lansing right after. But the next day, Tara called Steven and told him that she was in love with him. Obviously, this sounds like a really nice thing to do, but I could definitely see how it would be sort of awkward. I'm just curious what his thought process was. He didn't know anybody in the family. I mean, he says that he did it to support her because they were friends,

but everyone thought it was awkward, including him and including Tara, so it just feels like the wrong idea. But it turns out that Tara liked him, so I guess it kind of worked out. Steven Grant was born in 1969, just outside of Detroit and sterling heights along with his sister. His father worked hard and tried to support the family, but the stress eventually just completely overcame him and he turned to alcohol. This put strain on he and his wife's relationship and they ended up getting divorced, but remarried one

year later. When Steven was just 12 years old, he had made a sort of makeshift pipe bomb out of fireworks with some of his friends, which I feel like a lot of young boys do, and it went off in Stephen's yard, blowing a huge hole in the grass. Stephen's dad was so freaked out that he called the police, not knowing his son was behind the act. So the kids made up a story that a man ran by and threw a pipe bomb in their yard and then ran away. When Tara returned to school after the funeral, she and Stephen began dating. Shortly after in December 1994, Tara earned her bachelor's degree.

And she had always wanted to work in business and marketing because she knew she was good at it and the job she had growing up always involved sales. After her graduation and just a few months into them dating, Stephen asked Tara to marry him, and she said yes. She then moved into his apartment, which was close by in a neighboring town. Steven was having trouble finding a new job in politics, so he had to take a job at his dad's

tool-in-die shop in Mount Clemens, which is just north of Detroit. So they made the move down to that area, but the economy apparently wasn't that great at this time, and finding work was harder than usual. So Steven and Tara struggled making ends meet for a while. In September of 1996, when Tara was 24 years old, and Steven was about 27, they got married, and Tara Distram became Tara Grant. Tara's first job in her field was with Washington Group International, which is an engineering and construction firm where she worked as a temp in their Detroit office.

The company very quickly realized how great Taras was at her job, so they made sure to promote her to a full-time position. Soon after this, she was promoted to Operations Manager. In November 2000, Taras gave birth to her in Stevens' first child, a daughter named Lindsay. Almost exactly two years later, they had a son named Ian, who was apparently a surprise. Tara had gone to the doctor and gotten what she thought was a birth control shot, yet it was actually a flu shot, so really not sure how that mix up occurred. But when Ian was born, they were incredibly happy and, of course, loved him very much.

Tara continued to work her way up within the company and even began traveling to their Puerto Rico office, which meant that she was away from home often, and she and Steven began to grow apart. But Tara was also distancing herself from her own friends and family because of her busy work life. It just didn't seem as though she was emotionally available. Now that they had a bigger family and now that Tara was doing better at work, more specifically making over a hundred grand a year, they decided to relocate to Washington Township, which

is just about 45 minutes north of Detroit. They really enjoyed the community and their home there and felt welcome right away. Yeah, they were kind of thriving in Washington Township. They lived in an upscale neighborhood. They had brand new cars. Their kids went to private school. It kind of seems like things were looking up for them at this time. Right. So in 2004, which was a couple years after they made this move, Tara made a point to apologize about being so distant in the recent years and stated that she wanted to make an effort to rebuild her relationship with her friends, children, and her husband, Steven. So on their 10th wedding anniversary in 2006, Tara and Steven renewed their wedding vows.

Although Tara was trying to make an effort, she was still incredibly busy and wrapped up with work constantly. So Steven was left to do much of the errands, cleaning, cooking, and doing anything that the kids needed. I mean, he was even a soccer coach. So basically, a stay-at-home dad, essentially. Well, yeah, and he later stated that he was the perfect mom, not Tara. And because of this, Steven began to resent her all over again.

So in August 2006, he spoke to Tara about getting some outside help. And that's when they hired 19-year-old Verina Dierks, who was an op-air from Allhawson, Germany. Verina was really good with the kids and helped take a load off Steven, but this still didn't fix his marriage with Tara since she was still so absent and they weren't communicating. And it was also around this time I know that she was pretty much working in Puerto Rico from Monday to Friday or almost every week that schedule and then would go home to Michigan on the weekend, so that must have been really hard for her kids and husband to try to operate as a normal family when she's gone a huge majority of the time. Exactly, and the sad part about this is that she has these obligations to her work.

So she's basically the one that's bringing home most of the money in paying all the bills. There's not really much that she can do about that. Well, right. I mean, Stephen worked at his father's shop, and he was a soccer coach. Meanwhile, she is an operations manager. She was the big career person of the house. And, you know, in that traditional family dynamic,

she was the dad, and he was the mom, if we're looking at those traditional views, because obviously people can do whatever they want to do these days, of course. I think that really made him feel threatened and that's a big reason why he was so mad about it. Yeah, and I just want to state for the record, there's nothing wrong with state home dads.

If that's the way that your family operates, that's totally cool. No, absolutely, but since he had such a problem with it, but he wasn't really doing anything about it, he wasn't going out and getting a career in politics, but she had such a passion for her job. And I think he really made her feel guilty about it. Right. And that's one thing that we know about Tara is that she's an extremely driven person. I mean, look at her background. She grew up on a farm, and now she's the operations

manager for this huge company. So we know that it maybe hurts Steven's pride a little bit. But in 2007 or as 2007 rolled in really, Tara made it her New Year's resolution to work on her marriage and make her family more of a priority, which the reason it was so hard for her is just because she was gone so much of the time and juggling all of that was too much, but as of early 2007 she really wanted to change things. But at the same time, Stephen didn't know any of this, so he decided to send an email to one of his ex-girlfriends named Dina Hardy. He and Dina had dated years prior and still kept in touch once a year or so. In previous emails, Stephen had stated that he was married with children, but that he

didn't care about being married along with various other negative comments about his relationship with Tara. But this email in particular was very flirtatious. On January 25th, 2007, Steven sent Dina an email saying, I hope you keep at the nursing thing. You never know when I might need a sponge bath. If you want to practice, let me know. To which Dina responded, you are married. You shouldn't talk like that. How would you like it if Tara was talking like that to the old geezer? Steven then replied, I was only being helpful with the offer to be a test subject. I know they often draw blood from each other, etc. I was just being supportive, not dirty.

I don't care about being married, I never have. It's that no conscience thing, I think. Dina then said, you haven't changed a bit. Don't you worry about being burned eternally by the devil? Why did you get married in the first place? Seemed like the cool thing to do. So this could have easily gone in a very different direction and it's kind of hilarious that he compared giving a sponge bath to be the same kind of test dummy situation as practicing drawing blood and she's just totally not buying it and fully calling him out for being a total scumbag.

Yeah, she basically just shut his ass down. So to that, Steven responded with, the answers in order are no, love, and no. Which, by the way, means no, he doesn't worry about being burned eternally by the devil. He got married in the first place because of love, and no, he didn't think it was the cool thing to do. He then said to her, I think you misunderstood though. I like being married.

I just think of marriage vows like speed limits. Sometimes you have to break them, and sometimes you get caught. You just need to keep an eye on the road to avoid detection. Dina responded, so what are you gonna do with that cheat in wife? I am so bored today. Steven, don't know yet.

By the way, she does talk to that old geezer like that. That is the problem. Actually, never that direct. Everyone is not as subtle as me. The problem is she says things in code, and because of that, I don't know what is actually going on. Also, and I thought I told you this, about two years ago, she did the same thing with some guy she used to know.

Nothing physical, just text and email and phone calls. I know what you think. I just don't know if it was physical, but I do. The magic of intercepted email and phone calls. A mutual friend is a vice president at a computer company, and one of his texts helped out a bit if you know what I mean. If you are so bored, I am still in need of some excitement in my day, wink wink. Tara flew to London yesterday till Friday night and I am all alone with no one to play with. This entire conversation is happening over the course of about an hour.

Steven then sent another email about 13 minutes later, stating, by the way, I do want to see you naked. Naked women are always good to see, especially if you haven't seen them in a while. Photos are nice, but a private modeling session would always be preferable. So when we left off, we were talking about Stephen and Dina's conversation that they were having through email, and we don't have the rest of the transcripts of Dina's response, so we're guessing she may have ignored his sexual advances. We don't know who this old geezer was that both Dina and Stephen referred to, and it doesn't

seem like this was ever discovered, so it's very possible that Stephen was making this whole thing up so that he wouldn't look like he was the only cheater in the relationship to Dina, and in turn she wouldn't feel bad about having an affair with him, but neither situation has been corroborated. Aside from this attempted affair with Dina, Steven also made advances toward their 19-year-old op-air verina, which we'll get into here in a minute. As we stated while reading the email transcripts to Dina, Steven admitted that he had been snooping through Tara's emails, and even went so far to tell his ex-girlfriend Dina that his vice-president friends tech helped him out.

Apparently Tara would sometimes email her friends about how fed up she was with Steven. He seemed to be jealous of all the things she was doing with her life, and often came down on her for not being the perfect mother, despite the fact that she was the one working so hard to provide them a nice home and she was just struggling balancing it all. She even implied to a friend in an email that she had feelings of leaving Stephen. It's unknown if he saw these particular emails, but it's more than likely considering the lengths he was going to to snoop. After Tara returned from London, she planned to stay for a few days before taking yet another

business trip, but this time back to Puerto Rico. Her arrival back in Michigan was planned for Friday, February 9th, but she was nervous about her return because she'd have to tell Steven about yet another trip back to Puerto Rico coming up just a couple days later. She had initially been planning on going back on Monday, but now she had to leave a day earlier on Sunday. So even though it was just a day, she knew that it would cause issues. They had argued so much recently about how much she was away, so she knew that he would be really upset knowing she was coming home for a brief time before going right back

to Puerto Rico. So again, this is Friday night that she returns home and social really only have a day home and then she has to turn back around and go right back to Puerto Rico. So that's why she was so scared to say it because that's only a day instead of two days which isn't very much time either but still. Right, and she already knew that Steven was upset about her being gone most of the time, so the fact that she was going to tell him this probably was going to make it a lot worse. That Friday night, Tara returned home around 10 pm, and while her children were asleep,

Stephen was awake. They immediately engaged in an argument which turned physical, apparently on both ends. According to statements made by Stephen, Tara then told him that she was leaving and would not return before taking her luggage, calling someone to pick her up and saying to them, I'll meet you at the end of the driveway, and then leaving in someone's black sedan. Stephen left Tara multiple voicemails that evening, asking her to just come home and that they could work it out. On February 14th, 2007, which was Valentine's Day, Stephen called the McComb County Sheriff's

Office to report his wife Tara missing. He stated that she had been missing for five days and the reason he didn't come forward earlier is because they had a fight and she left with a suitcase. He also mentioned that she was always gone for days at a time traveling, so he figured that that was why she didn't return by then. But since he hadn't heard from her at all, he started to worry. He told him that Tara had gotten into a dark colored sedan after their fight and that he hadn't seen her since.

In the days leading up to Stephen filing a missing person's report, he had called Tara's friends and family asking if they had heard from Tara or knew where she was, and no one did. Police noted that Stephen appeared to be genuinely concerned about his wife's whereabouts, and that he seemed regretful that he hadn't contacted the police sooner. Stephen was very accommodating and cooperative with police, and it didn't really seem like he had anything to hide at all.

He allowed police to enter their home and look around to see if they noticed anything strange, and he also approved them looking at Hian Thera's cell phone records as well as bank statements. And as soon as police checked into these records, they started to feel like something happened to Thera and that she didn't run away. Because she hadn't used her cell phone since the night of February 9, which was the same evening that she and Steven had gotten into that fight. And her last purchase was made to pay the toll on her way home from the airport that same day.

Police also discovered that Tara did not make or accept a call around 11pm that night, like Steven had stated, making his story about her being picked up questionable. And let's think about this for a second. She is a business woman. She travels a lot, and she probably uses her debit cards and her credit cards, as well as her cell phone to contact people at her company. So the fact that she hasn't used her phone, she hasn't used any of her cards or her bank at all,

means to me and probably to all of you that she didn't just walk away from this. And that's exactly what police were thinking because there's nothing here. If she had walked away, if she had really gone out the door with a suitcase, I'm leaving you husband. It would have been a different story. And also, it was a very convenient story.

She had just gotten back into town and she was leaving basically the next day. And they got in a fight, so she decided to leave. So that original story coming into police's lap, they're like, okay, she's probably in Puerto Rico or she decided to leave. So that original story coming into police's lap, they're like, okay, she's probably in Puerto Rico or she's probably away. But now they see this and they're thinking, no, she's not. Yeah, and we talk about this a lot throughout different episodes and how one of the first

things that police do are check bank statements to see if any card was used so that they can kind of determine whether or not they think a person is missing or a person has run away. So police are now looking for a slim 34 year old woman with shoulder length curly brown hair and brown eyes. They first made some calls around to terrace friends and family to see if they had heard from her and they also checked out her flight back to Puerto Rico days earlier to see if she had even gotten on board, because maybe that would explain why she hadn't been using her phone since she was in a different country.

But when they checked out these records, police were told that she never boarded her plane on Monday. And not just that, but she also hadn't changed her flight to depart on Sunday instead, like she had told Stephen. So please started to believe that whoever picked her up that evening on Friday could have all the information that they needed. At this time, Stephen was not a suspect. The police were really setting their sights on a whole other individual being involved

thanks to Steven's story. But they still wanted to cover their bases and rule Steven out. So they asked him to come down and submit a polygraph test, and Steven agreed to do it, but his lawyer told him not to. So since his lawyer told him not to, he actually didn't end up going through with it. And we've talked about polygraphs in the past, and I know a lot of people aren't keen on polygraph testing, and it's known that polygraphs can be used against innocent people, so opting out of taking one shouldn't always be looked at as suspicious, especially when it comes to people who are emotionally attached to or very close to a case, as that could sway their reactions. And if any of you have seen basic instinct, you can outsmart the test. It's not a perfect science.

On the night of February 9th, when Steven stated that Tara had left the house around 11pm, he had texted Verina the op-air at 10.32pm not to come home for a while and to go out with her friends from the op-air service. But shortly after, she came home to find that Tara wasn't there. Steven had apparently yelled at Verina asking, what the fuck she was doing coming back? After he had calmed down, he apologized to her and told her that he was just upset because Tara had just left after a big fight. Verina was questioned by police to get her statements and see if she knew what was going on, and at first she didn't mention any of this, or anything else regarding her and

Steven. When they were both questioned by police, they were asked if they were having an affair, and they both denied it. Meanwhile, something had been going down between Steven and Verina. It all started a few months into Verena living with the family with gentle flirting initiated by Stephen. And Verena thought it was harmless because it was just little things he would say and they weren't actually doing anything about it. So Verena continued to watch 6 year old Lindsay and 4 year old Ian while Stephen's advances became more direct.

At the beginning of February, Stephen had said to her, you're beautiful, and I want to sleep with you. Over the next couple days, he told her that he wanted to have sex with her. Apparently that never ended up happening, but the whole time that Tara was away in early February 2007, Verina slept in their bed with Steven where they cuddled and kissed. The day before Tara went missing, Verina went to bed with Stephen where they cuddled and kissed. The day before Tara went missing, Verina went to bed with Stephen again, but this time it did include oral sex. The next morning, Stephen's daughter Lindsay actually walked in on them and bed together. Police weren't aware of any of this and had to just go off the fact that both parties stated

there was no affair. On February 17th, her pair of service sent her back to Germany because they didn't feel like it was a good idea for her to be there while there was a serious investigation going on. Police weren't happy about this at all though because they wanted to be able to question her if needed. Steven appeared on the news and in the media almost daily to plead for his wife's safe return and the police were watching him closely.

And I just want to say real quick, this is so reminiscent of the Scott Peterson and Lacey Peterson case. You're actually not the only one to think that, I agree, and we're going to talk a little bit about that more later. Weirdly enough, Steven stated that he was more of a mom than Tara was, and that she worked a lot and wasn't often home. So he kept kind of sneaking these slides digs at her on national television. And this really stood out to police because these aren't the things that you should really be saying if you're a worried husband. You know, like you don't start talking shit. Then, six days after Stephen reported Tara missing on February 20, 2007, his ex-girlfriend

Dina came forward and kind of cracked this case wide open. Dina Hardy went to police and stated that she had previously dated Stephen before his marriage to Tara and that they had kept in contact over the years. But weeks before her disappearance, he'd been reaching out much more than usual and saying very inappropriate things. When police read the emails, they were shocked. So, going back to the old geezer thing, after police read the correspondence between Stephen and Dina, they questioned him about it. He stated that he referred to her boss he thought she was having an affair with as the old

geaser. There were two of Tara's co-workers who were questioning regarding a potential affair, but they both denied having any kind of involvement with Tara nor her disappearance. Police were unable to confirm these emails because they didn't find anything in their search, and her computer that she supposedly conducted such emails on was missing. The Dina emails made headlines, and the general public set their sites firmly on Stephen. Stephen later stated that he was joking about the old geezer thing, including everything else that was said in those emails.

And in interviews, Stephen stated, I did say I want to see you naked, but that's just because I'm a guy. Men I want to see you naked, but that's just because I'm a guy. Men always want to see women naked. Those were private emails sent jokingly to an old friend. There are a lot of things people say just kidding around that they wouldn't want to see on the front page of the newspaper. I understand why he would want to deny this, but you weren't joking to an old friend. No.

Yeah, that just makes you kind of look more like a liar. Yeah, if you would have come out and said, you know what? Yeah, our marriage wasn't great. And I was talking to this other woman. If you really had nothing to hide, you would have said that if that's the truth. It's always better to be upfront in situations like that

than try and like beat around the bush. Because just like you were saying with the Lacey Peterson case, which I'm about to get into a little bit, when you liar you hide things, people think you're guilty. So if you're guilty, don't lie and hide things. Right, he's just making things seem a little bit more suspicious towards his direction. So now that Steven was being looked at as a person of interest in the case and not just as a grieving husband, he addressed it head on to the media. He said, that's what I would think

when I watched cases like this. When Lacey Peterson came up missing in 2002, I was sure her husband Scott did it. But now I'm on the other side of it. Even he is reminded of that case. And for those of you who don't know the details of the Lacey Peterson case, check it out in episode 45 of Going West. Four days after seeing the emails, police conducted a 4.5-hour search of Stoney Creek Metro Park, which was a wooded area near the Grants' home. The Grant family was known to frequent the park together and Tara often jogged there. Stephen had asked to be present during their search, but nothing at all pertaining to Tara was discovered. And just a heads up, the search was done only by humans, there were

no canine units present. On February 28, 2007, two weeks after Tara was reported missing, a woman was on a walk in an area near the Grants home when she came across a bag that appeared to have blood on it and inside of it, along with latex gloves. She found it very suspicious, so she wanted to report it to police. She took the bag to her house and called police, who came by to test the contents. They verified that the bag had indeed included human blood inside, along with very small metal shavings.

Since this bag was discovered so close to the grandson's home, the police were finally able to obtain a warrant from a judge to search the premises. At first, I was really surprised that they were able to obtain the warrant just from this bag since they had not confirmed that it was Tara's blood yet, but thinking about it more, this is a small neighborhood and there is a suspicious bag with human blood and latex gloves which points directly to a murder, and they had no evidence that anything in that regard had happened to Tara yet. So now suddenly there's human blood found in a bag close enough to her home and they think what else could

this come from? So I think that's cool that they could have tamed the warrant from just that. But at the same time, I mean what else could it be from? Right, they lived in an upscale neighborhood. So the fact that there was probably only one missing person in that neighborhood at that time, kind of points the finger in one direction. On March 2nd, 2007, they used said warrant to search the grant home, along with the tool and die shop that Steven's father owned, and which Steven was still employed at. Steven was present while they searched his home and they photographed different

rooms. But since Stephen had just returned home from work when they arrived, he told police he wanted to continue with his normal evening routine of walking his dog. As police continued to search his home, they finally went to the garage where they noticed a storage bin that hadn't been there when they originally peaked around the house with Stephen's approval a couple weeks earlier. Inside was a large black trash bag. While wearing gloves, the officers opened the bag and were horrified to find a human torso which was still clothed. As the body was further examined, there were small metal shavings found.

Police then knew that Stephen Grant was guilty of murder, and they had just let him leave the house to walk his dog. That's when the hunt for Stephen began. They understood that he knew they would find the body in the house, and that by him walking his dog meant he was making a run for it, and they were right because Steven hadn't been walking the dog at all. He actually borrowed his friend's pickup truck and drove away. Police then started tracking his calls, meanwhile they continued to search in the home as

well as his dad's tool and die shop. At the shop, they found similar metal shavings to those found in the bloody plastic bag from the park as well as on Tara's body near the shop's industrial saw. Since they knew the plastic bag was connected to Tara's murder now, the police called for a more extensive search of the Stoney Creek Metro Park, and this time they had canine units. During the search, cadaver dogs were able to recover a majority of Tara's remains buried around the park.

Although Tara's body had clearly been dismembered, a medical examiner was able to determine that Tara's cause of death was due to strangulation, but that she had also endured a blow to her jaw. Going off the cut marks made on her body, they also determined that there were multiple different sharp objects used to dismember her. The Grant family actually had a cabin in Wilderness State Park, which is located at Carp Lake and Northern Michigan, so about four and a half hours drive north of the family home in Washington Township. Stephen had called his sister and told her that he was planning on visiting the cabin,

but she quickly became aware that the police were hunting for him for Tara's murder. So she was actually the one to tip police off. At this time, Verina, the op-air, called police to tell them that she too had received a call from Stephen, saying he was going to the cabin. She was very suspicious of the whole situation, so she knew she had to tell police what was going on. On March 4th, 2007, just two days after discovering Tara's body in the storage bin and nearly a month after she had been murdered, police found Steven Grant at his family cabin, hiding behind a tree, wearing just a t-shirt, slacks, and socks, despite the fact that it was 14

degrees Fahrenheit. And he had gotten a frostbite and hypothermia from his exposure to the cold weather while he was trying to hide from police. Apparently before police arrived, he had taken a load of prescription pills in an attempt to commit suicide. But when the police showed up, he ran outside and tried to hide. Police could tell he had also been drinking heavily and they arrested him for the murder of Tara Lynn Grant. They couldn't question him right

away due to his intoxication from pills and alcohol, so they brought him to a hospital where they could also care for his weather-related conditions so he could shape up for questioning. While Stephen lay in that hospital bed, they were finally able to question him. And to their surprise, he laid out a whole new story, and they made sure to tape the whole thing. Over the next two hours, Stephen told the story of how he murdered his wife. On the night of February 9th, 2007, Tara returned home from Puerto Rico and told Stephen about the fact that she would be leaving in two days once again. They got into a heated argument and when Tara started to walk away

from him, he grabbed her wrist. She then slapped him in the face. In turn, Stephen punched her very hard in the jaw, which pushed her to the floor, causing her to hit her head. She was so startled by this act of violence that she got up and told Stephen she was going to call the police and take the kids away from him. That's when he started choking her with a piece of clothing. At one point while choking her, she grabbed his hands, but he said that he knew it was too late because he was already into deep. He couldn't stop himself, and he knew he would get in trouble either way, so he just kept going because he panicked. Once Tara stopped breathing, Steven tied a belt around her neck and dragged her body into the garage to place her in their SUV.

But while doing so, the belt broke and her head smacked the floor, which he described sounded like dropping a watermelon on cement. Her body remained in the back of the SUV for two days, and to give you a deeper look into this whole event, just after he put Tara's body in the SUV, Verena came home and even walked through the garage to enter the house, which was why Steven was so upset with her because it scared him. That night, Verena slept in bed with Steven, which is so sick, I mean, you kill your wife and then you sleep with a 19 year old, literally right after?

In your marital bed, while your wife is literally downstairs in the garage dead. Two days later, and three days before reporting her missing, he drove Tara's body to his dad's tool-in-die shop where he dismembered her body with a hacksaw blade while he drank whiskey and excess. This process cost him to throw up, but he told himself that he had to do it or he would go to prison for the rest of his life. He then told police, so I just kept cutting her. He then proceeded to destroy her cell phone and laptop.

Afterwards, he used his kid's red plastic snow sled to transport Terra's remains to the woods where he buried her in multiple different places under the snow and soil. And initially, her torso was in the park, but when the police announced that they were planning to search the area, he dug it up and put it in the garage. Interestingly enough though, this transport would be what got him caught. During his confession, he also told police about his affair with Verina, and we also know that he continued to call around to terrace friends and family, as well as call her cell phone to set up his alibi, knowing that she was dead and that her phone was destroyed. It's crazy to me that they were searching for her remains in the park and they were all over the

park and somehow they didn't see. I'm not sure of the weather conditions and if they just didn't notice that there was a bunch of fresh soil or something, but it's crazy that they were there. The evidence was there and also the fact that he was able to dig up her torso and transport it to his house without anybody seeing even though the police had stated that they were going to go there. I mean, that was so risky of him to do anyway, and I can't believe he got away with it until he didn't. And I don't know exactly what this park looks like.

I'm assuming there's a lot of trees, but I just don't know how easy it would be for a person to sit there and dig in public and for people to think I mean, what's this guy doing, you know? And multiple different places and he transported her remains on a bright red snow sled. How did no one see that? Yeah, I don't understand how nobody saw that, but let's give a little credit to the cadaver dogs. Also, I want to mention that the day that the police found her remains in the garage

was the afternoon that he was apparently planning to move her body again. And he had just gotten them two days before and they'd been sitting in his garage while he thought of what he was going to do with them. And he had made this plan that on that afternoon he was was gonna transport them somewhere else. And then the police knocked on the door and said, Hey, we have a warrant to search your house, and he's like, oh shit. Yeah, at this point, he's like,

Hey, I gotta go take my dog for a walk. Which was pretty smart, because they hadn't found anything at that point, so they didn't really know that he was involved at all. And he's like, well, I'm gonna go take my dog for a walk, that's normal. Yeah, this is the only window of opportunity that I have to get away. On March 6, 2007, Steven Grant was formally charged with first-degree murder and mutilation. A little over a month later, Steven's lengthy confession was released to the public, which caused complete pandemonium in not just their town, but across

the world. The family did their best to make sure the children weren't exposed to the true story and decided that they weren't going to tell them what really happened until they were adults. They also determined that Lindsay and Ian would be cared for by Terra's sister Alicia, who filed a wrongful death suit against Stephen. Stephen's trial began on December 7, 2007, so 10 months after he murdered his wife. Verina testified her story on the stands and told the court that she did have a minor relationship with Stephen. She broke down into tears while saying that she had trusted that he had nothing to do with his wife's disappearance and that he was just using her.

Stephen didn't believe it was fair that he was being tried for murder in the first degree when he had not planned her murder and stated that it was in the heat of the moment. But they argued that he had plenty of time to stop choking her and he stated that he had made a mental note while killing her that he knew he needed to carry it out, meaning he wanted her dead. Yeah, he had said that in his confession and now he's saying, well, it wasn't premeditated and they're like, yeah, but while you're killing her, you know that you're about to kill her and you're not stopping. The jury deliberated over three days for a total of 16 hours, but on Friday, December 21, 2007, Stephen was found guilty of second-degree murder with

a minimum of 50 years and a maximum of 80 years in prison. The judge stated that Stephen's actions were demonic, manipulative, barbaric, and dishonest. Stephen, who was 38 when the trial occurred, barely showed any emotion throughout the trial. He currently resides at the Ionia prison in showed any emotion throughout the trial. He currently resides at the Ionia prison in Michigan and is 51 years old. Unfortunately, he will likely have the opportunity to be a free man one day if he lives long enough. His earliest release date is March 3rd, 2057, when he's 88 years old. Our hearts go out to Tara's family, friends, and especially her children who are now in their late teen years. They were lucky to be raised by Tara's loving sister, but

it's so devastating that their beautiful mother had been taken far too soon and in such a horrific way. Thank you everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you so much everybody for listening, and next week we'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into. Remember, if you want vlogs and bonus episodes, head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast. And I forget to mention one thing earlier in the episode. If you guys want to shout out in the show, head over to Apple Podcast, leave us a five-star review, but don't forget to leave your name and your location. Also, make sure to download Best Fiends, the best puzzle game ever, and get your one week free trial of Remrise at tinyURL.com slash Remrise going West. and if you want to see photos from this case and other cases, check us out on Instagram at

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