Up and Vanished - S1E4: Snapdragon Road

Episode Date: September 27, 2016

The biggest lead yet takes us underneath a home in Ocilla. We learn more about this mysterious fire on Snapdragon Road. 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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If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone else close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Previously on Up and Vanished. I had never heard that she went to a student's house in between the pageant and the barbecue. I've heard that in the talk around town. Is there any way to find out who that student was? Good gracious, that's been 10 years or more ago. They found full profile of white male DNA on the glove.

And it's been entered into the Georgia DNA database, and it's been entered into CODIS for like 10 years, and there's never been a match. You know, there was a side of Tara that I didn't know. Very free with men, and one of them was a student.

Vickers. Anthony Vickers. Hey, is Anthony there? Man, this stuff's kind of a little funny talking about. Did you have any involvement in Tara's disappearance? No, no. Was there someone else in Tara's house that day? Oh, yeah, there was.

Some guy from Perry. Detective Heath Dykes, Prairie Police Department. So he drove there with the sole intent of checking on Tara. Oh, yeah. Do you think it's odd that Heath Dykes didn't see the glove on the ground? I think it's unusual. You're dealing with a veteran detective. Is there any chance she might have left under her own free will with someone that she knew? I think that's how it started out and then something went very wrong after that. I mean I really do feel like it is an abduction at this point.

The one person who has been vetted the most is her ex-boyfriend, Marcus Harper. He was absolutely tired of her. She was crying and was upset about something. She was very irrational, and she told me that if she found out I was dating someone, she would commit suicide. The only thing that the dogs showed any indication to was a burned house that had burnt down actually when we were down there. In this situation, we determined that they were responding to some septic lines or sewage. What I'm about to read you has never been released to the public.

Tara's emails. On October 14th, Tara sent Marcus' mom an email. Tara says this. Just remind Marcus what I said about something happening to me, or even him. He leaves it like this, and something may happen to me. Thank you. From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished, the investigation of Tara Grinstead. I'm your host, Payne Lindsey. Think of the last time you bought something to wear, something to decorate your house,

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to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to any operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. During the last six to eight months,

I've had my fair share of white rabbits in this case. Dead-end leads have sent me on countless tangents that would last for weeks before I realized there was nothing to it. It's made me live by the phrase, if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. I think the hardest part about the whole thing is separating what could be important information from what is completely meaningless. To solve something, you have to follow every single lead, regardless of your first impression. Sometimes the completely meaningless ends up meaning everything in a cold case. A few weeks ago, the private investigator received a new tip, which he shared with me.

This was by far the biggest and likely the craziest tip I had heard yet, and as doubtful as it seemed in the beginning, it actually matched up with several accounts that I had received from separate people over the past couple months. The tip suggested that we search underneath a home in Osceola. We had reason to believe that Tara's body was once there, or maybe it still was. For now, I have to keep the details

about the location confidential, but I can assure you, this place is very significant. This whole thing started with a phone call from Maurice just a few weeks ago. I got a tip tonight. They do heating and air conditioner 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. That's going to be arranged probably tomorrow. Starting route to Acilla. I was repairing some air conditioning ducting and got under there, and it looked like where something had been buried because the rest of the house is flat,

the dirt is, and then there's that mound. Maybe they can figure it out with the soil something. I had my younger brother with me to help run the audio, and I was filming with my camera. We were on our hands and knees, inching our way through the crawlspace. Our goal was to fill several brown paper bags full of soil, then we would run a forensic test to see if a body had ever been there. A local from Osillo helped us with the dig, but he wished to remain anonymous. A crawlspace in general is pretty spooky, but this one in particular was very eerie. It was dark, and we could only see in front of us with our headlamps. In the back corner was a huge mound of soft dirt. This is why we came here. There's like a whole

mound of dirt right here. It's pretty soft looking. Yeah. Is that normal or is that is that what kind of drew attention? Yeah that's what drew attention. This area of dirt was about six to eight inches above the rest of the ground around it. And I kid you not, it looked like the exact dimensions of a human body. About 6 feet long, 3 feet wide. And the dirt was soft. So soft that your hand would sink down up to your elbow when you were digging in it. Every second I feared I would see something that I would never be able to unsee.

Definitely doesn't look natural. We kept our flashlights aimed towards the shovel, and we gathered a few pounds of soil, sifting through it as we put it in the bags. Some of it looks kinda white, chalky. Yeah, that's what I was looking at. That looks just like that other piece I found. It's hard. Like it's the inside tread of a shoe. Where's that little pile you made?

There's three paper bags over there. After about 30 minutes, we had filled the bags. And I was ready to get the hell out of there. Once we were back in the sunlight we were able to take a closer look at the soil. We kept finding these little pieces of white chalky material that was hard as a rock. That ain't concrete. What is that? That's what I was thinking was lime when we went under there. I'm not sure but I think it's to help process the decay in the body. It did look a lot like lime, based off pictures I saw on the internet.

I called Maurice to tell him the job was done. Make sure they stay sealed. Send it with a return receipt for me to sign for it. That follows the chain of custody. And see, the bags allow the dirt to breathe. Make sure that the bags are taped and sealed. And put pain lensing across the tape to the bag. I asked him about that white chalky stuff that looked like lime. Interesting. bodies to make it decompose faster. But, the truth is the opposite occurs. It preserves them.

Interesting. Just two days after our search, the Irwin County Sheriff's Department caught wind of it, and they sent their own search team to the same location. With the help of a local, we were able to get live updates on the search as it was happening. And I literally couldn't believe what I was hearing. He said they told the whole damn house.

He said there were some people over there that they found five bones and a pair of panties. They found five bones and a pair of panties? How in the world did we miss that? He said it's almost dark there. And he said that they were putting on white suits or something. And they were going to come back there. I mean, I'm just telling you what he told me. That's all.

He just sent me a message. He said that they were putting like a white suit on. and that's what they do, that's tri-vac. A few hours later, two unmarked SUVs with government plates pulled up. It was the GBI. They think it might be an animal bone. They're going to send it off. My experience is law enforcement don't send animal bones to allow. And they know the difference between an animal bone and a human bone.

It's just odd that they said they're going to have it sent away for testing. I don't see anybody burying a deer or a dog under a house. Who would put a dead dog under a house? That's sort of morbid. If they hadn't been out there the other day, they would have never been there. There's no doubt about it. I think they probably got a wind of what we were doing out there, and they were just covering their butt.

I guess we just have to wait and see. I'm surprised the media didn't pick it up. He has a point. Where's the media? In 2015, the GBI drained a pond to search for evidence linked to Tara, and they made a huge deal about it in the news, but they found absolutely nothing. Now we have five bones and a pair of panties, and there's nothing about it anywhere.

I had originally planned to keep this whole thing a secret, but I was getting impatient. Then finally, almost three weeks later, the GBI made a statement to WSB-TV Atlanta, but only because I mentioned it to the news station myself, and they were doing a story on the podcast. An Atlanta filmmaker turned podcaster is on a mission to solve the 2005 disappearance of Tara Grinstead, and his new project is getting a lot of people talking. Lindsay says his new podcast, Up and Vanished, is generating new information. The GBI is the lead agency investigating the case, but nearly 11 years later, no sign of Grinstead, her remains, or an arrest. This is never-before-seen video of Lindsey recently searching underneath a home

after receiving an anonymous tip. The GBI searched the same area, and a source told Channel 2's Mark Winney they found animal bones. But Lindsey says he's doing some tests of his own that could provide a new lead. So there it was, heard through the grapevine. The GBI determined they were animal bones. We still have our own soil samples to get tested, and we're currently waiting on the results.

As crazy as this whole thing was, it was time to move on, at least for the time being. At the end of episode 3, I mentioned that I obtained some of Tara's emails. Other than Tara's family, and presumably the GBI, these have been held confidential for over a decade. But today I'm going to share them with you. These emails are one of the few things out there that provide a true insight into Tara's state of mind before her disappearance. Before we dive into that, I wanted Maurice to share his insight about Tara's emotional state.

She was very distraught, emotional. It was completely over with Marcus Harper. In the weeks prior to her disappearance, she endured a bad breakup with her boyfriend, Marcus Harper, and she wasn't taking it very well. Maurice described an emotional breakdown she had in her car, so bad that her friends and neighbors had to come calm her down. She was on the way to school, Tara was, and she received a call from Marcus, and he told her that the relationship was completely over with. She became very historical and emotional to the point that she couldn't drive. She had an emotional breakdown. And on the way to school, she had to have someone go out and pick her up. And she was not able to walk and stuff.

She had to have Dr. Davis to carry her in the house. On Friday, October 14th, at 6.43 a.m., Tara sent Marcus Harper's mother an email. If I did not give a crap about Marcus, you all, and his feelings, I would not be in this state. If this were all about me, I would not want Marcus. I would want to see him. I would not even love him. He just truly does not believe anything I say and does not care. I've tried to remain positive, but at this point, I cannot.

Of course, Marcus obviously does not care and makes it worse. Since he has been ignoring me, all I can think of is the bad, bad words he said to me in the past. Now, I am beginning to think he meant that. I need to know what I did. People just do not hate folks for no reason. I need to know what I did to him or whoever. It hurts like hell to know in my heart and soul that I honestly do not think I did anything wrong and he hates me. So he has heard or thinks something that is not true. I'm so depressed right now, but Marcus is the lucky one. He has his shell to protect him like the crab.

He's strong and tough while I become weaker. This does not mean I'm a bad person. It means I have to put it first in my life and I was happy having it that way. Just remind Marcus what I said about something happening to me or even him. He leaves it as this and something may happen to me. This email was sent just eight days before she went missing. It's very clear that Tara was an emotional wreck over Marcus. But according to almost everyone, by the next Saturday at the pageant and the barbecue, she was perfectly normal. But one girl who attended the pageant that night told me otherwise.

She did not want to use her name in the podcast, but we'll call her Mary. My mom actually was judging pageants, and Tara was one of the judges. And I was involved in pageants and whatnot, so Tara introduced herself to me and she wanted to be my pageant coach. So we started off with that and she actually had a Relay for Life pageant one year and I decided to enter it. Well, I ended up winning and I was one of her queens and we went to all these events and she was always just so bubbly and just did so much and just had an attitude of, you know, being so welcome to everyone. It just, she was a great person. And the Sweet Potato Badget, you obviously know about that.

She was at it that night, but unlike what everybody else is telling me from what I've heard so far far there was something about her that was different um she was not you know normal or anything like that that night she was acting really odd and the reason I know that is just because she was always so bubbly and would talk to everybody and you know that night she was just so to herself I just remember it so vividly like she was just so out of it. Did she seem more sad or more like? It's really hard to describe. I mean, it was just like she knew something was going to happen in my opinion. It just wasn't, you know, normal. I mean, that night it was, she

was so distant, not really wanting to talk to many people. And it may have changed after she left the Padre. It just, she just wasn't the same person that I figured that I've always known Tara. That night, we actually walked Tara to her car from the Sweet Potato Padre. She was parked in front of the theater that it was at. And I asked her, you know, if there was anything wrong, because like I said, you could tell something was off about her, especially if you spent any time with Tara, there was something off about her. And she was like, no, you know, I'm okay. And we were like, okay, you know, and I hugged her. And that was the last time I'd seen her.

And she waved to my mom across the street, you know, got in her car, left. And I had no idea what she did after that. Had you seen her in like the two weeks before that? Yes. We actually had a parade. There was a Relay for Life in Irwin County that I had won. That was the pageant. And that was, I think, one of the last times that I saw her.

But she had a boyfriend there with her. I'm not sure what his name was. I can't remember. He was tall. I know she had a boyfriend that was in the armed forces or something like that. And this was apparently a new boyfriend. At this point, I had learned of a bunch of different men in Tara's life. But who was this? She said she couldn't remember his name. But if she ever did, she let me know. You know, I didn't see of him

very much other than that. I mean, I think that was the only time I saw him. But her ex-boyfriend was very unhappy about it. The majority of people around here believe that her ex-boyfriend did something and that cops were involved in it. And that's why a lot of people can't put anything together is because somebody on the inside did something, especially since her ex-boyfriend had so many friends in that field and had a lot of knowledge with that. Around here, it's so small of a town. Somebody would know something, and somebody does, and they're just not saying anything. Like I said, though, the night of the sweet potato pageant,

she knew something was going to happen. I'm really positive about that. She knew something was going to happen. She just was not her normal self. And everybody can tell you that she was, but I know that she was not acting normal. Whoa, what are you listening to this for? And everybody can tell you that she was, but I know that she was not acting normal. 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus.

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be a septic line. I started researching more into the fire and obtained a copy of the fire marshal report. Everything about it just seemed really suspicious. On November 8, 2005, an alarm was received by Irwin County Communications Center about a fire located at 425 Snapdragon Road, just outside of Osceola. The name of the person that reported the fire is unknown. On November 8, 2005, at the 0715 hour, the Irwin County Fire Department responded to the fire.

The fire occurred in a three-bedroom, one-bath wood construction single-family residence. All utilities were connected at the time of the fire. The owner slash occupant had not been living in the house. Also destroyed by the fire was a 2000 Ford Expedition, which was parked behind and near the house. The vehicle belonged to Michael Lankford. Michael Lankford claimed that he was looking after the property for the owner who lived out of state. Mr. Lankford lived on Snapdragon Road just down from where the house fire occurred. Upon arrival by the fire investigator,

the scene was not secured by local officials. Yellow crime scene tape had not been installed completely around the fire. The investigation involved an in-depth fire scene investigation. The residence was completely destroyed. The only remnants of the house were the brick pillars, a fireplace, and chimney. Due to the amount of damage to the house and SUV, the fire investigator was not able to determine if the fire originated at the residence or the vehicle. Accelerant Detection K9 examined the scene

and made one indication on the ground beside the driver's side of the vehicle. However, it was determined to have likely come from the vehicle's gas line. The cause of the fire was ruled undetermined and remains the same to date. To determine if the fire was connected to the disappearance of Tara Grinstead, different cadaver dogs were used on different occasions to examine the burnt house. The dogs hit in the front part of the house. The investigators determined that the dogs were hitting

on a septic line at the house, and not a dead body. The fire marshal report that I have right here says the cause of the fire is unknown. The report was filed by a man named Vernon Singley, the fire marshal at the time of Tara's disappearance. I was lucky to get a hold of him last week. I wanted to know why they couldn't figure out what caused the fire. Okay, okay. Yeah, I can tell you what led us to that determination.

Because we ended up having to sift that scene out. When we arrived at that thing, it wasn't nothing but one big black spot. And I remember I had one chimney standing in the middle of this, this, this out. Wow. You put charcoal on a grill and,

you know, you just let them burn out on your grill charcoal. Like you're going to build a state. That's basically what we got. We got, we didn't have nothing but coal. It was completely burnt. All structures, all members and everything.

It was like a country home or a vacation home, you know, for some owners like in Florida. And it did have electricity running through it. But since there's no activity in it, it's kind of like a little suspicious. You know what I'm saying? This is why all of a sudden this house just catch fire. No bad weather, no electrical problems. And then we have a fire that the house is completely on the ground. What we decided to do, we brought in these dogs.

And they ran those through when the scene got cool enough for the dogs. I remember they ran the dogs through there. The dogs hit. I mean, I thought, well, we got something. You know, we got something. So what we eventually do, and we dirtied this thing out. We sectioned this whole floor plan off. And we got in there and we sifted those ashes,

looking for any kind of remains such as bones, teeth, anything. We didn't find nothing. Man, let me tell you some of the stuff they told us. One of the hottest places in the house that attracted the dogs the most was in front of the fireplace. They said, you know, somebody could have got cut, you know, cut their hand and bled on the floor

in that particular area. And then I'm like, oh, man. There were so many different scenarios that they was telling us. I talked to one of the ladies who had the dogs, and she told me that the dogs hit on a septic line. Do you remember that? I'll be honest with you, I don't know that. Did she say anybody could have bled there?

This is what she told me. She said that her dogs made a hit, like you said, by the fireplace for what could be human remains. And she said that one of the GBI people or whoever was there said that it was probably a septic line. The GBI was there. I don't know what they told them, but I know I didn't tell them there was no septic.

I ain't heard nothing about no septic thing. What do you make of that car that was found on the property? Yeah, it was like a little Ford, a Ford or something like that. What do you make of that? It was sitting close enough to it and to the fire. I mean, you know, I don't know. I don't, I don't. Did you ever remember seeing the owner of the vehicle?

Did he ever come up there when you guys were there? Basically, are you telling me that somebody other than the folks in Florida owned that? A guy named Michael Lankford owned the vehicle. It was not the homeowner did not own that. And he didn't own the house? I don't remember that. I don't. And why? I mean, I'm going to be honest with you.

I don't remember nobody, nobody saying nothing about what you're saying about that. I can't believe somebody didn't come up in the middle of the day and tell us that. Why was this vehicle there? Well, I'm getting at now. I mean, I don't remember nobody talking about, we're going to interview

this guy. Everybody was over there with us that day. I can't believe somebody didn't say nothing like that. Now you've got me curious. I hope somebody done checked into it, because Vernon didn't. Why did the fire marshal not know about the septic tank? Was that ever really a thing? And what about Michael Lankford?

Why would they leave out the fact that the car belonged to him and not the homeowner? The fire marshal should know that. And why was his car really parked there in the first place? Okay, you there? Okay. What do you know about this Michael Lankford guy? A former police officer with a Cilla PD. He lived, when you turn on Snapdragon, he lived on the first house on the right.

His SUV Expedition was found very close, within like seven feet, six feet from the back of the house. Marcus Harper and Michael Langford worked at the Silla PD together. Was Marcus and Michael friends or what? Oh, yeah, both of them worked at the Silla PD. All those guys know each other. They are friends, yes. Thank you guys for listening to episode four of Up and Vanished. Starting next Monday, each week in between a new episode, I'm releasing a smaller episode called Case Evidence, where I

break down all the finer details about the case. You can actually call in and leave a voicemail on a number we set up for the podcast. You can leave a question about the case, and we'll answer it next week. The phone number is 770-545-6411. Again, 770-545-6411. I've decided to make the Up and Vantage podcast a total of 12 episodes, which will be split into two seasons with six episodes each.

That means there's only two episodes left this season, and the season one finale will premiere on October 24th. Season two will premiere in January. Again, guys, thanks for listening, and see you next week.