Missing Mich. Wife Grabs Media's Attention

The disappearance of Tara Grant — whose husband says he last saw her getting into a waiting sedan in their driveway — has captivated local news and is drawing comparisons to such media-saturated stories as those of Laci Peterson and Natalee Holloway.

The growing frenzy is a mixed blessing for authorities and Grant's husband Stephen, who says police have told him he's the focus of the case — a claim the sheriff denies. More exposure means more tipsters, including those who say they saw Tara Grant in a Florida restaurant or on "Wheel of Fortune."

"We want attention drawn to the fact that Tara is missing," Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel says. "The media is the one that gets it out — I can't knock on every door in my county, state or country.

"The downside ... is you get a lot of people calling with information that leads you nowhere, but you don't discount it. That's why it's so intense."

Grant, 34, of Macomb County's Washington Township, has been missing since Feb. 9. Her husband, 37, reported her missing Feb. 14. He has said he waited to tell police because she might have been "blowing off steam" before returning to their home 30 miles north of Detroit.

Police say the day she went missing, the Grants argued over her frequent business trips. Her cell phone and credit cards haven't been used since that evening, when she returned home from a business trip to Puerto Rico.

A search through woods near the home of the couple, who have two children ages 4 and 6, turned up no clues.

Hackel denies Stephen Grant is a suspect but questions why some details that could be critical to the investigation were not provided.

Police have examined e-mails turned over by a woman who identified herself as Stephen Grant's ex-girlfriend that say Grant suspected his wife was having an affair and installed a device on their home computer to track her communications.

Hackel says investigators want access to the computer but don't have Stephen Grant's approval.

Stephen Grant's attorney, David Griem, said his client did not release the home computer because it contains privileged information between the two of them, as well as personal and business documents, and was rarely, if ever, used by Tara Grant.

He said the sheriff's department and the media are using the computer and e-mail issues to "make an innocent man look guilty," and that Grant's TV appearances were in response to being "bashed" by authorities.

Griem, who said he received more than 40 media calls one day last week and has heard from "every national news show you can think of," said more coverage increases the odds of a break in the case.

Still, he's "bewitched" by the attention, when "poor women disappear from our cities and are many times never heard from."

The FBI's National Crime Information Center, a database reported by local and state law enforcement officials, had 24,037 missing women on its active list as of Jan. 1. Including girls, the list grows to 58,776, though an FBI spokesman said the numbers might be slightly lower because some solved cases haven't been cleared.

Matthew Felling, media director for The Center for Media and Public Affairs, a Washington-based nonprofit research and educational group, said he has done extensive research on missing white women and the Grant case "has filled out the checklist for media frenzy."

For instance, few have heard of Evelyn Hernandez, a Salvadoran immigrant whose disappearance and death had many similarities to Peterson's — except that it received nowhere near as much media coverage.

"The most compelling — and compelling is a code word for marketable — missing white women stories share a lot of elements with the Lifetime Movie Network," Felling said.

One 40-year-old Detroit-area woman, who like Grant has two children, said her fascination with the story has more to do with a personal connection than prurient details.

"Tara could be any woman — your sister, your friends, yourself," says Lisa Watson, who has written about Grant on her blog, "The Lisa Life: My Life in a Suburban Town."

"It always comes back to, 'Could that be me?"'