Tara Grinstead was born on November 14, 1974 in Hawkinsville, Georgia to her parents Billy and Connie Grinstead. As a teenager, Tara grew interest in beauty pageants and began to compete locally. Tara did not want to take up a career as a beauty queen, she just wanted to do as best and get as far as she could before going on to get a higher education. She competed successfully in many scholarship pageants and used the money she won to pay for school as she pursued a career in education. Tara graduated from Middle Georgia College in 2003 and went on to receive her Master’s degree in education from Valdosta State University in Georgia. From there she began teaching 11th grade history at Irwin County High School in her hometown.
Tara thrived as an educator and as a result became the assistant principal, striving to her goal of becoming principal. It was said that Tara was very dedicated to her job and a perfect fit at Irwin County High School. Her students viewed her as a role model and she even used her experience as a beauty queen to help her students prepare for the towns annual beauty pageant. Tara was loved and known throughout her school and her community, so when she didn’t show up to work on Monday, October 24, 2005, everyone knew something was wrong.
That same morning, a neighbor reported Tara’s disappearance to the Ocilla Police. There was no action taken to respond to the claim of a missing person until 34 hours after anyone had heard from Tara. Billy Hancock was the police chief and lead investigator at the time and he began searching her house for signs or evidence. The first bad sign was that Taras car had still been parked outside in the parking lot of her home. The drivers seat had been pushed back further than normal for a woman of her size, her purse and keys were also missing, and there was an envelope of cash on the dashboard. Police had noted seeing a latex glove in the front yard and a business card was crammed into her front door.
Inside the house, police were also able to gather clues to what could have happened to the young woman. Her phone had been left inside the house, plugged in and charging. Her clothes from the previous night laid on her bedroom floor. There was no sign of forced entry and those who knew Tara said she was typically tidy and would not leave her clothes on the ground. She also had a cat and a dog that she would not abandon. There were several other strange signs that indicated that something bad had happened which gave Hancock a gut feeling that something was very wrong.
After an extremely extensive search that included hundreds of volunteers, there was still no sign of Tara Grinstead. The last time anyone had heard from her was the Saturday before her disappearance. She had attended a pageant with some students, gone to her neighbors, and then a cookout, getting home at around 10:30 PM. It was confirmed that the clothes she had worn that day were the ones found on the floor. It has been theorized that Tara left home with someone she knew, possibly a student of ex-boyfriend. Police looked into several suspects including a former student that had given Tara trouble in the past and the name of the man on the business card found on the crime scene. All suspects claimed their innocence but none of their alibi’s covered the full 34 hours since she had been missing.
Tara Grinstead’s case had been featured on an episode of 48 hours in 2008 after details of her investigation had been confidential for years. The evidence of the latex glove had been revealed to the public and although there had been DNA and a fingerprint recovered, neither matched the identity of the list of suspects the police had developed.
It is often said that this case has never gone cold, as Ocilla PD has been constantly receiving tips. A podcast in 2017 made the most significant break in the case, as the true perpetrators were revealed through a tip they true crime podcast received. Bo Dukes and Ryan Duke (no relation) had been former students of Tara. Bo confessed to her girlfriend at the time that him and his friend Ryan (the mastermind) had killed Tara Grinstead and burned her body to hide the evidence. Both men were convicted of felony murder, aggravated assault, and four other charges. The motive however, “That’s something only God and Ryan know”