Up and Vanished - S1E17: The Deal

Episode Date: April 25, 2017

Payne discusses Ryan Duke's state of mind as an indictment comes down, plus a potential deal is struck.  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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Listener discretion is advised. From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished, the investigation of Tara Grinstead. I'm your host, Payne Lindsey. Since the last episode, there's been some major movement in the case against Ryan Duke for the murder of Tara Grinstead. On April 12, 2017, a grand jury hearing was held in the courthouse in Osceola. All right, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. If y'all just have a seat for just a minute and you'll be on your way. For the first time, the state presented evidence to a group of 19 grand jurors to indict Ryan Duke for Tara Grinstead's murder. We all represent Irwin County for this term of court in considering these cases, and I appreciate your attention.

The evidence heard by the grand jury was to remain secret. Keep the deliberations of the grand jury secret. And Ms. Veazey, if you'll deliver those to our clerk. Thank you. And around midday on April 12th, the word began circling that they made a decision. They had a whole bunch of cases, and they're already done with everything. There's nothing left out. It's all the charges. They just handed up the indictment.

In a process that sometimes takes days, the grand jury made a decision to indict Ryan Duke on all charges in just a matter of hours. We're learning more tonight for the first time about those final few minutes of Tara Grinstead's life. By grand jury standards, this indictment came fairly quickly in this high profile case. It's the next legal step in answering an often asked question in this town. What exactly happened in this small house? The six count indictment accuses Irwin County resident Ryan Duke of felony murder, malice murder, aggravated assault, burglary, and concealing a death.

The indictment reads, Duke killed Grinstead with his hand and committed felony murder by entering her home with the intent to commit a theft and causing the death of said Tarafay Grinstead during the commission of the burglary. dead during the commission of the burglary. Remember that burglary charge in Ryan Duke's arrest warrants? As it turns out, the state's narrative is that Ryan Duke killed Tara during a burglary with the intent to commit a theft. So they're saying he was

there to rob Tara. The question is, rob her of what? Reviewing the court documents of Ryan Duke's indictment, I noticed something odd. Among the 20 names listed as the members of the grand jury was Dusty Vassie, the reporter from the Osceola newspaper. But his name had a line through it. It had been crossed out in 10. I called to ask him about this. I was sitting there that day, you know, that Ryan Duke's arrest was announced. I was sitting there thinking, oh my goodness, I'm on this grand jury.

And I mean, you know, this has been sitting on my mind for the last almost two months. You know, they pick a pool, and then based on who shows up, it's just by number, really, that you get selected. And I was like number seven or something, so I was definitely on there. This is the first time I've ever been on the grand jury. And you're on there for a six-month term. So I didn't really know the ins and outs of exactly what, of all the times to get picked for my first grand jury, and then two weeks later, there's the rest of the terror and sick case. Just a few weeks before Ryan Duke was arrested, Dusty got a letter in the mail

saying that he would be serving as a member of the grand jury for the upcoming term. Then, ironically, not too long after, Ryan Duke was arrested for Tara's murder. He was going to be on the grand jury in the state's case against Ryan Duke, the unsolved mystery he had covered dozens of times in Osceola's newspaper for over a decade. And just a few days before the hearing, he got an important phone call. Well, the judge called me yesterday and asked me if I could come talk to him. He actually said, you know, he wanted me on the jury because he thought I would be an excellent juror. But, you know, he understood that this was understood that this was kind of a precarious position for me to be in, and he didn't want me to feel like I had to given my position.

He wanted to give me the opportunity if I wanted to get off the grand jury. We talked about it, and it would be difficult for me to report on it, and people might accuse me of saying that, oh, well, he got this from, you know, what happened in the grand jury room and that's illegal and could have potentially led to me being prosecuted if I couldn't, you know, prove that I got my information from somewhere else, you know. It was a very tough decision because, I mean, I wanted to do my duty and I thought that I would be a valuable person to have in that room because of what I know about the case. that I would be a valuable person to have in that room because of what I know about the case.

I knew I was kind of leaning toward, you know, asking off, but I didn't know what I was going to choose. And I asked the judge, I was like, is this forever? Like, you can't report on what happens in that room forever. Like, it's not just to the end of the case. And he said, yeah, if I'd have been able to one day report on what happened in that room, I would have probably went in that room. But knowing that I never would be able to report on it, I figured it's probably best to just be safe and not be in there. I actually have a lot of respect for Judge Reinhart. I've had some dealings with him in the past.

He's a good guy. When I talked to him yesterday, he said he wanted to put something in my ear, talk to me about something that I might want to think about. So I knew he wasn't going to, like, say, you should step down. I figured he would kind of give me the option, which is exactly what he did. But definitely did not even come close to putting pressure on me to do it. In fact, I mean, everything he said was, he said, selfishly, I want you on this jury. But I also understand the position you're in and want to give you that opportunity. After putting a tremendous amount of thought into it, Dusty made a tough decision to excuse himself from the grand jury.

I think it was the right decision. Part of me regrets it, but I do think it was the best one. In the last episode, before the indictment, I spoke with Colin Miller from Undisclosed about the grand jury hearing. Now that Ryan Duke has been indicted, I sent Colin all the court documents and followed up with him. Are you surprised at how quickly they were able to deliver this indictment? Not necessarily. I saw it was about three and a half hours, and assuming it's not a highly complex case, might have had a few very good witnesses, some pretty key evidence, and been pretty open and shut. My best guess would be that Ryan Duke has made some type of incriminatory statement, and if you have that, it makes an indictment a fairly quick process. Now, there might be evidence on the defense side,

which wouldn't be presented to the grand jury. But yeah, my best guess for a three and a half hour indictment would be that Ryan Duke has said something himself that tends to incriminate himself. And that makes it very easy for the grand jury to say there's certainly probable cause for this case to go to trial. If he did admit to this or have a confession, then couldn't they just basically seal this thing up right now and take him to the judge and sign some papers? The question is, how incriminatory was the statement? Is his claim that he, for whatever reason, has a mental impairment or made it up. There's a lot of jockeying that still could go on in terms of plea bargaining, and there's the other individual

involved. So there's a lot of still legwork that has to be done before we have a resolution. Whenever Ryan Duke's arrest warrants first came out, we talked a lot about the definition of burglary, and that was one of the charges that was presented to Ryan Duke. Specifically in the indictment, they say that Ryan Duke was there with the intent to commit a theft. Yeah, my understanding at first would be that this was a theory of burglary where he was breaking into the house to cause her harm.

And I'm not sure, maybe in your reporting, you've come across something, but I don't know what the theft would be, what property he was intending to steal under their theory. Maybe it goes back to the theory that he has said something. It's possible that in either a confession or an incriminatory statement, he mentioned that being a reason he entered the house, or maybe Beauduc has said something along those lines. So it makes me think that there must be something there, probably from one of those two, indicating some type of an intent to steal, because otherwise, I don't really see what the evidence would be.

Based on how fast it's moved so far, what do you anticipate happening next and when? Yeah, so now there will be discovery going back and forth, which is there are certain obligations on both the prosecution and the defense to disclose what evidence they have, what witnesses they're going to call. There could be plea bargaining, depending upon the susceptibility of the prosecution and defense to negotiate the plea. There's the right to a speedy trial, which generally you're looking at eight months or less. Once it starts getting past eight months, the defendant might have a claim that it's violating his right to a speedy trial. So

that would be a best guess. This being a cold case for a while, it might extend beyond that a bit. Many states, but not Georgia, have a specific speedy trial act that sets particular deadlines. Georgia doesn't have that. But again, Georgia case law kind of says after eight months have passed from the indictment, it's generally presumptively prejudicial to the defendant. And there's sort of a multi-factor test the court looks at beyond eight months. But yeah, I'd be surprised if this extends much past eight months. Based upon the three and a half hours before the grand jury, it makes me think that this is a fairly straightforward case with only a handful of witnesses and some documentary

evidence, which would tend to the shorter side. But again, there's this wrinkle of the burglary and the theft. So there are possible complications that could extend it further. But you know, eight months would be my general guess. The amount of time for the grand jury proceeding, can't say with any certainty, but it makes me think that he said something because for that short of a period of time to be in place and to have this charge of burglary based upon intended theft,

it makes me think that there had to almost be something coming from him where he was laying out what happened in this crime. After reviewing the court documents for Ryan Duke's indictment, I then compared them to his original arrest warrant. And I noticed something peculiar. The original arrest warrant for Ryan Duke states that he used his hands in an offensive manner

with the intent to and did cause serious bodily harm to the person of Tara Grinstead. But the indictment documents say something different. The indictment reads this, Ryan Duke unlawfully made an assault upon the person of Tara Grinstead with the use of his hand. Singular, not hands like the arrest warrant. At first I thought no big deal, maybe it's a typo. But then they say it again, that he used his hand, not his hands. Not only is that information very specific, but the fact that they're alleging Ryan Duke killed Tara with one hand

seemed odd in itself. I asked Philip Holloway about this. Well, I've said all along that the arrest warrants could have been worded a little better, and we don't know if that was on purpose or if it was just they were done quickly. Who knows? But there definitely is a difference between the allegations contained in the arrest warrant. Now, the warrants are not the official charging document, so we have to believe that the district attorney was more precise in making their allegations because if they accuse one thing,

like plural being hands, and it turns out to be one hand, that could be something that a juror could get hung up on. So it's very important for a prosecutor to be accurate in the things that they allege in the indictment. So unless it's a typo, and I doubt that it is, the formal allegation is that only one hand was used to commit the aggravated assault, which they say led to her death. I can think of multiple scenarios where a person could hurt someone enough to kill them with one hand. They predominantly involve some type of strangulation.

If you have someone who is sufficiently larger than the victim, it could be done with one hand. I can imagine lots of scenarios. Maybe there's one hand's being used for one thing and one hand's being used for another. one hand's being used for one thing and one hand's being used for another. I've actually had cases that were like that, where a person was accused of using one hand to do one thing while they used a second hand to maybe hold someone's hand back or hold somebody down or something like that. So I don't know what exactly it means.

It could mean really any number of things, but it's definitely a distinction between the warrants and the formal accusation, which is the grand jury's indictment. There's a Latin phrase in law where we say the allegata, the allegations must match the probata, which is the evidence, the probative information. So in this case, if they believe that the death was caused by only one hand, they would need that allegation to match whatever evidence they believe that they have, precisely. And I think it's a guess, but it's an educated guess. I'm fairly certain that they're going off of statements that were made by Ryan Duke. At a minimum, certain admissions against his legal interests, possibly a full confession, or maybe something in between, we just don't know.

But I believe that it probably would have been a confession. That's how they would know that level of detail. People can minimize their behavior, and it happens all the time. I've seen it in my office. I've seen it in courtrooms. I've seen it when I was a cop on the street. People may come in and admit to part of something, but not all of it. And they may give you enough to satisfy the elements of the

offense so that the charge can go through or they can plead to it or they can be tried on it. But sometimes people don't tell necessarily the whole truth. They don't want themselves to look quite as bad in the eyes of the cops or maybe with their parents, their family, the public, who knows. But the distinction between hands, plural, and hands, singular, is important. What exactly they're saying happened with that hand to cause the death, it was not specified. And I think it should have been specified to some degree in the indictment. And it's just another reason I have the personal opinion that this case may not go to trial because if you're not going to have a defense that's going to be challenging the language of the indictment, it's safe to draft one that doesn't have that level of detail.

So they're saying that Ryan Duke went to Tara's house unlawfully with the intent of stealing something and then killed her with one hand and then took her body by himself to that pecan orchard and no one ever saw it. Well, they also say that he went in with the intention of committing aggravated assault. So let's look at it like this. If I go to your house tonight and I kill you, which I'm not, I promise. But if I do, and I take you out, your body, and you've got your wedding ring on, could I be charged with stealing that wedding ring? Yeah, of course I could. You know, to that extent, I could be charged with burglary of your house with the intention of committing theft, even though that really wasn't my primary intention. If he gave information that said that I removed her body or I took her purse for this, that,

and the other reason, that's a theft. So if a theft occurred, then it's logical to infer that that was at least part of his intention was to commit a theft, which gives rise to the basis for the burglary. So it's possible that there was many things that he had in his head at the time, and one of those things was an intention to commit a theft. If he had used an object to kill her with one hand, would that be specified? No, they're alleging that his hand was that object. Because think about it, if your hand is holding a gun and you shoot someone, then they're going to say with a gun, okay?

Or if it's a lamppost, they're going to say a lamppost. Okay. So if you're holding an object, whether it be this microphone here or a knife or anything else, and you use that object, they're going to allege that object. But if there is no object and it's only your hand, they're going to allege that it was the hand that was the instrumentality of the death. The prosecutor has to be as specific as possible, and the evidence must match the allegation.

And if the evidence was that only one hand was used, then that's what the indictment should say. And if the evidence was a statement by the defendant, then they're going to be working off that statement. Whether that statement is entirely true or not is a whole Since Ryan Duke was arrested, his Facebook account has gone offline. But last week, for just a couple of hours, it randomly came back. During this time period, I was able to obtain screenshots of some of Ryan Duke's Facebook status updates over the past couple of years. And to say that they were interesting would be a major understatement. Because Ryan Duke and I were not friends on Facebook, only some of his content was available.

I'll start with the earliest Facebook status. December 12th, 2015. Two roads emerged in the woods. I took the one less traveled, Two roads emerged in the woods. I took the one less traveled, and it made all the difference. June 16th, 2015. Relatively, grab an electric wire. A second feels like an hour.

Find yourself in the arms of a beautiful woman. An hour seems like a second. If I was a lying, cheating, thieving meth addict, or wife beating ass, I'd have friends. Fuck being a good person. June 17th, 2015. Read the Bible, then try to judge me. Hypocrites, the tick-tock of the clock is painful. All sane and logical. If you like me, then well forgive me. Or you lying about being a Jesus freak. I wonder what I'll miss. Golden rule plus, what goes around comes around.

I am what I am. June 18th, 2015. I can't sleep again. I want to sleep, June 18th, 2015. I can't sleep again. I want to sleep, but thanks anyways, anxiety. March 9th, 2016. Love is the only cure for the stupidly and hate. Love.

It's that simple. Love will mend your soul soul June 8th, 2016 Walk alone And your shadow will be your only friend June 10th, 2016 I built my world of Legos Then I tore my world and life down February 17th, 2017

Less than a week from when Ryan Duke was arrested for Tara Grinstead's murder. To be yourself, in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else, is the greatest accomplishment. I presented Ryan Duke's Facebook messages to forensic psychologist Doug Miller, who we talked to in last week's case evidence. I wanted to get his take on this. So my first impression is there's some bitterness here. There's a little kind of anger toward life. There's feeling misunderstood by others.

There's a little pain in this. As I go one by one, you'll hear where I'm getting some of that. There's a sense of feeling misunderstood by society, by the world. The one about two roads emerged in the woods, I took the one less traveled and made all the difference you know i'm sure you went where i go with that is that the night of the crime yeah you know beginning to get this general impression that here's a guy who seems committed this murder and he's kind of busting at the seams that he, he knows he can't tell anyone,

but it's like leaking out in these other symbolic, or I talked about symbolic expiation before and kind of dealing with his guilt, you know, as a psychologist, is there some unconscious communication and all this that you just have to maybe read a little bit between the lines or, and again, none of this means anything until it ties into more factual, solid information.

And this is the way my great professor Ray Craddock talked about it, that when you do a psychological evaluation, the more substantial data from the test results and the harder data kind of form the skeleton. And then these kinds of statements and those sentence completion responses, you kind of hang on the skeleton and that support it and fill it out and make it more whole. On June 16th, 2015, he Facebooked, if I was a lying, cheating, thieving meth addict or a wife beating ass, I'd have friends. F being a good person. wife beating ass out of friends f being a good person the bitterness i mean there's a feeling like he's a good guy and the world isn't understanding him yeah you know if that was

before the crime you get the sense that this guy's kind of an outsider and it's kind of angry about it and it doesn't see the world as a just a fair place place. One of these doesn't mean a whole lot. There's been times when we've all felt something like that. Yeah, of course. Now, this whole thing about feeling judged, read the Bible, then try to judge me, hypocrites. Who's judging him is the question, and what happened? So it could have been something specific at church,

or it could have been with someone he talked to. But if you plug it into the case, he's probably judging himself about what happened, giving one picture of who he is. And then he's projecting that on the world. He's judging himself, projection on the world, feels like the world's judging him. Maybe he has a history of that going back, wasn't a popular kid, felt judged, that sort of thing.

Now he has this heinous act that he's committed and, you know, may, and it seems, felt horrible about, may have even traumatized himself with. And this is almost like he's crying out for forgiveness. If you don't like, then well, forgive me. Or are you lying about being a Jesus freak? Again, that kind of forgiveness. The tick-tock of the clock is painful, all sane and logical. You know, that just feels like a man who's in pain. And time is going by, and he's just in pain.

And time is this relentless reasonable systematic thing that's ordered and he's in this kind of tortured state golden rule plus what goes around comes around again like this kind of calling for compassion calling for understanding kind of the rule of karma what goes goes around comes around. Who knows? And, you know, these would be things that, like, if I was working with him, evaluating him, I'd want to know. I'd ask him, what was going on in your mind at that point? I want to sleep, but thanks anyway, anxiety.

And that's, you know, speaks to me. That's, if he was having night terrors, people who have night terrors often have trouble sleeping because they go to sleep and they get terrorized. So, I mean, if he was having sleeping problems in 2005, 2006, and in 2015, they either stopped and came back. Or they were there all along. I'll hasten that they were there all along. I'll hasten that they were there all along. And for whatever reason, but also if it was post-traumatic nightmares, then they were probably relatively continuous,

perhaps with an ebb and flow depending on a stress level. Relatively, grab an electric wire a second feels like an hour. Find yourself in the arms of a beautiful woman. An hour seems like a second. Boy, that's a romantic thought. And it's also a pain. It's also this, who's going to grab an electric wire? This is a man looking for love, wants to be loved, wants to be held by a beautiful woman. Walk alone and your shadow will be your only friend. It suggests he's walking alone. Now, what's the shadow? Okay, well, shadow's a shadow cast by light.

Psychologically speaking, well, it can also be the dark side of ourselves. Right. The things we disowned or want to disown, things we're pressing down, and something menacing. Then, you know, here's this kind of spiritual sentiment. Love is the only cure for the stupidity and hate. Love, it's that simple. Love will mend your soul.

This is a romantic guy. This is a guy who wants love and who values love. It's kind of this existential angst or bitterness. I built my world of Legos, then I tore my world and life down. Again, you know, as a whole, it's this bitterness, it's this yearning for love as a solution. It's some feeling judged and maybe guilt and wanting to be seen in a more positive light.

His Facebook profile picture, it looks like a young man or an older boy with flowers behind his back, standing face-to-face with a young woman or older girl. I don't know. She has like a sword or something behind her. I think it's a baseball bat. Yeah, it is.

It's a little boy and a little girl, and the little boy has roses behind his back, and the girl has a baseball bat. So this immediately puts me on the track of what was Ryan's romantic life like? What was going on there? Was he a guy who all he really wanted to do was give a woman who he loved some roses, and he felt like he was going to get beat down by a bat every time he did that. And there's some other text

that supports that in here, isn't there? Yeah. So there we are back again. This kind of guy, unrequited love, passionate guy who doesn't feel understood. It's a powerful image. I would pursue that image and see what it meant to him. We'll see you next time. is one thing. This season, experience basketball on the foul line, exciting state-of-the-art live tracking technology,

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shopping at Rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N.ca. Over the past few weeks, I've been scouring through old audio clips of different interviews I've had throughout the past year in this case. And I came across a conversation I had with Maurice Godwin about two months before Ryan Duke was arrested. I was asking him for more details about the condition of Tara's house and also the condition of her car in the carport. I was told that Tara had left something strange in her car. $100 in an envelope.

It's my understanding it came from, was given to her by a pageant girl at the pageant. Found in an envelope. In the console, yeah. An envelope with $100 cash in it was found sitting in Tara's unlocked car in the carport. What was the deal with that? What was the money for? I don't know. It was very unlike Tara to leave cash out like that.

Yeah, especially with the door unlocked, right? I asked Maurice about some of the other unexplained mysteries at Tara's house. Now keep in mind, this conversation took place before Ryan Duke's arrest. Why do you think her keys are gone? Why would her phone be there and her keys be gone? Well, there's two ways you can look at that. She either left with somebody that she knew, and the purse and the

keys were disposed of like she was. Or she drove the car somewhere else. Drove the car somewhere else. Her car. Yeah. And whatever happened to her happened there. And the person

returned the car but took the car keys with them. It returned the car but likely prints on the car keys. Do you think it's possible somebody came back and put her cell phone back inside her house? I think it's very possible. Where do you think her keys and purse are right now? With her. With her. Yeah. And another unexplained piece to the puzzle.

Her earrings, chandelier earrings, they are missing. They've never been found. Patera's outfit was found at her house, though, right? Yeah, well, her undergarments were not. Yeah, the rest of it were found. The jeans were over to the left of the lamp on a little, just thrown there. Her coat was on the bed. And to make things even more confusing, the driver's seat in Tara's car? The seat was pushed back a lot more than she could be able to reach the pedals.

More than what she could drive at 5'3". When police inspected her car that Monday morning, they found her driver's seat was pushed back, as if someone taller had driven her car. Her seat would be right up at the stern wheel almost. And the tires on Tara's car? They had mud on them. Mud on the tires. Clayish mud. Mud on the tires of her car was unusual. For one, she always kept her car clean and immaculate. And two, based on Tara's timeline and known whereabouts, she hadn't driven anywhere to collect this mud in the first place.

So why was it there? That would have been unusual. I mean, she kept excellent care of that car. And one more telling piece of information was about Tara's dog, Dolly. When she's at home, the dog was the inside dog. When she wasn't, it was outside in the backyard. The dog was found in the back fence, in the fenced-in area in the back. The only time Tara kept Dolly outside was when she wasn't home. So assuming that Tara did make it home that night after the barbecue, why was Dolly still left outside?

So what do you think happened? I mean, she leaves the barbecue. Does she go home and change clothes? Well, let me ask you this question. Other than the phone and the jeans at home, jeans just thrown over there, what proof do you have that she even got home? I don't have any proof. According to the state's case against Ryan Duke,

he allegedly killed Tara inside her home that night while attempting to commit a theft. This narrative just didn't sit well with me. And it didn't sit well with Dusty Vassie either. Why is her purse gone? Because she left on her own. Because she got in her car and drove wherever she was going. I mean, there's much bigger flaws than the idea that she was killed at the house. The dog was outside.

The dog didn't bark. The muddy tires. The seat being let back. The $100 in the console. The purse being missing. The keys being missing, the pageant tape being missing. All these things don't make a lot of sense.

Why move her body at all? Why, if you're going to move her body, drive her 20 miles to the other side of Fitzgerald? But change the location to the pecan orchard, and it makes a little more sense. I mean, the pecan orchard makes a whole hell of a lot more sense for the place where she died than her house does. I mean, I don't know how she dies at the pecan orchard, but assume she does die at the pecan orchard.

I mean, you can very easily map out the entire thing and fit almost all the clues. I mean, there's a few things that don't really necessarily make sense, like how much you leave her cell phone behind. But at the end of the day, that could be explained by somebody saying, oh, heck, they might be able to triangulate her cell phone to where she's at, maybe we should take it back to her house. There was obviously still a ton of unanswered questions.

Tara leaves the barbecue sometime around 11 p.m. and presumably goes home. Then, sometime after midnight, Brian Duke allegedly breaks into her house with the intent to commit a theft and then kills her. Then, by himself, takes the body out to the orchard. With so many holes in this theory,

it began to appear less and less likely to me. And then I got a phone call that would change everything. I used to go out, I'd bang and play country and western kind of rock, bang and play old timey rock. And I ran the concession stand and I would always come home on Saturday night about 1.30 in the morning because we'd have to clean up up and all count our money and stuff like that. And I always had a friend in fixture all the way till I got home to call him. So, you know, I got home.

Okay. And I always looked at my clock when I turned on my road here for the house because I live one block over from Tara. And it was 1.30 and I always stop at that road. There's not a stop sign, but I stopped because there's been wrecks there, and I look both ways. And her carport light was on, but her car was gone, and it was 1.30. This throws off everything. She said at 1.30 in the morning that night, Tara's car was not in her carport. Then where was it?

And more importantly, where was it? And more importantly, where was Tara? It takes skill, speed, sweat. Unless we're talking Kudo's new phone, internet, and streaming bundle. With the Happy Stack, you can sit back and stack up the savings on Kudo Internet, a sweet phone plan, Netflix, Disney Plus, and Amazon Prime. All starting at just $99 a month. Stack more, spend less. The Happy Stack, only at Kudo. Conditions apply.

So I first came to Edward Jones with a great deal of trepidation. When I first met with my advisor, I really was feeling vulnerable about what I would have to share. I was, of course, pleasantly surprised to find that there was absolutely no judgment and a lot of support. And when it was time to get serious, he really took my hand and helped me to do that. Edward Jones, we do money differently. Visit edwardjones.ca slash different.

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just two days after Ryan Duke was arrested, I got an email from someone. That someone was a former friend of Bo Duke's, the man charged with helping Ryan cover up this heinous crime. At this point in time, Bo Duke's name was not yet widely known, at least publicly, and his friend contacted me before Bo Dukes was arrested.

This friend of his, who I'll refer to as Darren, shared with me a lot of important information, which I'm about to begin sharing with you now. It all started with a phone call from Bo Dukes' friend, the man I'll be calling Darren. For Darren's safety, we are not using his actual voice, but the following audio is our first phone call together. I don't know, man. Again, this is what I'm saying. At this point, I'm not even sure what

he's capable of anymore. Like he's not the same person I was friends with. You know what I mean? Like this dude, I have no idea what he's capable of. But I have a feeling he's going to be very vindictive towards anybody that lashes out against him. So Bo and I were texting all of Friday, after Ryan was arrested. Basically, the way Bo's immunity worked out is that after Ryan was arrested, he was able to freely talk about it. But once again, I think his ability to talk about it is just based on what he told the GBI. I'm not sure that'll tell me a different story.

I mean, you can read the text messages. He seems pretty fucking open about all that shit. But at the same time, I don't think he's dumb enough to actually tell me the truth, if there's a different truth. I'll send you the fucking message where Bo talks about how Ryan, literally Ryan, brought the body to his fucking farm and just dumped it on the edge of the farm. And apparently he didn't tell Bo about it for four days. It's so funny. Just like all this shit. Like, I think Bo got spooked by your podcast. I really do. I think that was part

of his influence in telling Brooke. I think he thought you were getting close. But once again, influence in telling Brooke. I think he thought you were getting close, but once again, that's just speculation. That's just me feeling out certain things. But the fact that he's sitting there fucking trolling people too, it's like, does he have any fucking remorse for any of this shit? Like, I don't think he does, dude. It's actually like, pretty brutal. I don't know. I mean, he actually sent me text messages too of the shit he said on your discussion board. I was just like, fuck man. Like, come on. Bo and Darren exchanged a lot of text messages over the course of the past two months.

And he sent me all of them. I'll start from the very beginning of the conversation, on February 10th, 2017. This was two weeks before Ryan Duke was arrested. To protect Darren's identity, for the time being, I will be omitting most of what Darren said in the conversations and only reading Beau's messages. For future reference, Brooke is Bo's girlfriend. Bo begins the text message conversation with this.

Dude, I know I have been weird, but strange is happening. I'm sorry, bro. Old demons are coming to the surface. Things I should have dealt with years ago. Criminal investigation things. Darren says, I'll call you tomorrow, man. Bo replies, okay. Then he

sends Darren a website link to upandvanish.com. Bo then says this, I talked to the GBI a few months ago. I didn't kill her, but was involved. Darren says, What was the break that shook you guys? It seemed like this case was dead.

Or did Brooke come forward? I read online that someone's girlfriend may have called in. Bo replies, Brooke let it slip to her mom. She tipped off the GBI. Through a long negotiation between Brooke, the case agent, myself, Bo replies, Brooke let it slip to her mom. She tipped off the GBI. Through a long negotiation between Brooke, the case agent, myself, and eventually my lawyer, and the DAs,

we worked out a deal. It worked out well, for me at least. And Brooke may get the reward. Darren says, So will you get arrested, and then they let you go after the trial Bo replies No I won't be arrested or prosecuted at all I'm glad my grandfather isn't alive for this

He would fucking kill me Darren says Dude Who else knows about this besides you? Bo replies, Emily, two guys from Osceola, Brooke, my cousin, and possibly others I don't remember telling.

Please, never bring me a dead body. Although, now that I've had some practice... dot dot dot. Thanks for listening, guys. I will be posting the screenshots of Bo Duke's messages on the Up and Vanish discussion board. To see them yourself, go to upandvanish.com slash discussion. Today's episode was mixed and mastered by Resonate Recordings. They specialize in podcast editing and mixing.

If you want to improve the quality of your podcast or start a podcast of your own, check them out at resonatateRecordings.com. This Thursday, we have another Q&A episode with myself and Philip Holloway. So if you have any questions for us, please give us a call at 770-545-6411. Thanks guys. I'll see you soon.