Up and Vanished - Live: UAV Tour

Episode Date: September 22, 2017

If you haven't had a chance to make it out to the Up and Vanished Live Tour, this episode gives you a peak inside of the live show. 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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stay tuned for a sneak peek of our new true crime podcast called Atlanta Monster. We've teamed up with the biggest podcast company in the game, HowStuffWorks, to reinvestigate the infamous Atlanta child murders. Atlanta Monster will come out this fall. And as for season two of Up and Vanished, we have now officially chosen a new case. And you can expect to hear some updates in the next couple of months. chosen a new case. And you can expect to hear some updates in the next couple of months. Over the past two weeks, the Up and Vanish team and I have traveled to Athens, Georgia and Durham, North Carolina to kick off the Up and Vanish live tour, an exclusive audio and video experience of season one. And today, you'll get to hear some highlights from the first two shows.

And if you haven't already, check out when we're coming to a city near you by going to upandvanish.com slash live. That's upandvanish.com slash live. Very good to see you, Durham, North Carolina. We want to welcome you to the live Up and Vanish show. We're going to get started right now. The episode has started, so please turn your attention towards the screens. We started off with a five-minute documentary piece that we shot in Osceola and produced exclusively for the live show. that we shot in Osceola and produced exclusively for the live show. An investigative podcast about the disappearance of an Osceola teacher is set to premiere Monday. Titled Up and Vanished, the story details the findings of Atlanta filmmaker

Payne Lindsey as he makes a documentary on Tara Grinstead. My name is James Wilcox, and I'm from Fitzgerald, Georgia. Born and raised in Benny O'Connor. I've been living in Fitzgerald since 1945, and before that, I lived out in the country around here, so I've been here all my life. Every city has some secrets. Somewhere, somebody has some secrets.

More than 40 GBI agents swarmed a pecan orchard in Ben Hill County this afternoon. Not one, but two former students were left school under arrest. With the intent to banditize serious bodily harm to the person of Tara Grinsey. Charging Ryan Alexander, dude, with the murder. From Tenderfoot TV in Durham, North Carolina, this is up and vanish live hey guys how you doing i'm your host pain lindsey this whole thing started because i wanted to make a true crime documentary and i didn't know how to do it so the first thing i thought of, I need to go find a case. So I literally went to Google and I started to look up cold cases. Well, I stumbled upon

this case from South Georgia about this missing beauty queen and teacher. And literally no one had any idea where she was. No one knew anything. It had been over 10 years. I'm like, how does that even happen? So right away, I was definitely intrigued. And I started doing some more research. Early on, I got a phone call from a private investigator. investigator, his name is Maurice Godwin, and he told me, I love that guy, he told me that don't go to Osceola, it's a really weird place. I went to Osceola anyways, and he said don't go by myself, I went by myself. So I went down there, and to my surprise, I was, you know, first I was very weirded out. I was like, oh my gosh, everyone, someone in here is a killer. Everyone's thinking about Tara Grinstead all the time. Well, it turns out it's actually kind of a normal place and there's some really nice people

there. So I'm assuming that you guys have not been to Osceola before. Maybe somebody has, but if you haven't, or you know very little about it, I want to show you guys a quick clip of what Osceola is really like. To give the audience a glimpse of what Osceola actually looks like, we produced a clip that features the mayor who breaks down what this place is really like. Well, Osceola is a small town in middle south Georgia. Sometimes we get grouped with southwest Georgia, sometimes with southeast. That's why I know we're right in the middle. We're a community group with Southwest Georgia, sometimes with Southeast, that's why I know we're right in the middle.

Population just a little over 3,400 people. So we are not a tiny town. We have two traffic lights. So we got something going for us there. My name's Matt Seal, and I'm currently the mayor of the city of Osceola. And I'm actually an example of somebody that wasn't born here, wasn't raised here,

and I've made this my home. A lot of people know about Osceola and will hear that name and will immediately associate it with the disappearance of Tara Grinstead. There's tragedy in life. There's tragedy here in Osceola. This was certainly a big tragedy, but people heal. They gather together. They come together as a community and help each other move on. And I think that's what has gone on here and will continue to go on here. How normal is that guy? I was like, that's like my older brother or something is the mayor of this town. I was picturing like some Colonel Sanders looking guy, or something is the mayor of this town. I was picturing like some Colonel Sanders looking guy,

but no, apparently the one before him was like a Colonel Sanders, but this, he's like the new school one, like the millennial one, but he was super cool. I was just taken aback by how friendly and just relatable everybody was in the whole town. The mayor, Dusty Vassy from the Ocelot Star, all these people were just really friendly and just welcoming me right from the very beginning. One of the biggest problems and kind of the hardest things I had to deal with throughout this whole podcast was trying to get people to talk. It's just not easy, especially when it's been years and years and pretty much no one said anything. Um, so I tried really hard in the very beginning to, um, get people to talk. I would cold call people. I would send emails and I didn't really have me if I was like with NBC or something to have a little like

tagline or some sort of, you know, pretty looking thing on my email. It was just like pain and people were like, I'm not talking to you. So it was difficult at first, but eventually after time, people just started opening up. I just kind of just kept being persistent about it. Everyone was so sad that she was gone. And it was just a tragedy that just had left the community with no answers, but nobody could really tell me what Tara Grinstead was like as a person. Everyone was just so scared to talk and just so uncomfortable. And I know it was sensitive, but I just, I found it so strange in the beginning that no one could really tell me who Tara Grinstead was. And the first person to do that was her best

friend, Maria, and we became great friends after that. I want to play a clip of her talking about Tara so we can remember Tara Grinstead for a second. You think about a small community that crime just doesn't happen. You know, what crime does happen is not major, and it's certainly not a murder or kidnapping. So this is a very foreign idea to hit a small community. So I think that it was hard for people to really believe. I'm Maria Harbor, and I was Tara's best friend. We always had a good connection when we were younger.

And as we grew older we ended up being in the same middle school and then we were on the same cheerleading squad so we were very very close. There's never anything that I couldn't tell her or she couldn't tell me that we judged each other. I mean it's very very rare to find friends like that and I guess I've realized that the older I've gotten. So it was not just best friends, it was very close, sister-like. She was so loving and so open, and she was just a very caring person. And almost to the point where sometimes I thought it was too much, you know. She trusted people too much. She loved people too easy.

And I've often thought that it was always a good thing that she was like that because she was such a good person and such a loving person. But at the same time, I wondered if it made her more vulnerable to situations. That's Maria. After I met Maria, everything just completely changed at first it was this true crime documentary i was doing and then once i finally made contact with people who knew tara just the entire vibe of what i was doing just changed entirely it was no longer just a a project um for my career i felt that i was all of a sudden tied into these people, and I wanted to bring answers for them and Tara's family. And it was just a completely different experience from that point forward. Early on, there was a bunch of different false

leads and white rabbits is what Maurice called it and rumors I had to sift through. I actually remember the first time I thought that I had solved this case. There was actually a moment where I was sitting in my apartment. I was like, I solved it. I got it. Like five minutes later, I was like, okay, I didn't solve it. That happened a bunch of times. But there was one time in the very beginning where I thought for sure I'd solved it. Maurice had told me to go check underneath this house in Osceola. And I went and searched under the house. And we took all these dirt samples and stuff. We put them in brown paper bags and we sent them off for testing. And literally two days later, the GBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation

comes out there and searches in the same spot under the house in the crawl space and they found bones. So I actually have video of me searching under that house, just so you guys can get a little clip of what that was like. It was kind of creepy, but you might remember it's episode four of the podcast. This is me for real underneath the house. I got a tip tonight. They do heating and air conditioning stuff. The air conditioner went out on that house.

He went under the house briefly. He had his flashlight and stuff like that. He said in the middle back, there was an oblong mound of dirt that was solid packed up. And he said in the corner was a shovel. To do the proper thing, you have to do a chemical analysis of the soil.

The neighbor and the guy who owns the house, they're digging up three one-gallon paper bags to allow it to breathe like I instructed. Before they dig it up, tell them that I want to come down there. I hate spiders. All right, go on. Bye. See you.

After showing some exclusive footage of my dig under the house, I discussed some of the initial persons of interest in this case. And I also told the audience a few stories that I intentionally left out of the podcast. This case, the problem with it to me was that the GBI never cleared anybody in this case. And to me, that was always a big issue. There were so many associates in Tara's life. She was a popular person. And all these guys, they were never able to be cleared. So every news article you read, every dateline you see on this case, it always mentioned some of the same people, Marcus Harper, Anthony Vickers, Heath Dykes. And so as part of my first investigation, I wanted to look into

these same people to see if they had done anything. There was definitely no shortage of people to look into, which is unfortunate. And I think that's one of the reasons why it took so long for this case to have any sort of movement in it. There was also more people than this too. There was others that I didn't really talk about too much in the podcast, but people that I had encountered and heard so many stories about. So I had all these different people and I had to kind of pick and choose what I was going to highlight kind of just based on my gut feelings and what was actually fact. And that kind of separated what made the podcast and what didn't is what I knew I could prove and what was likely just a rumor. And there was tons of rumors. I can't imagine what the GBI had to go through

from day one till now, all these different stories. And again, I think that's part of the problem, just the rumor mill in this. Coming up, more exclusive content from the Up and Vanish live show. Plus, a special guest joins me on stage after the break. Think of the last time you bought something to wear, something to decorate your house, something for your family or friends. What if each time you made a purchase, you got a little something back? With Rakuten, you can. You can earn cash back on just about anything you buy from over 750 stores. If you've ever bought electronics, home decor, fashion and beauty, or booked a trip, well, you could have got cash back. But don't

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And that's Maurice Godwin. Oh, there he is. Thank you. You know how to work that thing? Thank you. This guy's awesome. Now, our relationship has not always been just rainbows and sunshine, right? I want to say something first.

Okay. Please. This whole thing is very emotional for me. I was in chaos for 10 years in this case. And pain actually rescued me on this. And this is very emotional. I am proud of pain. I am proud of Phil Holloway.

And I am proud of this podcast. But ultimately, I'm proud of you, the fans. This has been an amazing journey from just answering a post on Web Sleuths. And if you think of just responding to a post on web sleuths to where we stand today, it's amazing. But what'd you really think when you saw that web sleuths post? Well, somebody that was in chaos, just floating around with his case. And I probably, and I had Marcus was about to kill me. So, and Dykes, his silence was killing me. Man, I thought it was, well, when I was on Greta's show in March of 2015,

I said at the end of that show that after 10 years, the GBI needed to reevaluate their strategy. Well, when I got home from DC filming that, I said, well, I made that statement about the GBI. I've been on it for 10 years. How about me reevaluating my strategy? And when I saw that post, I said, what do I have to lose? What does Tara have to lose?

What does her family have to lose? So this podcast became my strategy. Give it up. At some point early on, this is about eight months after we started talking and it was episode six of the podcast. You told me a story that just kind of all of a sudden changed the playing field of everything. Let's go ahead and play this clip. You guys might know this. The live show not only features video interviews, but also video recreations that bring some of the stories from the podcast to life on the big screen.

And he drove all the way to Knoxville, Tennessee. He began to write a letter. And in this letter, he wrote that he could not live with himself anymore. That he knew what happened to Tara. He listed 12 individual names. All of them were graduates of Irwin County High School. Each one of these individuals needs to be talked to. He was scared. He was scared.

He was scared for his life. The man got down into the praying position and he shot himself in the head and killed himself. There's something to this. You're not going to go to meet your maker on a lie.

After bringing out Maurice Godwin and discussing some of the major breaks in the case, it was time to bring out my second guest. Guys, he's here tonight. It's Phil Holloway. This guy makes me seem so much smarter than I really am. Thank God. Let's talk about that. Shall we? So you're from South Georgia.

You grew up in Osceola. You were a cop there. I grew up in Tifton just a few miles away. And, yeah, I was a police officer part-time in Osceola back in the 1990s, way before this happened. So let's just make that clear. I had no involvement with this investigation until the podcast. So this was always an unsolved mystery to you. So tell me, I've actually never asked you this anyways. What was your like first reaction when you realized that two people were arrested for terrorist murder? So having grown up in South Georgia and as the video showed, I practiced law in Tifton in 1999,

almost starved to death because there's not that much crime there. But I did attend that pageant. And I know a lot of the people that were involved with the initial investigation of this case. And so it was always something that was, you know, a curiosity in the back of my mind, Payne. And you and I have talked about this. And I have people that talk to me. You have people that talk to you. Maureen says people that talk to him. And I always kind of felt like something was not exactly right. Phil and I discussed Tara Grinstead's case in depth. And then we talked

a little bit about our new case for The Sworn Podcast. And we played for the audience an exclusive trailer. Since before Up and Vanished ended, we've been investigating another cold case in South Georgia, which is really not very far at all from Osceola. It's this small town of Rebecca, Georgia. When I say small, I'm talking 200 people small. Osceola is 3,000 people. Rebecca is 200 people. And they can't find out which one of those 200 people did it. So we decided we would, you know, take a stab at it. And we've been spending the last couple of months working on the Weidman case. It's a triple murder that happened in 2002. It's a horrific story. And, you know, we've learned a lot. And not to spoil too much for you guys, they're actually, they're out now. They dropped yesterday. But the GBI called me

two days ago, right before I put them out, and said, can we please have all your audio files? We think that we might have missed something. And they did. Let's play a trailer for that real quick. You guys should check this out. Thanks, guys. Is this Mason Lindsey? Yes, this is. Don't ever call me about this. I don't like your brother, but I don't like you. And I don't know a goddamn thing about the murder case you asked me about, but I do know about y'all and what a bunch of swine you are.

This is a big, big deal. I mean, so many folks lost faith in our sheriff's department and law enforcement when this came about. But what everybody don't know is, if you go to trial with something that's half-assed done and you lose that trial, then you're fucked. There are some people that swear they know who did it. You ask them, they'll tell you the individual's name. Well, how do you know this? He's just that kind of a person. You've got some evidence? Let's talk about it.

I really can't tell you that information because it would be information that don't need to be released. To say that someone just randomly stopped in this house, probably not likely. In Turner County, if somebody's got a problem with you, they're probably going to go up and say it to you, but it's not necessarily going to lead them to kill an entire family and burn the house down. People sort of say that in Irwin County you get bought off

and Turner County you get killed off. When it first happened, everybody's like, they'd get killed. I'll be honest with you. When responsibility for happened, everybody was afraid they'd get killed, to be honest with you. When responsibility for solving the case changes hands time and time again, who really does bear the burden of solving a case? We'll explore all this through the framework of the Weidman case, still unsolved after 15 years. simple solution. This new collection features a wide range of products from nourishing shampoo and conditioner to lightweight heat protectants and a silky smooth serum for a sleek finish. Wave goodbye to frizz and say hello to three days of smooth hair with the Tresame

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all starting at just $99 a month. Stack more, spend less. The Happy Stack, only at Kudo. Conditions apply. The most important people to me in this case have been Philip Holloway and Maurice. But there's also another person who became a really dear friend of mine throughout this whole process. It's kind of weird to talk about it right now. I didn't know if I would get like emotional up here.

But it hasn't really set all the way in yet for me. But basically, every time I went to Osceola, there was only one place I felt comfortable going to. And it was the Osceola Star newspaper. And Dusty Vassie was somebody who welcomed me from the very beginning. And we had some good times together. We really did. I mentioned in the season finale that all of a sudden he got sick, and he started losing his voice, and we didn't really know much at the time, and I asked him, I was like, you know, do you want me to put that in the podcast? He said, yeah, I would like that. So I mentioned his illness in the podcast. Literally like a week later, we found out it

was cancer. And just last Friday, Dusty passed away. And it was devastating to the Up and Vantage team, me. There really is, I mean, I'm not just saying this, there's no one I got closer to throughout this whole journey than Dusty Vassie. I'm Dusty Vassie, the reporter for The Osceola Star. I've lived in Irwin County most of my life. I've never actually lived in Osceola, but I live 10 miles away and I work here every day. So pretty familiar with the place. 10 miles away, and I work here every day, so pretty familiar with the place. I've learned more about this case since your podcast started than I probably had in 11 years before that.

A documentary, people talk about it that week and then forget about it. Your podcast has been going on weekly for three months now or so, right? And people talk about it all the time. And people talk about it all the time. Government employees, police officers, people that work at banks, clerks at stores. I mean, I think there's just like almost an itch to have this, to know what happened, you know? And hopefully this podcast will bring us closer to knowing. Dusty Vassie. Can we give it up for that guy real quick? That guy's amazing.

Seriously, it's so damn sad. You know, we built this really strong level of trust throughout the whole journey. And it's really sad to see him go. But I think that it's been awesome to see how much he was able to have a positive effect on people's lives. And he was just this journalist who was in this tiny town. If you've never read his articles, I made a domain. It's called rationaltoafault.com. That was his WordPress. But his articles are so funny. He's so witty when he writes them. He's the best writer that I know. But he would write about the terror case. He always put humor in there and would talk about himself and reflect on things. There's some funny things about us in there. But I would encourage you guys to check it out. Dusty Vassie was not just a friend of the podcast, but he was my friend. I'm so happy and privileged that I got the chance to know him over the past two years. And I'm happy that you guys as listeners got to know him too.

And thanks to you guys, his voice has been heard by millions of people. Thank you, Dusty, for being a true friend. We love you and we'll always miss you. At the end of the season one finale... As the live show came to an end, I reminded the audience about a story I was told. A story you probably remember from the season one finale. To go with this story, we shot an entire reenactment so the audience could experience it in a brand new way.

I had a brother that's since passed away that used to go to the White Horse Saloon in Fitzgerald. He was one of those guys who's never met a stranger. His purpose in life was to help other people. If he saw someone that needed a dime, he'd give them a people. If he saw someone that needed a dime, he'd give them a dime. If he saw someone that needed a ride, he'd give them one. He trusted people. He was just a giving type person. On this particular night, my brother had a sort of strange encounter that stuck with him for years and years. After a beer or two and a couple of rounds of pool, my brother paid his tab at the

bar and he left. As he was leaving the Whitehorse that night, he saw somebody across the parking lot with the hood up on their vehicle. Being the type of person he was, he approached the vehicle to see if he could help. My brother had some jumper cables in the back of his own truck, so he grabbed them and offered to get a jump. He pulled the nose of his own truck, so he grabbed them and offered the kid a jump. He pulled the nose of his vehicle up, got out, raised the hood. When the kid hopped out of the driver's seat, he noticed he was sort of stumbling and couldn't really walk straight. When my brother looked him in his eyes, he could tell he had had one too many drinks that night. He could barely keep his eyes open.

night. He could barely keep his eyes open. He tells the kid, go ahead and get your vehicle and try to crank it. So the guy gets in. Right before he tried to crank it, my brother purposely took his jumper cable off so it wouldn't crank. He thought, if I jump this guy off in the condition he's in, he's going to drive off and kill somebody. Click, click, click, click, click, click. Nothing happens. He says to the guy, I'll tell you what. Your vehicle's not running. You live around here. Is there somewhere I can take you? He said he lived down the street, so my brother offered him a ride.

Once they hit the road, my brother started making small talk with him. The kid was just in and out of consciousness. As he pulled over to drop the kid off, my brother took this opportunity to give him some parting words of wisdom. He said, you don't need to be getting drunk. You don't need to be out on the road. Something bad could happen. The kid slowly opened his eyes.

He said, yeah, when I get tore up, I'll pass out. One time, he said, someone told me I killed someone. He didn't say I passed out and I killed somebody. He said someone told me that I killed someone. My brother found this comment very strange, and it stuck with him forever. You heard that story on the podcast, but what you didn't hear is the other story he told me. To hear that story, come join us on the Up and Vanish live tour.

Maurice Godwin, Philip Holloway, and myself are going to 15 more cities starting next month in October. We're going to St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Austin, Houston, Nashville, New York, Boston, Atlanta, and many more. To get tickets and to see all the dates, go to upandvanish.com slash live. That's upandvanish.com slash live. At the end of our live show, we had a 45-minute audience Q&A where we had the chance to meet and interact with our listeners face-to-face. We enjoyed meeting everybody in Athens and Durham for the first two shows. And we look forward to meeting the rest of you guys very soon in your city.

Today's episode was mixed and mastered by Resonate Recordings. If you want to improve the quality of your podcast or start a podcast of your own, go to resonaterecordings.com and get your first episode produced for free. This episode was recorded at Industrious Atlanta, Ponce City Market. For $250 off your first month's office rent, visit industriousoffice.com slash vanished. Also, don't forget, right now on Apple Podcasts,

there's three new episodes of Sworn available right now. And trust me, you're gonna wanna hear them. So when you're done listening, go to Apple Podcasts and there's three new episodes of Sworn available right now. And trust me, you're going to want to hear them. So when you're done listening, go to Apple Podcasts and type in Sworn and check out the new three-part series. And as promised, here is a sneak peek of our new upcoming true crime podcast called Atlanta Monster, hosted by me, Payne Lindsey, coming out later this year. The next stop is 111th Street. Stand clear of the New York Public Library remains one of the largest archives in the world

in the Milstein Microform Reading Room. Microforms are basically scaled-down copies of a document usually stored on microfilm. And to read them, you have to use an old machine that looks like a giant-sized computer. I've been looking for a newspaper article that I couldn't find anywhere on the Internet. And the only place left to look

was this physical database in New York City. The only place left to look was this physical database in New York City. I'm looking for an article from June 4th, 1981. With the headline, Atlanta Monster. That does not make Wayne Williams a murderer because I say somebody is a street urchin. You know, come on, we're talking about murder. The fact is, I didn't kill anybody. In Atlanta, another body was discovered today, the 23rd. From Tenderfoot TV and How Stuff Works in Atlanta. Like 11 other recent victims in Atlanta, Rogers apparently was asphyxiated.

This is Atlanta Monster.