Stolen Beauty

(CBS News)  Produced by Katherine Davis
This story was originally broadcast on July 1, 2008.

Tara Grinstead, an 11th-grade history teacher in Ocilla, Ga., disappeared without a trace in October 2005. Three months later, another young woman, Jennifer Kesse, also vanished in Orlando, Fla.

There were some similarities in the cases, leading investigators to wonder: are these disappearances somehow linked?

---

Student Dana Wilder remembers feeling a sense of dread when she heard an announcement in school that teacher Tara Grinstead should report to the office.

Dana was sitting in class at Irwin County High School on that Monday, Oct. 24, 2005. "I knew something was up then. I knew Tara would just not come to school. I think it got all the student's minds worried," Dana remembers.

Besides being a beloved teacher, 30-year-old Tara was also a mentor and friend to Dana, especially when it came to Tara's passion for beauty pageants.

Just two days earlier, Dana had been at Tara's house with some other girls to get ready for a big local event in this small town, the "Miss Georgia Sweet Potato" pageant. "She was in a great mood. Which of course, whenever she did hair and makeup for any pageant girls she was in a great mood," Dana remembers.

Tara's stepmother, Connie, and father, Billy, say Tara fell in love with pageants as a teenager. Besides winning crowns, the pageant victories also fulfilled another goal for Tara: money for school.

But none of her successes meant more to Tara than winning the title of Miss Tifton in 1999. Best friend Maria Hulett says the title meant Tara could now fulfill her lifelong dream of competing in the Miss Georgia pageant. "It was, for her, more than a dream come true. It was the chance for her to be really proud of herself," Maria remembers.

Tara didn't place in the competition, but was thrilled when her friend Osjha Anderson won. Her friends say after the Miss Georgia pageant, Tara refocused on her career in education. "She wanted to be a principal. She was well on her way," Osjha says.

By the fall of 2005, she was teaching by day and taking classes by night; she applied for a doctoral program. Tara was even filling in as an assistant principal from time to time.

Everything seemed to be going so well, until that October morning.

By the time Police Chief Billy Hancock arrived at Tara's house, nobody had seen or heard from Tara for 34 hours. "When I arrived the car was parked in the carport. You could actually see it as you were pulling up," he remembers.

Hancock says the fact she had gone missing but her car was still there was "certainly a red flag."

But maybe most disturbing was a latex glove, found laying in the front yard.

Hancock noticed that inside the house everything appeared to be normal. "I walked through the house. No apparent sign of struggle, no forced entry," he remembers. "Her cell phone was in the charger by the nightstand. Her pocketbook and keys were missing."

Asked what his gut feeling was as he walked through that house, Hancock tells Van Sant, "I did have kind of a gut feeling that something was wrong."

At 11 a.m., Chief Hancock called Gary Rothwell, a special agent at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Rothwell's initial impression? "It appeared that Tara may have left on her own. However, we had a glove, a latex glove that we couldn't explain. That glove indicates foul play to us."

He was also intrigued by something else found at Tara's house: a business card found wedged in the front door of Tara's home.

Investigators sealed the house, and took Tara's car and the glove in for processing. Then they started reconstructing her last known movements.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next Page »

[crazyr_21]

THE KILLER IS OUT THERE BUT GUESS WHAT YOU WILL BE CAUGHT ONE DAY SO KEEP UP YOUR DIRTY LITTLE SECRET........ONE DAY YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO LIVE WITH YOURSELF AND YOU SHALL COME CLEAN OF YOUR CRIME..............................AND I HOPE THAT THIS DAY WILL COME SOON THAT U CANNOT LIVE WITH YOURSELF AND U GIVE US BACK TARA..........ITS WRONG TO KILL SOMEONE JUST BECAUSE YOU CANNOT HAVE THEM OR YOUR JEALOUS ABOUT SOMETHING THEY HAVE THAT YOU PERHAPS DONT HAVE................................SHE HAD SO MUCH GOING FOR HER AND SHE WAS ON HER WAY OR ALREADY ON HER WAY TO SUCCESS AND U TOOK THAT FROM HER............................YOU THINK YOUR GETTING AWAY WITH THIS BUT GUESS WHAT THERE IS NOT SUCH THING AS A PERFECT CRIME.KILLERS ALWAYS LEAVE A PIECE OF EVIDENCE BEHIND OR THEY MAKE A BOO BOO RIGHT LIKE U LEAVING YOUR GLOVE ON THE CRIME SCENE..................................WE WILL GET YOU

[crazyr_21]

CHECK PHONE RECORDS AND I BET YOU THEY WOULD FIND SOMETHING THEY DID NOT THINK ABOUT FIVE YEARS AGO..............WHOEVER KILLED HER COULD HAVE BURIED HER IN SOME REMOTE AREA AND A TOWER MIGHT BE THE KEY TO SOLVING THIS CASE,,IF YOU CHECK THE TOWERS AND ACTUALLY GET A CAV DOG OUT THERE TO SNIFF AND FIND A DEAD BODY YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY FIND IT.........I BELIEVE TARA IS DEAD BECAUSE SHE HAD TOO MUCH GOING FOR HER TO JUST UP AND LEAVE.....SHE HAD ALMOST THREE DEGREES FOR GOD SAKES.I WENT TO COLLEGE AND I KNOW THAT IT WILL DRIVE YOU CRAZY BUT SHE STUCK IN THERE AND LOOK WHAT SHE HAS ACCOMPLISHED PEOPLE WHY WOULD SHE WALK AWAY FROM ALL THAT HARD WORK...NO WAY I BELIEVE SOMEONE TOOK HER LIFE BECAUSE THEY COULD NOT BE IN HER LIFE THE WAY THEY WANTED TOO AND IT PISSED THEM OFF.......ESP IF SHE JUST WANTED TO BE FRIENDS WITH SOMEONE AND THEY TOOK IT THE WRONG WAY AND SHE TOLD THEM THERE WAS NOTHING BETWEEN THEM AND IT WOULD NEVER BE.WHO IS TO SAY THAT IT PISSED THE KILLER OFF.....................

[crazyr_21]

and by the way if TaRA CHANGED OUT OF HER CLOTHES..................................... THEN WHAT CLOTHES WAS SHE WEARING WHEN SHE LEFT THE HOUSE...THE REASON WHY I ASK IS BECAUSE IF SHE WAS TIRED AND TOLD PEOPLE AT THE PARTY SHE WAS LEAVING AND GOING HOME AND WATCHING SOME PAGEANT OR WHATEVER THEN HOW COME SHE CHANGED CLOTHES AND PROBABLY GOT INTO SOMETHING COMFORTABLE AND THEN LEAVE WITH SOMEONE..........................................................WHY PUT ON COMFORTABLE CLOTHES AROUND THE HOUSE AND THEN LEAVE WITH SOMEONE...................THEN U WOULD HAVE TO CHANGE BACK INTO SOMETHING YOU WOULD NORMALLY WEAR OUT RIGHT.......I DONT THINK TARA WOULD HAVE JUST LEFT IN COMFORTABLE CLOTHES BUT AT THE SAME TIME WHY CHANGE INTO SOMETHING COMFORTABLE PERHAPS JUST TO LEAVE AFTERWARDS.SHE MADE IT HOME SO WE KNOW THAT BY HER CLOTHES BEING IN THE FLOOR BUT WHAT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE IF SHE PLANNED TO GO OFF WITH SOMEONE THEN WHY DID SHE JUST LEAVE THOSE CLOTHES ON UNTIL SHE GOT BACK INSTEAD OF CHANGING OUT OF THOSE CLOTHES......................ON THE INTERNET IT SAID HER LAMP WAS KNOCKED OVER.....MEANING SOMEONE COULD HAVE BEEN IN HER HOME WAITING FOR HER TO ARRIVE..........................ESP IF THEY KNEW SHE WAS GOING TO BE SOMEWHERE AND THEY WAS IN HIDING MODE AND PERHAPS ATTACKED HER i DO NOT KNOW BUT THIS CASE IS SO ODD

[crazyr_21]

I also believe if the cops would get phone records and pinpoint locations in the 34 hours that Tara went missing they might actually find a clue to where Tara might be.think about it...if the killer used his phone during the time he took Tara......then a tower would pick up their exact location during those times that Tara grinstead was missing........ a tower will pick up anyone's location if they were using the phone during the time Tara came up missing........if I was investigating this case, i would pull all phone records for her ex-boyfriend, this guy who left some business card and several dozen messages on her answering machine, and the guy whom she dated briefly whose parents own the house she was renting or buying or whatever, and this anthony guy that was supposively "OUT OF CONTROL", which I think he was.........think about it towers dont lie people they can pretty much tell what location people are at when using cell phones...it will do a lot of ELIMINating PEOPLE

[crazyr_21]

I really believe that one day the truth is going to come out about Tara Grinstead and this case. Whoever harmed Tara and they are reading this, for God's sake please give her back. If she is alive, please let her go. IF she is passed away, give her a proper burial where she deserves to be. Her family needs closure, and they need their daughter back. This case is hard to solve because there is so many leads in so many directions. Tara did have a brief romantic relationship or maybe I may not call it romantic but she did date the guy whose parents rent out her home to her. So I am quite sure that he knows the lay out of the house because not only did he date her for a brief time, but his parents own this house so he has access to the key to that home through his parents. I mean I have not heard anyone say anything on the internet about this guy she dated whose parents own the house she is or was currently renting before the time of her disapperance. IF her ex-boyfriend has an alibi, then wouldn't the cop car he was riding in have a security camera in here and it would see Marcus in there talking to his buddies and what have you..Check Marcus phone records during the time of her disapperance.through towers that pick up people's exact location..............not only do they need to track Marcus but the guy who supposively left business cards at her residence on a weekend...he left dozens of messages and left a business card on the weekend.that does not make sense to leave business cards on weekends.....................so he could have been involved in this................... her ex-boyfriend could be involved in this........... or it could be the people's son who rents the house out or did rent the house out to Tara.. my bet is on one of the three..........................she knew these people........................if nothing was disturbed in the home, then it has got to be someone she knew that she went off with.................... someone she trusted..............i beliebe tara went off with someone assuming she was in a comfort place where nobody would harm her................ and I believe the killer took her to a remote destination and killed her because the cops did not find anything out of the ordinary in her residence at the time of her disappearance..............there would have been blood splatter and a crime scene at the residence if she was killed there......................she had to went off with someone she knew..........................

[D8N950]

the man when the camera take a picture to him getting out from the car. Jenifer was not with him so he came alone and when he run in front of the sea focus on his shoes it's a littel wierd? but why he was running fast? and going on that way mybe somthing is there

[ofc3goalie]

So if there were creapers working on her appartment (in Florida) and the dude on camera looked like he was wearing some trashy stuff you''d paint in or work in, then why aren''t we looking for a migrant worker who may be linked to both hometowns? I mean it''s prolly to late now but some suggestions have to be made.

[ofc3goalie]

So if there were creapers working on her appartment (in Florida) and the dude on camera looked like he was wearing some trashy stuff you''d paint in or work in, then why aren''t we looking for a migrant worker who may be linked to both hometowns? I mean it''s prolly to late now but some suggestions have to be made.

[catfemme]

I strongly believe that both of these cases can be solved -but Jennifer''s case should have been solved first-because I believe the police were hot on the killers trail without knowing it and he was right under their noses. If the cases are linked-which I can''t see-even having several common denominators- two beautiful women, professionals, abducted and missing and living in neighboring states. If they are connected or have the same killer-I definately believe more than one person is involved. I also believed (in the case of J.K.) he/they can only be caught by the people/person who hired them at the employment agency becasue all of there documentation will most likely be false. Nuff said

[catfemme]

One thing I am positive of-they can find that guy on the video because either he is stupid or cocky-and both personalities always get caught-the return of the car during the day time near the cameras and walking past suggests you are really stupid and have some sort of story concocted why you have the car because people at the condos know you or you are thumbing your nose at the cops. I thought about the cell phone and perhaps her brother''s friend was let in -someone she wouldn''t feel threatened by and had a reason to come back and be let into her condo at night-but this seems like a dead end if she went missing in the morning-indicated by a wet shower and clothes still on the bed-if the video gave the correct info. Also, did they check for fingerprints on her purse and prints for other items in her purse since her cell phone and keys were missing-that is where women keep them and maybe the killer got them out of her purse.