Tara Faye Grinstead (born November 14, 1974) was an American high school history teacher from Ocilla, Georgia, who went missing on October 22, 2005, and was declared dead in 2010.
[3] On February 23, 2017, a press conference was held by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) formally announcing that a tip that had been received that led to the arrest of Ryan Alexander Duke for Grinstead's murder and concealment.
[8] Grinstead graduated from Middle Georgia College in Cochran and in 2003 earned a master's degree in education at Valdosta State University.
[7] On October 22, 2005, the night before her disappearance, Grinstead visited a beauty pageant, for which she was a coach to young contestants, and attended a barbecue.
[9] Irwin County High School principal Bobby Conner was quoted by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as saying, "We're a small community and this has really touched home because it is something you read about happening elsewhere.
[13] Dubbing himself the "Catch Me Killer", the man in the videos detailed what he claimed to be his sixteen female victims, and one of these women was determined by authorities to be Grinstead.
A police investigation revealed the videos to be part of a bizarre, elaborate hoax, and Haley was ultimately eliminated as a substantial lead in Grinstead's disappearance.
[9][3] Running from 2016 to 2017, the Up and Vanished podcast was credited by officials and media for helping shed new light on the evidence and reigniting public interest in the case.
[19] According to warrants read in court, on the day Grinstead disappeared, Duke was burglarizing her home, and when she caught him in the act, he strangled her and removed her body from the house.
These additional charges are based on a Wilcox County indictment stating that Dukes had lied to a GBI official who had questioned him in 2016 concerning the disappearance of Grinstead.