Full Transcript: Up and Vanished - S1 E2 - White Rabbits

Full Transcript: Up and Vanished - S1 E2 - White Rabbits

: When I would talk to people, they will say, “They’re never gonna find her because she’s in some swamp or she’s in some well.” And those people were right because 10 years now and I mean, you always have hope that she’ll be found and at this point, I’m really doubtful she ever will be found. I mean because this is basically swampland.

: I can tell you, if you wanna solve this, that would be your ideal ending I’m sure. Unless this gets shook up and it’s approached in a different way, it’s not gonna, nothing’s ever gonna happen and that’s probably gonna be really hard to do.

: Vandaag is het tien jaar geleden dat iemand Tara Grinstead voor het laatst zag of sprak.

: Officially, police are calling this a missing person’s case.

: GBI ambtenaren zeggen dat onderzoekers...

: Latex handschoen gevonden in...

: Een beloning van $80.000 wordt uitgeloofd...

: Waar is Tara Grinstead?

: From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, you are listening to Up and Vanished, the investigation of Tara Grinstead. I’m your host, Payne Lindsey.

: De spreker in het eerste segment is Dusty Vassey, de hoofdverslaggever van de lokale krant de Ocilla Star. Hij bood me zijn hulp aan.

: We’re in.

: He took me to an old office in downtown Ocilla. The door had no markings or signage and we entered a huge dim lit room. There were buckets on the ground full of water, catching the leaks from the ceiling. You could tell it was a place that didn’t have very many guests. On the back wall was a shell full of hardbound newspaper archives. He was looking for 2005.

: We bewaren ze in deze gebonden volumes.

: You’re still on the paper system?

: Ja, 2005, lees dat. Sweet Potato Festival vermist. Woensdag.

: Tara werd op maandag 24 oktober om 8.50 uur als vermist opgegeven en die woensdag stond ze al in de krant.

: You could tell that people really were worried, people that worked with her and stuff. Like, there’s a teacher that I knew that, I mean you could tell she was very concerned that this, it was more than just concern. It was like …

: Ja.

: At that point, they realized something bad’s happened, you know, and just she’s gone off or whatever.

: Dusty ging even naar zijn bureau en liet mij alleen met de archieven. Terwijl ik doorbladerde, zag ik een klein stukje papier tussen twee pagina's geklemd. Het leek op een geïmproviseerde bladwijzer.

: When I pulled it out, I realized it was actually a piece of Tara’s missing poster that had been cut into fours and the print date on the bottom was October 24th, the day she was reported missing. All the sudden I felt like I was in a movie scene and I had found some big clue. I was almost positive it was nothing but I called Dusty over anyways. What is that?

: That says Tara’s name on it. Probably nothing nefarious.

: Nee.

: It’s chopped up.

: Juist.

: Ja.

: Waarschijnlijk niets kwaadaardigs. Maar toen vonden we er een heleboel, veel meer.

: Oh my goodness, there’s all sorts of those.

: It’s kind of weird, right?

: It is. It is. I’m a little, I mean cause I’ve looked through this before that … I mean they probably were here and I didn’t pay any attention to it. The hairs on the back of your neck … what’s going on?

: Wie zijn de mensen die dit hadden kunnen doen?

: My predecessor who … Kristy who used to … was the reporter. She’s the Kristy Pruitt, something …

: Oké. Ja, ja, ja.

: Op al deze verhalen.

: He called Kristy and it wasn’t her.

: Mijn baas.

: I mean it was probably nothing but still who would expect to find chopped up pieces of Tara’s missing poster scattered throughout the 2005 archive. Kind of weird, right? We both agreed. Before I left, Dusty said he has a surprise for me.

: Oh, front page. There’s me. The podcast had made the front page of the latest paper. It’s kind of weird actually seeing my name and Tara Grinstead’s name on the front page of the Ocilla Star.

: Op dit moment kan ik begrijpen waarom.

: Yeah, like I’m part of the narrative now or something.

: Het werd bekend en de mensen begonnen eindelijk te praten.

: Een onderzoekspodcast over de verdwijning van een lerares uit Ocilla gaat maandag in première onder de titel Up and Vanished. Het verhaal gaat over de bevindingen van de filmmaker uit Atlanta, Payne Lindsey, terwijl hij een documentaire maakt over Tara Grinstead. De podcast wordt om de week uitgebracht terwijl Lindsey aan de documentaire werkt. Hij zegt...

: Let’s pick up from the last episode. So my grandma’s friend Melba told her that Tara went to her former student’s house in Fitzgerald before going back to the barbecue that night in Ocilla. If this is true, it’s a major discrepancy in Tara’s timeline. Is there another person that we’ve just never known about? I wrote some questions down and I gave Melba a call.

: Mijn oma zei dat je Tara die zaterdag bij de schoonheidswedstrijd hebt gezien, klopt dat?

: I did. For several years, I emceed all the beauty pageants and I don’t do that anymore. But I was directing the pageant, the afternoon that she disappeared that night but she always helped. She taught school and she always helped the girls in the pageants with their make up, their hair and choosing gowns and that sort of thing.

: And as I was leaving, she and all the girls were there at the back as I was leaving. It was about 6 o’çlock in the afternoon because I had a dinner date and I was leaving. And I stopped and spoke with them just a few minutes, just, you know, “How are you?” and that sort of thing. So I was really, really surprised when I heard the news on Monday that she was missing.

: Waar hebben jullie het over gehad? Toen je met haar sprak, wat zeiden jullie toen?

: Just pass, you know, “How are you today? It’s good to see you.” And I didn’t stay there more than five minutes I guess because I was on my way. And I certainly would have stayed long and talked more if I had known what was going to happen but nobody knew that, you know.

: Waar ging ze heen na de verkiezing?

: One of the students that she had taught in times past now lives in Fitzgerald. And my understand is she went to his house for just a short while just to visit and then left there and came to one of the principal’s houses which is a couple of blocks from me for a cookout they were doing.

: And I understand she left there probably around 10:30, 11 o’clock that night. And it was evident that she got home. Her car was there and I believe she had taken off some of her clothing and so forth.

: So from all the stuff that I’ve read and from people I talked to, 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 that she went to the friend’s house for just a short time.

: Is er een manier om uit te vinden wie die student was?

: I’m trying to think what his name was, one she had taught. Good gracious. That’s been 10 years or more ago and I really don’t recall who it was. In the meantime, I’ll try to arrive at who she visited in Fitzgerald but right offhand, I don’t recall.

: Oké. Als je je bedenkt, laat het me dan weten.

: His name will probably come to me but right offhand, I don’t remember. But like I say, Payne, I hope you can can get some new information or come up with something cause I know her parents and I know how devastated they were and how devastated they still are.

: We have no idea what happened to her. It’s just one of the strangest things. You know, we always hear there’s no perfect crime but evidently, this one is perfect so far because there’s no indication of who it could be.

: I wasn’t really sure what to make of that. Melba seemed to think that Tara’s visit to a student’s house was just common knowledge but I couldn’t find it anywhere. She said she heard it in the talk around town. Not the most reliable sounding source. Really, other than Melba just saying she heard this happened, I don’t really have anything at all. It was time for a second opinion.

: Well, when I first heard it, I just couldn’t find any basis for the information at all. I guess you would call it chasing one of those white rabbits.

: Dus dat was een term waar ik erg vertrouwd mee zou raken.

: Well, white rabbit is leads or information that in a criminal investigation that leads you down rabbit hole to nowhere. And I mean I’m not saying it was true and it still may be true but we just don’t have any information to take that any further than it is right now.

: Juist.

: So really you just have to set it aside and let it go because otherwise it’d just be a waste of time. Until you can get further information to say it’s legitimate, you just have to refute it. But it would be very useful if it was true and we would have to know the name of the individual.

: So pretty much without that name, I had nothing. Maurice also brought up another good point. If you remember Tara did make one more stop before the barbecue that was confirmed. She met her landlord’s son, Rhett Roberts at the curb of the road only for about 15 minutes before heading over to the barbecue. Was Melba confusing this with some student in Fitzgerald?

: It’s very possible that she’s talking about Rhett Roberts but he’s not a former student.

: Okay. So Rhett was not a former student of Tara’s?

: Nee, ze waren ongeveer even oud.

: And she got to Rhett’s around what time?

: Ik zou zeggen ongeveer 20 minuten tot acht, kwart voor acht.

: So you’re saying that the time gap is pretty small for that to happen?

: Ja. In feite is de hele tijdlijn van deze hele zaak vrij smal.

: What’s the earliest Tara could have left the pageant you think?

: Ik zou zeggen 7:15.

: So does Tara stopping at a student’s house for a minute sound farfetched for the timeline or is it still possible?

: Well in an unknown case, unsolved case as this, with the twists and turns in it? It’s possible. Is it probable? No.

: Dus ik was weer terug bij af. Totdat ik die naam had, was er geen manier om na te gaan of dit echt gebeurd was. En zelfs als ik kon bewijzen dat het waar was, zou het me leiden naar wat er met Tara gebeurd is? De term wit konijn bleef een paar dagen door mijn hoofd spoken. En als een klok vielen er witte konijnen in mijn schoot.

: I have been … it’s really … it’s regarding the revelations were made. I’m not gonna throw God at you, you know, shove God down your throat but there is a lot that’s been going on. Her remains is within the park here in Ocilla, Cumbee Park. I have absolutely no doubt. It’s called Cumbee Park.

: The park was never searched 10 years ago. It was in such an obvious place. Everybody overlooked it. Nobody even thought nothing about it, not even I. I was shocked. I took all the information, like I said, to GBI. It all come about with me March of last year. I’m boldly, bravely, 100 percent. Like I said, God gave me a job to do and I’m going to do it. None of them gonna back me down, sit me down or shut me up.

: I knew the investigator’s first impression was that the whole student thing was probably a white rabbit. And as much as I believed them, the rookie investigative mind of mine just couldn’t let it go. Besides the fact that we didn’t have a name for this guy, he also said the timeline was really narrow for Tara to have gone anywhere else that night.

: Maar voordat ik het volledig uitsloot, moest ik het zelf testen. Ik besloot de route te timen die Tara waarschijnlijk die avond nam. Hoe dan ook, ik dacht dat het nuttige informatie zou zijn. Ik begon bij het theater in Fitzgerald waar Tara de optocht verliet. Ik verliet het theater en begon richting Ocilla te rijden.

: Startroute naar Ocilla.

: My first stop was Rhett Roberts house which I found out was only a couple blocks from the barbecue. I actually had to drive past the house where the barbecue was held to get to Rhett’s house.

: De bestemming is aan de rechterkant.

: So Tara didn’t just see Rhett at the curb of the road. It’s likely that they had planned to meet there. It took 13 minutes and 7 seconds to get to Rhett’s house from the theater, 1 minute and 22 seconds to get back to the barbecue.

: All of this stuff was just a lot closer than I thought it was. So if Tara left the pageant at 7:15, drove straight to Rhett’s house, stayed for 15 minutes then went to the barbecue, she would have easily arrived before 7:45.

: Assuming that all accounts of her time are true, she would have at least 15 minutes to spare. Was it enough time for Tara to go somewhere else real quick? I think so. Was it likely? I don’t know.

: Ik besloot de hele studententheorie voorlopig te laten rusten. Er waren enkele andere prominente figuren in deze zaak waar ik me echt op moest richten.

: It’s now been two weeks since a former beauty queen disappeared in Georgia. Thirty-year-old high school teacher Tara Grinstead was last seen at a dinner party with friends. Anita Gattis joins this morning. She’s Tara’s sister. Good morning.

: Goedemorgen, Hannah.

: Anita, I’m sure this is just a terrible time for you and your family. Can you fill us in a bit on this story? Maybe our viewers will be able to help you out. The last time your sister was seen was about 11 p.m. on October 24th. What did police find when they went to her home?

: Well, they didn’t find a lot. The house was locked. Her cell phone was back in the charger. She always takes her cell phone with her everywhere she goes. Her purse and her keys were missing. The car was home but it was unlocked which is very unusual. Tara always kept her car locked.

: Is er een kans dat ze uit vrije wil is vertrokken met iemand die ze kende?

: I think that’s how it started out and then something went very wrong after that. I don’t know if it started out to be an abduction and she was just lured out of her home or she went with somebody and then something happened. I’m just not sure but I really do feel like it is an abduction at this point.

: Authorities are really frustrated because they say they haven’t come close yet to calling anyone a suspect but they have questioned a couple of key people, one of them being a former boyfriend of your sister. What can you tell us about him.

: They broke up approximately nine months ago. He has been questioned many times at length. He has obtained an attorney. They had had a very bad argument. I’ve just found out several days before she went missing concerning an 18-year-old that he was dating.

: En mijn zus dacht niet dat haar ouders het zouden goedkeuren dat een 30-jarige met een 18-jarige uitgaat. Er is mij verteld dat ze dreigde het aan de ouders te vertellen en dat ze hierover een heftige ruzie hadden.

: Shortly after Tara went missing, the first major person of interest in this case was her ex-boyfriend, Marcus Harper. To get you up to speed on Marcus, I’ll have my friend Rob detail his background.

: Marcus Harper was Tara’s long term boyfriend of five years. They met in 1999 through a mutual friend named John David Anderson. Around that time, Marcus was an officer at the Ocilla Police Department.

: Marcus joined the Army after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. He went on to become an Army Ranger and served in Iraq. In September of 2005, Marcus was still serving overseas but in October he returned home to Ocilla for three weeks. Marcus and Tara’s relationship had become pretty rocky at that point.

: And when Marcus arrived back home, he didn’t tell Tara he was there. It was during those three weeks back at home in Ocilla that Tara disappeared. Marcus told Fox News commentator Greta Van Susteren that Tara had ended their relationship well before she went missing. He said he felt a little rejected at first but that we continued to be friends.

: Harper and the televised interview with Fox described his relationship with Tara as a commitment. “We did not date other people”, he said. “But I was honest with her when I said I had no intentions of marriage.” After they broke up, Marcus said in the interview, that she was very irrational and she told me that if she found out I was dating someone, she would commit suicide.

: Atlanta Georgia, 1979.

: Ben je bang?

: Ja, meneer.

: Eén voor één worden er kinderen vermist zonder verklaring.

: Een zwarte 15-jarige man die woonde in hetzelfde gebied waar drie andere kinderen zijn verdwenen...

: Er liep een echt monster rond en de stad Atlanta eiste antwoorden.

: In een stad worden kinderen gedood, helaas geeft niemand erom.

: By 1981, the FBI was involved in one of the largest manhunts in U.S. history and eventually they put one man behind bars. But nearly 40 years later, this case has left more questions than answers in what may be the Atlanta’s darkest secret.

: I don’t know today whether he’s innocent or guilty.

: Van de producenten van Up and Vanished en HowStuffWorks presenteren we een geheel nieuwe podcast, Atlanta Monster. Abonneer je nu op Atlanta Monster op Apple podcast en hoor het als eerste op 5 januari.

: Right away, Marcus didn’t look very good but despite everyone’s suspicions, he was very open and cooperative with the investigation. He also did several nationally televised interviews. The biggest thing to me was the timing. He was gone overseas for several months. Then when he comes home to Ocilla for three weeks, Tara coincidentally disappears.

: Marcus had wel een alibi. Het klopte perfect. Maar voordat we daarop ingaan, was er nog een persoon die de interesse van de onderzoekers wekte.

: Ook wordt een man ondervraagd die blijkbaar je zus heeft gestalkt en een jaar geleden is gearresteerd. Klopt dat?

: Nou, eigenlijk denk ik dat het meer vier tot zes maanden geleden was. Ze had hem lesgegeven toen hij in de negende klas zat. Hij was net afgestudeerd. Ik denk dat nadat zij en het vriendje uit elkaar gingen, hij een kans zag, hoewel Tara nooit met een oud-leerling zou uitgaan. En hij werd gearresteerd toen hij probeerde in te breken in haar huis en zij was toen thuis.

: A former student that was stalking her, then arrested for trying to break in her house. Red flags were everywhere. This person’s name is Anthony Vickers. He was the second person police were highly interested in. The whole student thing had me from the get go and I started researching as much as I could. To fill you in on his background, here’s Rob again.

: Anthony Vickers was a former student of Tara’s who was engaged in some sort of relationship with her in the months prior to her disappearance. Shortly after Tara disappeared, Anthony was featured briefly on the Nancy Grace and discussed their relationship over the phone. This was the only interview Anthony has ever done.

: He said, “Very few people knew about our relationship. There’s probably only three or four people that actually knew and we knew that they would not talk at all. When we would see each other. I would usually go over to her house would be the easiest thing to do. She would pick me up and we would go over there and just hang out, you know, watch a movie or something. That’s kind of how we did it. I would like to help but, you know, if you try to help a lot of times you just get scrutinized against.

: On March 30th, 2005, about six months before Tara went missing, Ocilla police officers were dispatched to Tara’s house for a disturbance call. They received a report that someone was trying to break down the owner’s door. The individual was Anthony Vickers.

: Based on the incident report, Anthony was very agitated. He started cussing and shouting at some of the neighbors who were watching. Vickers yelled so loud that the neighbor outside doing yard work about two blocks from Tara’s house could hear him shouting. The officers asked Anthony to keep quiet but he refused to cooperate. He was then handcuffed and arrested and taken to the Irwin County Detention Center.

: I made an open records request with the Ocilla police department to obtain a copy of Anthony’s arrest report. With all the rumors flying around this town, I had to verify this incident myself. Chief Billy Hancock with the Ocilla PD was very helpful in getting this information.

: In the report, Tara had made a handwritten statement to police. Some of which said this, Anthony’s behavior was abnormal. He was very aggressive on this day. I was very scared for my well-being, as well as scared about Anthony. Anthony invaded my privacy in my home while doing so in a raging and out of control manner.

: Anthony’s written statement seemed to tell a different story. He claimed that he was actually getting in his car to leave when the police arrived and they screamed at him to step away from his vehicle. He also stated that an officer ran towards him and just bumped him, almost knocking him over and that he never once tried to resist arrest.

: According to Tara’s friends and family, Anthony’s relationship with her was some sort of delusion or fantasy but I wondered if maybe there was some truth to it. I’ve reached out several times to Anthony for an interview but no luck. And the same for Marcus Harper, Tara’s ex-boyfriend. These two are very tight lipped about this case and honestly I could totally see why.

: Ondertussen kon ik iemand te pakken krijgen. Zijn naam is Noah Griffin. Hij kende Tara al jaren en werkte nauw met haar samen bij alle verkiezingen. Ik was dankbaar dat iemand die dicht bij haar stond met me wilde praten.

: Well, to sum it up, Tara was driven. She was very determined to succeed at whatever she’s set out to do. I knew for a fact that she would never leave. Everybody’s just, “Oh, she’s gone. She’s just run out. Da, da, da, da.” And I said no, she wouldn’t do that. I want to say … and I’m not good with time …

: Juist.

: But I want to say like six months had passed before I was ever questioned by the GBI. I told the GBI and I said, “You know, I could have went to her house at 2 o’clock in the morning and knocked on her door and she’d have opened the door for me.”.

: Ja.

: You know, and why was I not a suspect from the get go? When the GBI talked to me, they wanted to know if anybody had videotaped that pageant that night. Somebody at the party that night that she went to, that cookout, said when she left that she was going home to watch the video of the pageant. And I still to this day don’t know if there was a video or if that, you know. And it’s just like one night it just hit me that a distant cousin of mine’s stepdaughter was in the pageant and he was to the left of us up against the wall with a video camera.

: Kan dit de band zijn waar Tara het over had? En als dat zo is, helpt het ons dan? Hoe dan ook, als hij het nog steeds heeft, wil ik een kopie.

: This is the sad thing, there has been so much small town gossip and lies told that the truth will never be known. I’m just … I’ve just been constantly racking my brain. There’s not a day goes by that she doesn’t run across my mind and I don’t try to relive that day and that time and what could have happened to her. You know, there was a side of Tara that I didn’t know.

: Ja.

: Was very we’ll hidden if it was in fact true. I try not to believe that it was. You know, I know how people talk and how they gossip. I’ve heard people say they’ve seen this and they’ve seen that. Well, I didn’t see it. So if I didn’t see it, I don’t know it. You know what I’m saying?

: Over welke kant heb je het?

: Zeer vrij met mannen en een van hen was een student, Vickers, Anthony Vickers. Ik hoorde zijn moeder een keer terloops zeggen dat ze hem op een nacht betrapte toen hij uit zijn slaapkamerraam klom.

: Hallo.

: Is Anthony daar?

: Ja, dit is hem.

: Thank you guys for listening to episode 2 of Up and Vanished. The response from episode 1 was really awesome. I just want to thank everybody out there who’s listening. As for my grandma’s cowboy cookie contest, I’ll be announcing the winner of that on my website, upandvanish.com. Just go to the site and click on the page called discussions on the top right.

: And please if you haven’t already, rate this podcast on iTunes and leave a review. It really helps a lot. And I would like to ask again that anybody who knows anything at all about Tara’s disappearance to please come forward. Thank you and see you next time.

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