Q&A with Payne Lindsey & Dr. Maurice Godwin 12.22.16
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Like I've said from day one, my goal is to solve this thing. And with the real-time nature of this investigation, I feel like it's important to keep an open discussion about the case. Today I'll be playing some of your questions from the voicemail line. Just a heads up, we got a crazy amount of calls since the last episode.

So the guy...

that killed himself who wrote this suicide letter is it possible that the reason that he was acting funny wasn't because he had a traumatic brain injury in the crash that he had but rather the crash that he had involved the killers in an attempt to kill this guy resulting in his car crash and he

He becomes a recluse because of this incident with potential killers. I don't know. Just thought. Well, he was bipolar and it was off his medicine. Oh, yeah, he was bipolar and it was off his medication. And he had been bullied. He was overweight in high school. He had been bullied.

Hey, Payne. My name is Colleen. I'm a listener from Atlanta. I was just wondering about the emails that Tara had sent to her ex-boyfriend's mom because I feel like he could be the one that's responsible, especially if she was, in fact, pregnant. Love the show. Can't wait to hear the next episode. Thanks. Bye. You think it's possible that she could have been pregnant? I don't think so. I don't think Tara was pregnant.

Not from what I found in the bathroom. And also from what I didn't find in the bathroom. What did you find and what did you not find? Well, I didn't find any pregnancy tests in the bathroom. And the doctor's appointment was for a sinus infection. And it wasn't what people were thinking about going to check out for pregnancy. I don't think she was pregnant. I think that she made somebody very mad in a threat and they took care of it.

Like a threat? To expose something or some type of threat. To tell somebody something or to expose something. I think that she threatened somebody. And I feel based on what I've known the last 11 years, she had the edge to her. If you pushed her too far. And I think she threatened somebody about something. And they got scared and they turned on her.

And then afterward, from that time forward, just as soon as the murder happened, they did a process to cover this thing up.

Hi, Payne. My name is Liz, and I'm a listener in Atlanta. And these are some of the questions that I have right now about the podcast. The first is to Marcus and the fact that his alibi really doesn't check out unless I am not understanding it. But to my knowledge, you called for those records, and it looks like he was doing the drive-along at

at like 3 or 4 a.m., not during the time that we feel like Tara disappeared. So to me, it seems like he could still be guilty and that at the time, people didn't look into his alibi enough. So that's my first question. And my second question is the business card that HD put in her front door,

Was that a straight-up business card, or was that one of the cards that police hand you, like, every time they pull you over? Not that I would know anything about getting speeding tickets, but those cards that they have where they use them all the time. So to me, that doesn't seem as formal and rigid as what we are considering to be a business card in her front door.

Okay, the business card was his detective business card from Perry Police Department. So it wasn't one of these informal things. It was, well, if a cop pulls you over, what she was talking about, they shouldn't be giving you a business card anyway. They give you the ticket to go to, I mean, that's unethical. Good doing business with you. Yeah. You never want a female to call a cop like that. But no, it was a detective business card from Perry. Okay.

She had another question on there. The only problem about Harper, the only thing about that is, Tara got home about 11 o'clock, right? Right. He hooked up at 146 or 140, say 2 o'clock. Where was Tara between 11 and 2? Nobody knows. You see, in my opinion, she was already dead. What are you saying? I'm just asking a question. She wasn't in bed. She didn't go to sleep. She just didn't hang around.

The house. She left at some point. Well, see, here's the key thing is Dolly was an inside dog. Dolly was outside the whole time. So if Tara was going home, put on her pajamas and supposed to watch a videotape, that's relaxing at home, right? After a full day, really, Dolly would have been inside. There's a possibility she put her inside, got a phone call, and put her back outside. But I doubt that.

I don't think Dolly ever went inside. So my question is, from 11 o'clock to 2 o'clock, where was Tara? We don't know. See, like I always said, that if it wasn't for Fletcher, Marcus Harper would be in serious trouble. But that time frame with Fletcher might not be as important anymore.

as where was Harper from 11, you know, up... Even before he went to the bar. That's right. That's right, because where was she between 11 and, say, 2, if you think Harper did it? She wasn't just hanging around. Yeah, who's to say it was late in the night? It could have been right after she got home. Or she never even could have got home. It could have been right after she left the barbecue. But everybody's always looked at it, that time frame, but it's before getting up with Fletcher is the concern. ♪

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Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Just an observation, not so much a question, but Officer Dykes, wouldn't it make sense that if you wanted someone to think that you had not been in the house, that you would leave your card there?

in the door and that if you didn't see the glove on the ground perhaps it's because you were the one that dropped it never mentioned whether or not his dna was tested and whether it could have matched that glove well the obvious question about people over the last 11 years to me about the card is why in the world would a guilty person leave their business card on the victim's front door

Well, that actually begs the question about the person who would do something like that is using reverse psychology. Sure. They would want you to ask that question. Right. And say, that's stupid. Nobody would do that, right? Yeah. That's exactly right. Oldest trick in the book. Yeah, but people fall for it all the time here. Plus, you have to understand that he was asked to go there by Miss Faye, and he couldn't tell her no.

I mean, I'm not implicating anyone, but it was the worst wellness check I've ever heard of.

Hi, so I just binge listened and something really struck me. You keep saying that Heath Dykes drove an hour and 15 minutes, but how do we know that? How do we know where he was? I mean, if it was that late at night, unless her mom was with Heath at the time, she probably would have called him. Is it possible he was a lot closer than the narrative currently indicates?

It's possible. The problem is we don't have his cell phone ping records. Well, it really doesn't matter where he was at on Sunday night because the crime had already happened. So it really doesn't matter where he was at.

But I mean, unless he was in the woods around Irwin County, I don't think that. Right. I mean, it's really, I mean, it's not like the amount of time it took him to drive there makes him any more guilty or less guilty. Crime was already done by the time he went there. And the reason why, you know, I even pointed that out in the first place is because I thought it was odd that someone would drive for that long and then not do very much when they got there. Well, his argument would be he didn't want to draw attention because it was married men.

Right. But then again, with somebody at home with a car like that, the lights out and stuff.

uh being a detective for 10 years at that time and being involved with this person and known her since high school you don't know that she's not fell dead or something happened inside the house so why not just make a little bit more effort to try to find out her status right yeah and then um i mean if you called all day sunday and cared about her i wouldn't have to have her mother to ask me to go down check on her that's a good point

I just had a question pertaining to Heath Dykes. And maybe we don't have the call records, but if I was him and I was going to check on Tara for her mom, first thing I would have done was called the mom after I checked on her to make sure that she knew, hey, I went ahead and checked on her and this is what happened. I knocked on the door. She didn't answer, whatever. So I don't know if we've talked to mom to see if she said anything or to at least validate

validate that he actually called mom afterwards because if not that's really strange and also too he had Tara's number so there should be a bunch of phone calls in the phone record stating or showing that he called her when he showed up to the house because I mean if you're knocking on the door nobody's answering you're checking in on her and you know that mom's worried

you would think that he would call her at least and say, hey, you know, came to check on you, blah, blah, blah. And so when they checked her phone, too, that voicemail or whatever text should have shown up on her phone. Well, he did call her all day Sunday. But what's unusual about that situation is that nobody called the friends.

Now, I don't know whether he called Miss Faye back or not, but as far as I know, Sunday night, no one ever called any of her friends and say, have you seen Tara? She's saying Heath Dykes never called anybody saying, have you seen Tara? I don't know of anybody that did. But he called her 20 plus times, but he didn't call any of her friends or anybody who knew her. No. You know, if you're...

Really looking for somebody, maybe you'd... I'd be calling the fourth cousins, man. I would. I mean, you have to understand here, the dynamics are a little different there because there was a relationship, right? Right. It wasn't just doing a favor for a friend to go check on somebody. You were treated like you're checking on one of your parents, right? I don't think it was. So what do you make of that?

either the worst welfare check I've ever heard of, or you knew what already happened. For me, the most suspicious thing is officer's car was found behind the house separately from the fire, and he's friends with Marcus. Not to mention that Marcus has a shaky alibi. For me, everything's pointing that there's police involvement. My question is, if Marcus was ever given a polygraph,

Marcus took a private polygraph test. The polygrapher was hired by his attorney. He did not agree to take a GBI one, and GBI does not accept private polygraphs. Did the GBI request a polygraph from their agency? Yeah. He turned it down, and so he got a private polygrapher. There's no reason why GBI is ready to go any time. There's no excuse for it. Oh, there's the next day, right? Yeah.

He just took a private polygraph test. What were the results of that, though? I don't know. I emailed Harper's lawyer, but I never heard back from him. His daughter actually won the pageant that Saturday night. Really? Yeah. The lawyer... He was at the pageant. That's...

It's just too small, man. All this stuff is just too close. But it was Michael Lankford's SUV that was behind a snap drag the house. I think people, I mean, because there's obviously a ton of people in this case, so it's confusing anyways, but people kind of confuse sometimes Sean Fletcher and Michael Lankford. They confuse HD and MH all the time. Yeah. There should be a list made, like the map thing, of the major players in here. That's what I'm making right now.

We recently updated the Up and Vantage website, and I've been posting some of the case documents I've found. And I'm currently putting together a clean map of all the major players in this case. Just go to upandvantage.com. Thanks for listening, guys. The next episode will come out on January 2nd. Happy holidays.