Up and Vanished - Case Evidence 04.03.17

Episode Date: April 4, 2017

Take a deeper look at the evidence as experts discuss new developments in the case.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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for the general public, there's still a ton of unanswered questions. So much has changed over the past month, and Tara's case has progressed from a 12-year-old cold case to a high-profile active investigation with two back-to-back arrests and an extensive search for her remains on a pecan orchard in Fitzgerald. Since the first episode of this podcast, we've had numerous experts on the show, sharing their insight and expertise in an attempt to make sense of all the madness. With all that's changed recently, it felt right to touch base again with some of those who offered us their insight and expertise early on in the investigation, before the recent breaks in the case. Today, I want to catch up with some of those people in light of all the major breaks in this case. This is Case Evidence. Our first guest today is Tracy Underwood, who spoke with us early on in the podcast.

Tracy conducted multiple searches for pterogrintheds remains all throughout Irwin County with her cadaver dogs. But each time they turned up empty handed. I caught up with Tracy to get her take on everything. You know, looking back on the searches that you performed with your dogs, does it surprise you that she was there, or did you think that she was somewhere else? Well, the area where they've been searching, the pecan orchard, I did not search in that area, and I'm not familiar with the area that they are searching. But the areas, the other areas that we searched, we certainly didn't find any evidence there.

And that's not unusual, honestly. Most times, in cases especially like this one, we may search a dozen more places or even two or three dozen places and not find anything at all. But that's okay because at least we, quote, are a process of elimination, that we don't know where Tara is, but we at least know where she's not. And that's what I tell families and officials that any case we get involved with, there's

really only one thing that we can promise. And that is at the end of the day, we'll know more than we did at the beginning of the day. So being surprised that she was in this area, a little bit, but not for a couple of reasons. One, this is a very, very small community. I'm surprised that especially someone that went to the same school that she worked at and being such a small community that this did not happen sooner. that. I'm not surprised that she was found, you know, in a pretty close proximity of where she was last seen. It is highly unusual for people that are abducted and killed to be with their remains placed long distances. It does happen, but it's rare. So those are the reasons why, you know, part of it I'm surprised by, but the other half of that I'm not surprised by. That makes sense. How many places did you search with your dogs back then? Well, over the years, I would estimate we probably have searched at least 30 different areas over the years. Of course, the first few days or few

weeks, we searched a lot of areas. And then as leads would come up or rumors or hearsay, they would call me. We would go down there, check it, clear it, say, you know, what we're looking for is not here. So I had to guess at least 30 times or 30 different areas we've searched over the years. Did you ever bring your dogs to Tara's house at all? Well, no. No, we did not. We drove by the house, but we did not search it with the dog. It was my understanding the house was thoroughly checked and investigated, so the dog was not used inside her house or around her house.

How long after the death can a dog trace the scent? I mean, if dogs were sent out to the pecan orchard a few weeks ago or something before they found her remains, could they have found it, the dogs? That's a very good question. And the answer to that is you have several different variables here. Let's say, and this is just theoretical, if someone was killed inside their home and let's say there was blood there or even if they were inside the home for a period of time and then their body was transported and removed from the home and placed somewhere else. The scent there depends upon different variables, but there could still be residual scent. I think it's important to note to listeners that human remains detection dogs are clearly that.

They are trained to locate human remains, and that is the scent of human remains. It should be clarified that detection dogs do not locate drugs or bombs or deceased individuals. What they are locating and indicating to is the scent of that particular item that they've been imprinted on. And in this case, it's human remains. that with someone, let's say if they were buried somewhere and then removed from that area, that scent is still going to remain. And in this case, I don't know the details, but it's my understanding that the officials are searching a pecan orchard and presumably she was buried there and that was 12 years ago. So we have now a situation where Tara's remains presumably had been buried and burned. Well, the scent itself is still going to be there.

For example, drug dealers have been trying to hide the scent of drugs in a variety of very creative ways, but the dog's ability to smell things and to, in this case, smell drugs is very, very difficult to mask that. Even if her remains were buried and burned, the scent still is going to be there and the dolls will indicate to it. My dolls, specifically the oldest remains that they have found and have been verified, are about approximately 250 years old. And those were Revolutionary War battlefield soldiers that were killed in the line of duty during the battle. So even after 12 years, the scent's still going to be there. Not only the remains as the body decomposes, all of that cadaver fluid, the decomposition of skin and organs

and everything that goes into the process of the body decomposing is absorbed into the ground, the plant life, the dirt, and it stays there for many, many, many years. So even after they remove her remains, it's not unusual for human remains detection dogs to go in that area and still alert where she was buried because that scent has been absorbed into the environment and will stay there for many years. So the short answer to your question, if the dogs were brought to that pecan orchard, there is a very high probability that they would have indicated to her remains and to her grave site, even if she's been burned and buried. During your searches, the 30 or so searches you did over the years for Tara,

did you ever search anywhere in Fitzgerald? We did search a few places in Fitzgerald. I don't recall the exact locations, but I do remember specifically we did not search in any of the Conwell troops. remember specifically, we did not search in any Pecan War troops. There were a few fields, like cotton fields or little ponds or creeks and things like that, but no Pecan War troops. So according to the GBI, Tara was killed inside of her home and her body was removed the same day. If dogs were sent out to the house to detect the scent of,

I guess, cadaver at that point, not human remains, how long would she have to have been there deceased in order for any dog to pick up that scent at her house? There are different variables from the transition of a dog detecting a live person versus a dead person. Now, when we die, our body immediately starts decomposing. So, if it's a situation where there's open wounds, the decomposition process is certainly going to go much quicker. There's also, you know, the blood and other body fluids that are going to come out of the body

and then be absorbed into the environment, let's say carpet or hardwood floors or a couch or a bed. It's my understanding from the news reports that she was strangled, so I'm assuming that there was probably no open wounds or trauma to her body. So we now have a fully intact body that is starting the decomposition process. Now, the hotter it is, the quicker the body is going to decompose.

The cooler it is, the slower it's going to decompose. the slower it's going to decompose. So, depending upon those variables, it could happen very quickly or it could happen much more slowly. So how many years do you think you spent off and on working on Tara's case with your dogs? Well, we were called shortly after she disappeared. And then I'm gonna say the last time we went there was probably about three years ago.

Okay. They had a leak. So it's been, again, approximately nine to ten years. How does it feel hearing this news of the arrest and possibly finding Tara's body? Well, any time we have a case like this, especially such a long, cold case, my first thought is with the family. That to live in this torture, in this nightmare for so long, certainly takes its toll.

So my first thought when I heard breaking news on this case was her family. It's that, thank goodness, her family now has some answers. Certainly not the outcome that they were hoping for, but at least they have some answers instead of just being in this darkness and in this fortress of not knowing. And I have come to the realization after doing this for so many years that the not knowing is the absolute worst for any family, even if it's the worst outcome, the not knowing is the worst. So I was glad to hear that they have come to at least some conclusion to this case and that the family can start in a strange sort of way the grieving process over again. You know, they went through the grieving process of her missing so many years ago. It really is a rollercoaster ride for these families.

But they're still, you know, just stagnant. You're just kind of on pause of not knowing. So now that they know and have some answers, they can start not only the grieving process, but more importantly, the healing process. the healing process. So that was what came to mind for me is that thank goodness this family can at least start the healing process. I can't imagine how they could find peace and comfort without knowing exactly where she is and what's happened and in a very, not only symbolic way but physical way to bring her home, to bring her home where she belongs. No family can ever prepare for this and expect this to happen. And my deepest condolences and sympathy and compassion goes out to her family.

And I want to thank everyone that was involved in this over the years because it does make a difference to these families to know that people care enough to help and do everything that they can. I saw that firsthand. And it's heartwarming, and it does make a difference in these families. Experience basketball like never before with BetMGM, an authorized gaming partner of the NBA. Thanks, guys. on the foul line, exciting state-of-the-art live tracking technology, and dozens of sportsbook selections await you at BetMGM Sportsbook. Tap into every game on your mobile devices, get up off the sideline, and drive to the basket yourself. No matter which team starts popping off, you'll find out why there's truly nothing like laying up a W with the king of sportsbooks.

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I was anxious to get his thoughts on everything. My name's Tad Tobias. I'm a former federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. I'm also known as the nobody guy. And you can find my website on www.nobodymurdercases.com. And my book is Nobody Homicide Cases, A Practical Guide to Investigating, Prosecuting, and Win prosecuting and winning cases when the victim is missing. Some things we talked about last time were just what it takes to get a conviction with a no body case and kind of talking about the different elements of this case with, you know, someone having to come forward with information and, you know, the likelihood of that and all those sort of things. the likelihood of that and all those sort of things. Now that there's been two arrests in this case, Tara's case now is technically a no body homicide investigation. But we do believe that the GBI has found some remains. They just haven't officially said that. But I wanted to

talk to you about the prosecution with remains, but not technically a body. What are the police looking for right now? Obviously, if they were given a tip to go search a certain area for Tara's body, you know, they went and searched there. They've concluded that search. What happens from here? What is strong enough to hold up in court if it's not a full body, but it's, you know, it's remains of some sort? Do they have to be identifiable to her? How does it all work? Sure. So the likelihood of finding a lot of remains is probably very, very low in this case because of the climate, you know, of Georgia and the time that has passed, particularly if, as it sounds like here, that the body was, you know, sort of dumped, maybe not necessarily buried or wrapped in plastic or

anything like that. I mean, we obviously don't know those facts, but from what, you know, we've sort of heard, it seems more likely that maybe it was just kind of abandoned there in a somewhat remote location. If that is true, then the only, you know, remains you're likely to find are going to be articles of clothing that perhaps could be tied to her and then skeleton bones, teeth, things that take a really, really long time to decompose and go away. And so then you're going to have the difficulty of can you get DNA from those things? And the answer is yes, you can get DNA and they would be able to tie it to her either because they have some DNA from her, maybe things in her apartment, her toothbrush, food, cups, those types of things her father and her mother, both of whom I believe are alive, are biological parents, and tie the remains from the DNA to the known DNA of her parents and making

a match that way. That's also possible. The biggest challenge, though, I think, Payne, is going to be that you're not going to be able to determine cause of death because given the amount of remains that are likely there, it's probably going to be difficult to say, well, it was blunt force trauma or it was strangulation. You know, all of those things are just not things that are going to, you know, appear on remains. Well, here's the thing. You know, we don't know for sure what the GBI has found or what actually happened. But from all the information that I've gathered, and I believe it to be true, is that they burned her body. So whatever remains there looking for, you know, would be burned.

So how does that change things if that was true? Well, I will say it is very, very difficult to completely burn a body. When you're talking about the temperature that you need to create, such as something you would have at a crematorium or some type of place that does this professionally for cremation purposes, you're talking about four, five, 600 degree Fahrenheit temperatures. That's incredibly difficult to do when you're basically building a bonfire out in the open. So burning a body tends not to be a particularly effective way of getting rid of a body. What it is going to mean is it's probably going to speed up any

decomposition that has occurred, although I would still imagine that it would leave the possibility of finding bones and teeth and those types of things because they're the most difficult to burn. Even when you're burning at a very high incineration rate, you often have those types of things remain because they're so difficult to burn. So while I think it's clearly a handicap and makes it more difficult, I still think the likelihood of completely incinerating a body in what's basically going to be, for lack of a better term, a bonfire, that's just not, that's probably not likely to happen. So you're saying that there's likely still some identifiable piece of evidence left, no matter how small it is, there may be something?

I would think so, just because I think it's unlikely that you're going to be able to have a fire hot enough that would, you know, pulverize and incinerate the bone. I just don't see that, you know, as happening. I think it is much more likely that even with burning, you know, obviously you're burning the flesh and maybe you're getting wet clothes and whatever else. I think it's still going to be difficult to do enough to actually get rid of. think it's still going to be difficult to do enough to actually get rid of. I was just looked at my book, um, just because I wanted to make sure. And I wrote a line in there that says burning a body completely requires temperatures of at least 1400 to 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. And even then bone fragments can remain behind. So I was a little low on the temperature. I mean,

you're talking about incredibly high temperatures, which are just so unlikely to be happening in a bonfire. So I think that means it is much more likely that while you're burning, you know, flesh and those types of things, there's still a chance of you leaving behind bones, fragments. And in any event, given the passage of time, you're unlikely to have flesh and those types of things left behind anyway, simply because the passage of time, let alone the burning. Right. So what challenges are the prosecution facing right now? Well, when you have no body, one of the things you have to prove is that the person is in fact dead. That challenge, if you have some remains that you can tie and you can, through DNA or through some other method, tie to Tara Grinstead, you wouldn't have

to prove that. So that's one less challenge for the prosecution because they're going to be able to argue, yes, Tara Grinstead is dead. What they're not going to be able to argue, possibly, is they're not going to be able to argue how she died. And that's going to be important because, as you pointed out on the show a number of times, the main piece of evidence in this case is probably going to be the testimony of someone testifying against Ryan Duke. And it's probably going to be Bo Dukes. If we believe what's sort of happening here that I think Philip Hallowell has covered really well, that's going to be the main testimony. And what you want to have is you want to be able to corroborate everything that Bo Duke said. And what you want to have is you want to be able to corroborate everything that Bo Duke said. That is, you know, we took the body or he was there in the pecan orchard and they brought the body there.

I looked at it and saw X, Y, and Z had happened to it. She'd been strangled or however the means of the murder occurred. And if you can't corroborate that from the body itself, it makes it harder for the prosecution because you want to be able to corroborate everything that Bo Duke said so that you have that information in front of the jury to say, yeah, he said she was strangled. And then when we found the body or the remains, we were able to see, yeah, her hyoid, which is a bone in the throat, her hyoid was broken. So we knew that's a sign of strangulation. Those types of facts are going to be more difficult, and we're not going to have those facts. Right. So one of the things that I've learned is, you know, we don't know for sure what's happened, but one of the things going around is that Ryan Duke may have confessed in some sort of capacity. Now, that could be completely untrue. I do not know.

But it would seem to make sense a little bit if Ryan just admitted it and Bo corroborated it and then got the arrest warrant to go search the pecan orchard. But where things stand right now, couldn't Ryan just say, hey, wait, it wasn't me. It was Bo who did it. it was Bo who did it. Sure. I mean, that's what often happens when you have, you know, the only two people who are involved and they're going to point the fingers at one another. The problem again, though, is when you don't have a body, you can't corroborate what one person is saying versus what another person is saying, possibly because you don't have anything independent of their two stories. So you're basically trying to sort out, Bo Duke said it happened this way, Ryan Duke says it happened this way.

You don't have any independent evidence on the body that says, no, no, no, she wasn't stabbed, she was actually strangled, and he's saying it was a stabbing, and he's saying it was a strangulation, and we can disprove that because we have the body. So that is, you know, in particular, a challenge with either no body cases or cases where you only have some remains, maybe enough to tie it to who the victim is, but not how they were actually murdered.

If you were the DA in this case right now, what would you want to happen next? What's the best way for you to get your conviction? Oh, that's really hard to say without knowing what they know in this case. The one thing I will say is if you are a prosecutor faced with a case where you're either relying on a confession or co-defendant testimony or informant testimony, that is someone else who's got some issues, are coming forward and telling you the single most important thing that you must have is you must have independent corroboration of what they are saying. For a confession, it's required under the law, as I pointed out. You can't simply convict someone on their confession. You need other corroborating evidence, but you also need it in front of a jury because you're going to have to convince the jury that we're not, the government is not just relying on the person's confession or

not relying on this co-defendant who is involved in the murder or an informant, you know, who has their own possibly seedy criminal background as well. You've got to rely on, we independently proved it because we had X, Y, and Z that independently corroborate. So as a prosecutor, that's what I'd be looking for to say to the GBI or who's ever looking at the case. What independent evidence do we have that the confession is right or what the informant or the co-defendant has told us? Now, part of that you have because if the remains are tied to peregrines that you do have an independent fact of. They said dump the body in the pecan orchard and there it is. That's helpful.

It seems like it would just be in their best interest for Ryan Duke to say, yes, you're right. I did this. He signs the piece of paper and takes a plea and goes to jail. This is a very small town with not very much money. And this is a very high profile case right now. And, you know, clearly the judge agrees by placing this gag order on the case. She has since loosened up a little bit. But based on all of that, it seems to me that it would be in their best interest

to get ryan duke to plea out on this and if not then it opens up you know if he pleads not guilty then there are so many things that could go wrong depending on what they have and don't have on ryan duke versus beau dukes you know in the federal sentencing guidelines, and I imagine in Georgia, there is a benefit to what's called acceptance of responsibility when it comes to sentencing. So merely in a case that you think you're going to get convicted in, it's better off to plead guilty because then you can argue to the judge, I accepted responsibility. You know, in Georgia, they have the death penalty. That's obviously going to be, you know, possibly a factor here in terms of whether it's a death penalty case

or not. I don't know that. Prosecutors can use that as a leverage or a life in prison without possibility of parole. You have that leverage. So it is almost always better to go ahead and plead rather than to take your chance at trial unless you think you're going to win. Now, I will say, and I think you and I discussed this earlier in the podcast, the conviction rate on no body cases is actually 89%. It's actually very high, which is sort of counterintuitive to what you think of. You think these are hard cases. Now, what that means is only the strong cases go to trial. And typically, there's a domestic relation between the two people, which we don't know, we don't really have here, although

it's certainly not a stranger on stranger case because they clearly knew each other. I mean, somehow, I know he went to the high school, she was a teacher there. We'll find out, I'm sure, whether there was some relationship, which I suspect there's probably some relationship between them that perhaps is just in Ryan Duke's mind. There clearly was something going on. I don't buy for a minute that this was he broke into her house to steal anything. He came into her house, either invited or whatever. But I think that seems a much more likely theory than a burglar breaking in, doing this, and then deciding I got to get rid of the body. That just very, very rarely happens.

It doesn't usually happen that way. Yeah. Speaking of that burglary charge, I mean, there's been a lot of talk about that. Obviously, the definition of burglary and robbery, they're two different things. But the state doesn't specify in their charges what exactly the burglary charge means. So we've talked a lot about it. Was he there to rob something? Is the burglary charge just representative of him not leaving when he was supposed to or just being inside Tara's home when she didn't want him in there? So what do you make of those charges and why they may or may not be there just based from a prosecution standpoint?

Well, I think it's absolutely what it is in that he went in there to do something else. Maybe it was an assault. Maybe it was a sexual assault. Maybe something happened inside that the prosecution believes they can prove he had in his mind to do before he got in there or he committed a felony once he was inside. I really don't for a minute believe this is what lay people think of as a burglary. I mean, burglary in D.C. and in Georgia has different meaning than most lay people think. It literally means, you know, you came in with the intent to commit a crime. And I think that's what we have here. I think the prosecution is using it because it's something they can, you know, charge him with. It's a strong charge. It's obviously a felony charge. But I don't really,

for a minute, think that it was because he came in there to, you know, steal her stuff. I think it's, you know, likely that there is some relationship between them, as I said, possibly just in his mind. I thought it was telling the sort of weird Facebook message he sent to another former teacher fairly recently. I mean, that's kind of an odd thing to say to a teacher. Many, many, now, many years later, I mean, you're talking probably, what, 14, 15 years after you graduated high school,

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Visit Tresame.com to learn more. Speaking of that Facebook message, what do you make of that? And is that something that if Ryan Duke pled not guilty and the state's trying to prove to the jury a motive and just get the conviction they want, would they use something like that? What does that tell you? Is that strong enough as evidence? What do you make of that message? It depends on what their theory is. If they were to spin out a theory, again, this is just a theory, that there was either an existing relationship between Ryan and Tara, or there was something in Ryan's mind that he had a crush on her. He was interested in a relationship. He went over there

because he was trying to woo her or whatever. I think that type of thing could come in. It's going to be very dependent on Georgia trial evidentiary law in terms of what is allowed, but I could see something like that coming in because it shows his sort of perhaps not completely logical thinking to think that, you know, I'm going to write to a teacher 15 years after I graduated and say I found her sexy and attractive. This would strike me as weird, but I think it may go to show that perhaps he had these sort of unrequited crushes or weird fixations on the teachers at his high school. I think that's if the prosecution's going with that theory because there was some relationship between them. If only in Ryan's mind, you probably could get that in.

Is motive something you have to establish or is that just something juries like? Something juries like to hear it is definitely not a requirement, but you got to have something, particularly in the no body case where you're kind of scratching your head, sort of wondering in a lot of no body cases, whether the person's even dead and you don't have a motive going in, that makes for a really difficult case. You know, when you're doing a trial, you're telling a story. So you have to have your story consistent and it has consistent, and it has to comport with sort of human emotions what people think. And those types of things are not legally required, but you've got to show that to the jury because it enables you to put all of your evidence in in a particular way to say, see, jury, isn't this consistent with the story I've been telling you from the beginning? He had this weird crush on her. He went over to her house to talk to her, and she said, get out. I'm not interested. They had a struggle. Whatever it's going to be,

you've got to be able to show that to the jury, even if legally you don't have to prove that. Right. And that's one thing we don't know yet. We're really in the dark with what Ryan Duke's motive was. Why was this guy here? Why did Bo get involved the way he did? These are things that we really don't know and the public in general really wants to know. It would be interesting if Ryan Duke did plead not guilty, what story the state is going to paint for everybody. And, you know, one of the biggest fears that everyone has is that if Ryan Duke just signs the deal and pleads guilty on this, that we may never know what that is. Yeah. Although I don't know how likely that is in terms of not knowing any

of the facts, because I don't know how the state benefits by not being forthcoming with the facts when it comes to sentencing. I mean, generally, it's sentencing. The prosecutor is going to want to go through the whole story because it's going to bolster their argument for what their sentence is going to be. So I don't know what advantage the government gets by saying, let's have really vague facts that maybe barely make a legal definition for the plea, but then I'm going to turn around and sentencing, I'm going to ask for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, you know, life without parole, all that. So I think it's unlikely that that's going to happen

because I don't know who that really benefits. Maybe it benefits Ryan Duke come sentencing time, but I don't know why any prosecutor would agree to that. You never want bare-bones facts. You want very specific details, and particularly in a case like this, the DA, I'm sure, is going to be under pressure to tell the public at large, here's what happened. Have you ever been involved in a case where the judge issued a gag order? Ooh, that's a good question. No, they're not real common in D.C. where I practice. So I think the answer is no. I'm just running through my cases.

But no, I don't believe I've ever had a gag order. What do you make of the gag order in this case, in the Grinstein case? It was odd to me because you had a gag order put in place and you didn't know why. Usually you have open arguments about it. You'd have a motion and you'd have open arguments in public. And that just struck me as very odd. And then what was odd was how all encompassing it seemed to be like nobody can talk about it whatsoever. I haven't read the modified gag order, and I do know that it was modified. From what I've heard, that it seems to have been modified to more reasonable just being tied to the parties, which I think nationwide is probably not unusual. The initial one struck me as very odd because if you are going to do a gag order, I think it's something that needs to be hashed out in public, which did happen here ultimately, because there needs to be some transparency about why there is a gag order.

And I get it. You know, here it's a small town, a lot of high-profile interest in it. But generally the way you would work that is then you just do what's called a change of venue. You'd have the trial in another county where people maybe don't know so much about it. Not necessarily, not necessarily, you know, a gag order where people can't talk about it. That to me seems the more logical way to resolve it. Of course, you know, prosecutors and defense attorneys don't like that because then they're moving out of their home territory. They live in a hotel and all that, and it's just more difficult for them. But that tends to be the way those things are resolved. As a prosecutor, can you see any benefits in the gag order on that side of things?

Well, hopefully it would stop leaking. I mean, sometimes on any case you worry about, you know, your fellow prosecutors or your investigative team leaking about what's happening either because they want to correct something that's erroneous in the record or they want to get out there at some point. And that can be damaging because you'd like to have your evidence fresh when you are presenting it to the jury, not have all the facts out there beforehand, because you don't want people to prejudge. And as a prosecutor, you're not trying to win convictions. You're trying to have fair trials. And it's not fair if a lot of information is getting out, even if it's dumping on the defendant, which you defendant, which you think it's a prosecutor. You think, hey, great, then people will be more

likely to convict them. But that's not our role. We're not there, you know, trying to get notches on our belt. We're trying to do fair and just trials for people. So what's the most important thing to a prosecutor? A fair trial? It better be a fair trial. You're not any kind of prosecutor that I'd want to know. And that's why I've always said I don't like prosecutors who say they've never lost a case. That means you didn't take tough cases to try. You're not there to win convictions. Are you trying to win? Absolutely.

Are you trying to convict the person? Yes. But your main role is to see that justice is done, not that you get a conviction. I've had many acquittals. In murder cases, it happens. But as long as I feel like I did my best and we put on our best evidence, it's in the jury's hands. You're not there just to, you know, just to win at any cost. There's certainly prosecutors who want to win no matter what,

don't get me wrong. But my point is that's not what we're there for. You want to win, but sometimes, you know, I dismissed charges one time in a robbery case when I started having doubts about whether the store owner was really right about who he identified as the robber. And that happens sometimes in trial, not necessarily murder trials, which is a much bigger run-up in prep, but sometimes, you know, misdemeanor cases and low-level felony cases, you start sitting there saying, well, wait a minute. These officers are saying something that's completely inconsistent that doesn't make sense. And in that case, your obligation is not to just say, well, I'm going to just keep going and let the jury decide.

You start having doubts about whether you're right or not. You need to take actions to correct that by dismissing the case or whatever it's going to be. So a good prosecutor, which most of them are, do take that obligation very seriously. And, you know, we have obligations to turn over evidence that's favorable to the defendant. You know, the Brady disclosure, if you have evidence that tends to exonerate the defendant or tends to mean that something could cast doubt on his guilt, you have to turn it over to the defense. So that should say, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's called the Brady Disclosure. It's a Supreme Court case, I think,

from 1972 that says the prosecution has to turn it over. So that should show you that you're looking for a fair trial. You're not just there to convict. It's not like civil cases. Civil cases, if I find something that's bad for my client and good for the defendant, I don't have to turn it over. You know, you have discovery obligations, but you don't have an affirmative obligation to turn over something you find that's bad for your client. A prosecutor does have that obligation. You better be following it. So now that you're kind of caught up on this case and, you know, kind of just in summary of what we talked about last time and where we are now, of what we talked about last time and where we are now.

Is there anything you want to add to the discussion or anything that you find interesting that you want to chime in to add about everything? Well, I think I said this last time that when I talk to folks, police and prosecutors about no body cases, I always say to them, you can make a case without a body, but your case is always better when you have a body.

So if you're in the beginning stages of your investigation or really any stage, you need to try and find the body. That really needs to be job one. And I think that's kind of shown here in this case where even if the remains are, you're unable to tell how the murder happened, having remains and being able to tie them to Tara Grinstead is a huge thing in terms of moving the case and the investigation forward. Put aside, even if you didn't have the arrest of Ryan Duke and Bo Dukes, if you just found the remains in the pecan orchard, that would be a huge investigative step because you'd be able to start now tying who owns this orchard, who has access. Oh yeah, and then we heard that clue 10 years ago about the party in the pecan orchard. Who was at that?

That would be a huge thing. So that's, I think, you had the arrest first and now maybe finding the remains, but it just goes to show what a difficult task you have when you don't have the body because you see how much easier things got once you have the body or at least remain. And so I think that's important to remember. The face of the case changes significantly once you get a body or remains. Okay. Let me ask you, were you surprised by any of this? Oh my God, I was shocked because on the last podcast, you asked me on the telephone when you and I spoke, you said, what should I do next for my investigation? And I said to you, don't do it. Don't do anything. And you didn't put that in the podcast, which was probably smart, but I was wrong. I was, I was wrong. I mean, you, you,

you didn't solve it, obviously, but you, your publicity, I have to imagine played an enormous role in moving the case forward. And we'll know when the whole thing's over. I think we'll probably know a little bit more about how it came about and moving forward. But there's just no doubt that your involvement really played a positive role. No one knows exactly why this tipster came forward. But just the fact that it happened is encouraging because from every expert I've talked to, including you and really even my own personal

opinion about everything, it's just statistically, it just doesn't happen. It's not a common thing where the more time that goes by, it seems like the less likely it is that it's going to be solved. Yeah, it's definitely true. I mean, it's like if you were doing serial, and in the middle of it, the guy confesses and says, yeah, I did kill her. You know, that just doesn't happen. No, it doesn't. We don't quite have that here, but almost. You know, he confessed, it sounds like, to someone else. So that's really incredible.

And like I said, I was absolutely shocked, especially when I said to you, no, don't go investigate it. Just report on stuff, but don't do your own investigation. But I was wrong. Why did you think that? Because I think for the most part, it's best to leave the investigations to the professionals. Because the one thing you can do is you can kind of stir up old things that maybe weren't true. The one thing you can do is you can kind of stir up old things that maybe weren't true. And it's, you know, it's tough because as you have aptly pointed out, you know, there were some people whose names were put out there, not for the first time by you, because

there were obviously suspects along the way that it turned out, you know, had nothing to do with it. And I just, you know, my view is maybe jaded because I was a prosecutor and, you know, an investigator and a means of these cases. And sometimes I feel like, you know, people, citizen, you know, Reddit people want to do it and figure out how it happened. And that's not always the best way. Now, the difference is, I think I will say, I think you handled it more from a journalistic viewpoint of trying to figure out what happened and what facts are. You did some

gumshoe work, but I think most of it was really sort of more journalistic than that. And I think you also handled things very sensitively, as you said, you know, on Q&A earlier this week, you weren't putting Bo Duke's name out there until you really felt certain, you know, and as it turned out until he's ultimately arrested. And I think that's a little bit different too. You know, you read some of these things on Reddit, these places, you're like, oh my God, they're just throwing anybody's name out there. You know, the, you know, the Boston Marathon bomber, you know, good, good case. They had the wrong person and all these people saying, that's the guy, that's the guy. You really have to watch that. So that's sort of my

bias against citizen investigators, but I'll make a pain in the exception. Well, I appreciate that. Last question, what do you draw the line, do you think? I mean, your opinion, you're not a journalist, so it's a little bit different. I mean, you have written books. Where do you draw the line in investigative journalism? Where is the line where you are inserting yourself too much versus having a really positive impact on a case that was otherwise just cold with nobody looking into anything? To me, the line would be if the police were to say, hey, we're still looking at this honestly. And if you go this way, it might interfere with something

we're doing. We're putting it undercover in here and we're trying to get the people to talk. I think that to me is really the line. And I don't have any doubt that the GBI was still investigating this case, but does that mean there's an agent assigned who every day is coming to work saying, how did Tara Grinstead die? Or is it, I got 17 cold cases and Tara Grinstead is one of them. And if somebody calls the tip line, I'll check it out. I think that to me is the difference. I think this case was probably a little colder than most because it had been a long time. And, you know, you can't assign one agent to a cold case that's 10 years old or if you don't have any leads or anything to do. A GBI or any law enforcement agency doesn't have the benefit of that many people. And so I think given that, that to me is more the line is are you interfering with the active investigation? And if you're not, then I'm okay with, you know, pushing the envelope a little bit.

Thanks for listening, guys. Today's episode was mixed and mastered by Resonate Recordings. You can check them out at resonaterecordings.com. Be sure to tune in next Monday for episode 16. Thanks, guys. I'll see you soon.