Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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If you have questions about the case or the podcast in general, you can leave your question on the voicemail line we have. The number is 770-545-6411. Here's the first question from one of our listeners.
Hi, I lived in Florida about the time that she went missing and I was wondering, a really big hurricane hit. It was during the Katrina, Rita, Wilma hurricanes that hit. And I was wondering if y'all had considered the traffic that was maybe going through Georgia because we lost power, gas, and food for months. I was wondering if y'all had considered any traffic that had possibly been coming through during that time. That's a good point. And I've thought about it before.
So, I guess my question to you is,
Does law enforcement enter a sample to the CODIS system? Is there a DNA on file like that? Like, was that glove checked against the police or was it just completely ignored?
The DNA gathered from the latex glove found in Tara's yard was entered into CODIS. CODIS stands for Combined DNA Index System, and it's the national database for unsolved cases. But, as we know, there's never been a match. The CODIS system only pulls DNA from criminals, not from others in law enforcement. The GBI has also claimed to have swabbed over 200 people in this case, but still no match. It's my assumption that they swabbed everybody, including police officers. But because of the closed records law in Georgia, we don't have access to the actual list.
Hey there, Payne. My name is Rick Harb. I'm down here in Tampa, Florida. I'm really enjoying the podcast. Just listened to the episode of Case Evidence where you guys gave out the voicemail number. After listening, my current theory is Tara may have been, as one of the people you interviewed said, maybe free with men and maybe was getting involved with more than one over at the police station, if not just a
the detective who went to check on her. And, you know, my guess is that maybe when he told her he wasn't going to leave his wife, she kind of freaked out and threatened to expose their relationship. And maybe there was more than one officer involved.
This is always a touchy subject. Personally, I believe that Tara disappeared as a direct result from one of the men in her life. The complicated thing about that is, there was a lot of men in Tara's life. My intent has always been to find out what these relationships were, not to cast any judgment.
Ignoring the men in Tara's life would just be completely irresponsible. That being said, I think it's possible that somewhere in these relationships, there was jealousy or fear. In a murder case, these are often motives. For the duration of this podcast, I will continue to explore these relationships, either until they make sense or until we get an answer.
So if it's not normal for her to leave her car unlocked, but her door is locked, wouldn't you assume that the crime took place somewhere else and somebody drove her car back to her house and when they got out of the car they took the glove off and dropped it?
Remember, Tara's keys and purse were missing. The front door to her house was locked, and her car was found unlocked in the driveway. But here's a fact in this case that I haven't touched on yet. The driver's seat in her car was found pushed back. Pushed back too far for Tara. Almost as if a taller person had driven her car. I've thought about this multiple times, and there might be something to it. We don't know where the crime occurred.
But if it occurred somewhere else, it's plausible that somebody returned Tara's car, wearing the gloves, entered her house to return her cell phone, locked the door to her house on the way out, and then accidentally dropped the glove. Hi, this is Brooke listening in Seattle. My question is if you know what color the burned truck was that was outside the burned house, if that was a black truck. Ironically, the burned Ford Expedition that belonged to Michael Langford, found at the fire on Snapdragon Road, was black.
As far as the black truck seen passing Tara's house that night, besides the color, it doesn't really match the description. So to be clear, these are most likely two different trucks.
Hi, Payne. I just have been listening very recently, so I'm all caught up. But one thing that I've been curious about the whole time from episode one, you had mentioned that her neighbor, Kara's neighbor, had a system with her set up that when she got home, she'd turn on a light so her neighbor would know that she got home okay. And that just seems...
I thought the whole turning on the lamp system was kind of odd, too. The neighbors claimed that every night Tara got home, she'd turn her lamp on to let them know she got home safe.
The strange thing to me is, according to the neighbor, that night Tara's lamp didn't come on. And that same night, Tara disappeared. This whole system they had just completely failed. If the lamp system was so serious, then why didn't they say something when her lamp didn't come on? This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity interviews or news, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue. And guess what? Now you can call them on your auto insurance too, with the Name Your Price tool from Progressive.
Wow.
Why didn't Tara's mom just drive down to check on her daughter? It sounds like from the evidence that you gave that they're pretty close and they were planning to hang out. And I know if I was a concerned mother for my daughter, I would drive down there and see if she was okay and if they were supposed to hang out.
It seems like in the daytime it would be reasonable to go down and check in the daytime. And I'm wondering why she waited so long to go and see where her daughter was. And why did she have Officer Dykes go down there when she could have gone herself? I wonder what their relationship was like and how close they actually were for her to ask him to go check on her daughter.
I'm not really sure why Tara's mom chose Heath Dykes to go check on her, but from everything I've gathered, her family knew him very well and for a pretty long time, so I guess she just trusted him. Tara was supposed to meet with her mom during the day, but she never showed. I'm sure at the time she didn't think too much of it, but as time passed and she didn't answer her phone, she became a little concerned. By this time it was late in the evening, around 11 o'clock, and that's when Tara's mom called Heath.
Thinking more about it, maybe as her mother, and because Tara was also an adult, she didn't want to randomly show up at her house at midnight, so instead she asked a family friend to do it. Looking at it that way, it makes a little more sense.
Do you think you might be attaching too much suspicion to the fact that the detective dude didn't notice the glove? Think about how many things you move past on a daily basis that if your focus isn't on them, you don't ever even notice. I mean, our brains fill in the gaps with what they expect to be there all the time. And so if you don't expect to see something, you might not see it. Couldn't that be the case with you?
That's a good point. It's one of those things you can look at two different ways.
Maybe he didn't see the glove there. That's totally possible. It was dark, it was late, and he probably wasn't expecting to see it. But that angle is a lot more believable coming from someone with no law enforcement background, or somebody who was just stopping by for a visit. But in this case, we're talking about an actual police officer, and he drove an hour and 15 minutes to her house in the middle of the night, entirely because her mother was worried about her. Her car was in the driveway, but she didn't come to the door. That alone would be a red flag to me.
Hey, Payne. This is Jessica, also in Atlanta. I just wanted to put out there a thought that I have about Heath Dykes. I know that the investigator said that he thought that the calls coming in from Heath to Tara, if they were before he'd heard from the mom,
that that would be suspicious. Actually, I think the opposite. If he'd been calling her during the day that day on Sunday, it's more likely that he didn't know where she was or hadn't had anything to do with her disappearance if he was calling her all that weekend trying to find her.
It's a good point. If you were guilty, then why would you call her so many times knowing she's not going to answer? But why the phone calls at all? If you were just a family friend, this behavior seems kind of odd and obsessive. To call somebody more than 20 times and makes it look like your relationship with her is more than just a friend.
Hi, Payne. My name is Janae Marquis. I am a PhD student at Georgia State University, and my boyfriend turned me on to your podcast, and we love listening to it and keeping up with the updates. As I was listening to some of the episodes, the one about the email in particular from Tara to Marcus's mother kind of struck a chord with me in terms of the verbiage that she used. And I was talking about this with my boyfriend the other night. The
The language doesn't seem like someone who is maybe trying to get a boyfriend back in her life or whatever the circumstances were there. The way she made certain phrases, particularly the quote, I think, was, if this was just about me, I wouldn't want Marcus. And then going on to speak about the family's feelings and whatnot. To me, it sounds like a woman who is carrying a child and a
And is thinking about the life of her unborn child and perhaps that child's relationship to the father and the father's parents inside of the family. So I was just curious to know if that was a theory that maybe came about. In the emails Tara was sending, it was very apparent that she was still upset about the breakup with Marcus. As of now, I don't have any evidence that Tara was pregnant. But if she was, these emails, like you said, could have a whole new meaning.
Tara sent more than one email to Marcus Harper's mom. This was just one of them. In next week's episode, I'll be reading you guys the rest of them. Thanks guys for listening to Case Evidence. If you're enjoying this podcast and you want to support, you can go to upandvantage.com slash donate and send a donation of any size. It all goes straight into the production of this podcast. Thanks guys, and I'll see you next week.
I'm sending my brother money directly to his bank account in India because he's apparently too busy practicing his karaoke to go pick up cash. Thankfully, I can still send money his way. Direct to my bank account.
Yes, I know I'm sending to your bank account. Western Union. Send it their way. Send money in-store directly to their bank account in India.