S1E9: The Glove
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It's over. It's over. It's over.

From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished, the investigation of Tara Grinstead. I'm your host, Payne Lindsey.

Several episodes back, I read some emails that Tara sent just a few days before she disappeared. That was only one of them. I can't reveal my source for these emails, but I can assure you they're 100% real. The first one I'm going to share today is from October 6, 2005. From Tara to Nancy, Marcus Harper's mom. Marcus' voice was strong and confident when he told me it was over. That hurt because I knew he meant what he said.

He did not do it out of frustration or argument. He said it because he knew that is how he felt. He's felt that way for a while by the sound of his voice because he never even hesitated to tell me. He was able to speak and tell me this with full confidence. When I asked him again, "Is it over?" He said, "Yes." When I said, "Will we never be together again?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Please don't do this." He said, "Tira, it's over."

And that is the last I heard. What terrible words left echo in my mind from the one true love I have. It's hard. I could never and have never said it was over. Never. I never let him go, ever. This next email is from Tara to her stepmom, Connie, on September 27th, 2005. To think that a 30-year-old like him would want to date or go out with a girl who just turned 18 is over me.

This next one is from Tara to her stepmom again, on October 20th, 2005, just two days before she went missing. This was her very last contact with Tara. He said he was seeing someone else.

He told me it was over three times, looking me in the eye, and his new flame, from what I heard, is an 18-year-old girl who graduated in 2005. She's talking about an 18-year-old girl Marcus started dating after they broke up. I called to discuss these emails with Maurice, but we decided to meet in person. We met at a hotel not far from his house, and the first question I asked him was about that 18-year-old girl. She had teacher friends in Tiffin.

And those teacher friends had taught this girl who graduated in 05. And they informed her about this individual. Do you think this is a good enough reason for motive? It seems like she's kind of going behind Marcus's back to dig out this information. Does this play a role to you at all in this thing? She said that he was shocked when she told him that. He was shocked. I think you have to take these emails, cumulative, together.

You can dissect each line, whatever. But here's the thing. A lot of people who have problems transfer the issues they had as a child into adulthood. And, of course, the behaviors are different in adulthood. But it's the fear of rejection, the fear of abandonment.

Your whole being, your whole thinking, your whole psychological makeup, you lose everything and your thinking is irrational. And she confirms that she had never acted like that before. So at some level, and I can't say this because I've never examined her or anything like this, but based on what we see here, detachment to him is

was more than just an attachment of a relationship. I think it shored up some type of feelings that she may have had as a child. And then when you abandon that as an adult, fear is induced and you abandon that person as if they were a child. And what role do you think that plays in this case? The role that it plays in this case is irrational behavior.

seeking out to find out about this girl. This last email I'm going to share with you is from Tara to her stepmom again on September 27th, 2005. I've not expressed any of this to anyone. No one knows what I know. Please keep this between us. You'd be shocked if you knew the things that Nancy and Marcus said about me. You and daddy would be downright angry to know the kinds of things they said about me, the person I am and my character.

I'm telling you, it's awful and extremely painful to know the exact words between the two about me. Actually, I think it's been one of the most painful things I've ever had to deal with. They're both working together to obtain what they think is good, but it's the root of evil, greed, and envy. Their disguise does not fool me and they can use all their energy to fool people and present themselves as something that they're not. Time will be the deciding factor.

What is she talking about? I don't think that she, um...

I personally don't know. Yeah, it seems like she, I mean, because she kind of goes on about it. So obviously it was getting at her reputation, that type of thing. See, one thing that you have to understand, Tara originally broke up with him. See, he got a letter when he was in Iraq, see, and he let one of his friends read it to see if he was reading it right. And then he thought he was, and he said he thought it was good for them to go on their separate ways. Then she decided that she made a mistake.

Because she didn't want to live the Army life, military life, see. Then she made a mistake. And then that summer, the end of the summer of 05, see, they went to Florida together.

It's just was all Tara. Marcus plays some of the role in her behavior toward him, too. There's no doubt about that. He was all around her all the time. I'm not literally all around her, but I don't think he did anything to discourage her all that much. May have seen it as an ego thing. Or she has this like really strong vengeance, it seems like, against her.

Marcus and his mom. Yeah. I just think that she felt like they were one and the same. That they were both against her. Maybe that Marcus's mom was promoting them not being together. No doubt. So Tara felt like Marcus's mother was in the way of Marcus. Oh, that she ruled him. She was clinging onto the last straw to try to keep some type of link to Marcus. And it was through his mama.

I tried not to overanalyze what Tara was saying in her emails, but it was pretty hard not to. Reading what she was saying just days before she vanished is bizarre. Whatever happened to her, it seemed like she wasn't in her right state of mind. All this just seemed too coincidental. I felt certain it was related to her disappearance.

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At the end of the last episode, I was searching for other possible men in Tara's life. I stumbled upon the name Jim Hickey. I had no clue who this was or if this was even a real person. So I found who I thought was him on Facebook and shot him a message.

It turns out he did know Tara, and he agreed to talk to me. Just a fair warning about this phone call I'm about to play. It's pretty long, but I feel like it's important, so stick in there. I didn't know her all that well. I was introduced to her by the superintendent of Irwin County at the time, Troy Davis. And we went out one time in Atlanta, and when I was going through town one time, we went and had lunch. But, you know, we periodically text or email or, you know, chat on the phone occasionally, but...

I was in Atlanta and she was in South Georgia. Were you down there for your job? Is that why you were there? Yeah, I worked in educational sales, software sales. A friend of mine had mentioned her to me. We went down and did a presentation at elementary school. I said something to Troy about trying to introduce me to her, which he did. Again, the two times that we were together were a result of that.

Around what time was that? Was that in the month of October? I wouldn't even remember. I mean, that's been 12 years ago. But it was before, obviously, before she disappeared. Was it in the year of 2005 or was it the year before? Let's see. It would have been probably, if I had to remember off the top of my head, I would say probably, it would have probably been in 2005.

Maybe. And again, I'm going off memory. It very possibly could have been 04. She was a teacher and they did a conference down in St. Simons, St. Simons, actually. And I just can't remember whether it was the one that year or the one the previous year. She came up to visit a friend of hers in Atlanta one time who I think she knew from the pageants that she was singing at an Irish bar over at Brookhaven.

And we met up that night. How many times did y'all hang out, you think? That one time, and then, like I said, one other time I came to Hostilla, and we went to lunch over at Fitzgerald. Did you ever go to her house or anything? Yes. Yeah, I met her neighbors. There was also a guy that owned a drugstore down there who...

It's a big Georgia fan. I played football at Georgia back in the 80s. And in fact, the night that she went missing, I was actually up at the Georgia-Arkansas game in Athens. We were up in one of the skyboxes. Yeah, when they started calling guys up, I was low on the totem pole. But because I'd had interaction with her, of course, anybody who'd had interaction with her at all was on the list.

Did the GBI contact you and interview you? Yes. Yeah. Did they tell you why they reached out to you? She had text messaged me the night she disappeared. I got a text message from her that said, I'm cold. I was like, okay, what is that supposed to mean? But I was busy, you know, hanging out with people and so forth. You know, it was during the game, and I think that was a night game, if I remember correctly. I could be wrong.

when Georgia played Arkansas. I think it was a night game. I had a game day condo at the time and I'd had a little bit too much to drink that night so I didn't end up leaving Athens until about, I don't know, six or seven the next day because it was my condo I could sleep in. I called her the next day on my way back to Atlanta and I left a message on her voicemail

And so that was the curious thing to me when the whole thing went down. It was how long it took for me to hear from the GBI. But I think the only reason for that is, again, like I said, I was not high on their total poll. Right. She said, I'm cold. Yeah. So what had happened was she was at Troy Davis's house. He actually walked her down the steps at 11 o'clock that night.

because they were watching the Georgia game over at his house, which they kind of did on a regular basis because he's a big Georgia fan and he'd always have people over and cook out and so forth. And he walked her down the steps at 11 o'clock and nobody's seen her since. One of the reasons why he encouraged her to meet me was to get her out of this small town

to make her realize there was a world outside of Osceola, Georgia. And I think she was bitching to him that I was not following up with her. And he said, well, why don't you send him a text if you're cold and you need him to come warm you up? And she, of course, said, I'm not going to send you that. But she did. Hang with me a second. I'm trying to, my GPS is on my phone, so I'm trying to do two things at one time. But...

Yeah, she was complaining that I wasn't following up with her. And he was jokingly saying, why don't you tell him you're cold and you need him to come warm you up? And she said, well, I'm not going to send him that. And so what I got was the I'm cold instead of the whole comment. And that was during the game. Correct. Probably would have been in that time frame between 11, 8 and whatever time.

He walked her out of there. I mean, I remember looking at my phone when I was up in the box. So, you know, but again, that's, you know, 11, 12 years ago. I wouldn't remember the exact time. She did talk about her family and she didn't drink. I think she had a history of alcoholism in her family. I think that was always a concern of hers. And anything I know about her personal life really was what stuff that came out during the aftermath.

Because I guess it turns out she was having an affair with some cop up in Ferry. There may have been a couple other guys. Who knows how much any of that was true. Did she ever mention Marcus Harper to you at all? Not anything extensive. I think he was a typical guy who's come back from military, seemed to be very controlling and so forth. So yeah, I didn't know much about their particular relationship.

But, you know, there was something about her that was a little off to me. What do you mean? Just her whole thing with her family. I don't know. I couldn't put a finger on it, but it was, you know, it made me say not want to really pursue anything with her. She was really committed to her kids at that school.

And, you know, she always had stuff going on on Friday nights. And, you know, I traveled a lot for work, so I wasn't going to travel down there, you know, for one night. And, you know, she made some comments to me about her parents talking to her about alcohol, but they never talked to her about sex. So it seemed like that was maybe a big deal to her. And so maybe that's what the relationships were with this guy and the other stuff. And maybe her relationship with Marcus.

But again, that's all speculation on my part because she never really talked about it. The whole thing came as a shock to me. In fact, I called her and left a message on Sunday. And my understanding is that cop from Perry had left like 29 messages on her phone, which shows a level of craziness in my opinion. But I got a call Monday morning. I was on my way for a meeting over in Carrollton with the superintendent of schools over there.

Troy called me that morning and, uh, you know, Troy was a kind of no bullshit guy for him to be calling me in the morning. I knew something. I immediately felt kind of like a, because his first question was, have you seen or heard from Tara? And I'm like, okay, he's not calling me up to ask me how the weather's doing. And I'm like, no. And he goes, well, she didn't show up to work this morning. And I'm like, okay, that's not good. And then I get a call while I'm in my meeting.

From her phone. Really? So my immediate thought is, okay, everything's okay. Well, but it was a friend calling me on her phone. Oh, wow. Yeah. Which friend called you? I wouldn't even remember. Did you talk to her or you just didn't answer the phone? No, I didn't answer the phone. She had left a message. I think I did call her back, though. Okay. Okay.

Because they were searching all angles at that point. And that was Monday morning? Correct. Monday afternoon. So the GBI talked to you. Did they seem like they were just checking you off the list? Correct.

They were definitely just checking me off the list. My friend's dad's an attorney down in Fitzgerald, and he represented the DNR guy. And the GBI guy had to come meet with him about another case, a murder case that they'd had in South Georgia. And when they got done talking about that, my friend started chatting with him about this case. And he said, hey, I heard you've met a friend of mine. And the guy said, oh, really? Who?

And he said, Jim Hickey. And the guy says, oh, yeah. He said, you know, he made the comment that I was not high on the priority list. You know, any guy who had any interaction with her whatsoever, including Troy, who walked her out of the house that night, you know, everybody had to be interviewed. You know, the crazy thing is never, never, ever in my life could I have imagined that I would have had to be interviewed by two guys.

Have you been to Osceola since then? I have, actually, because I had some meetings with the new superintendent down there. I'm no longer in that industry of business. I've gotten out of it. So yeah, I've been back there a couple times. Interestingly, I went through there one time, and I went by to see the guy that I told you that I met at the drugstore.

And he acted really weird. Who was the drugstore guy? I wouldn't have remembered his name. All I remember about him was he was a big Georgia fan. And he had this special made car that he had. There was two drugstores downtown. And I think his is subsequently closed. I mean, he had met me with her. Because she had brought me in to introduce me to him.

And so I was like, hey, remember me? And it was almost like he was acting like he didn't know who I was, which I found very, very strange. Did he work at the drugstore? He owned it. How old was he? I would say he was probably in his 60s, maybe 50s, late 50s, early 60s, maybe. First of all, the fact that I played at Georgia and he's a Georgia fan, I would have thought I would have got some like, hey, good to see you.

Or like, hey, can you believe what happened to Tara? Or, you know, some acknowledgement that he knew me through her. And hey, look what happened. That was definitely bizarre to me. Ten years gone by, you know, what are your, what theories have run through your head? I mean, if you had to pick something, what stands out the most to you? You know, who knows? You know, you don't want to throw her boyfriend under the bus because that's not fair to him.

There is an attitude or a thought in our country that you're innocent until proven guilty. Everybody was grabbing for straws when this whole thing was going on. Your name gets pulled into something and it's bullshit. What do you think happened? Honestly, I have no clue, dude. Well, I mean, because there's just no evidence. I mean, there was nothing for the police. And that's the sad part of this whole thing.

As far as I know, because if there was any evidence, you know, it's just a sad situation. It's just sad that human beings do that to each other. She was a great person. I mean, her kids loved her. I mean, everybody that I knew that knew her cared a lot about her. I doubt you're going to get him to talk, but that thing with the cop to me is extremely sad.

Extremely weird. I mean, anybody that calls anybody... I mean, I forgot how many times he was on their message machine, but that's a disturbed person. It's a controlling person. Maybe you call twice. I'll give you twice. But at some point, you know you've left a message. You don't need to leave like 20 more of them. There's somebody down there that's got a lot more information than I've got, whether they're willing to talk about it or not. It's a whole other issue. Small towns have a way of covering shit up.

Perhaps the most mysterious part about this whole case is that latex glove found in Tara's front yard.

You could think of a thousand different theories of what happened to Tara, but then somehow you have to fit that latex glove into the picture. I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that the DNA doesn't match a single person in this case. I spoke to the Osillo police chief about this glove, Billy Hancock, and he told me it was white, just like a standard latex glove you could buy at a pharmacy. But a few weeks ago, I was rewatching some of the older TV specials on this case, and I came across something pretty interesting.

This is Greta Van Susteren interviewing Tara's sister Anita about the glove. I take it a latex glove would be something unusual in her front yard. It was a blue latex glove, one that you would see worn by law enforcement. Did you catch that? Tara's sister said the glove was blue, not white. Why would she think that? Maybe she was just confused. But this is Tara's sister we're talking about.

She should know. For further clarification, I called Maurice. To your knowledge, what do you know to be the color of that glove? I know that color to be white. That's what I was told. It was supposed to be, you know, bagged and tagged for evidence. But I was informed by one of Tara's best friends that when she went to the police department on Wednesday...

that she saw the bag sitting on the desk of Detective Barr's desk at Silla PD on Wednesday. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but that's what I was told. Where it's supposed to be, you know, bagged and tagged and taped and labeled on the outside, if that's true.

So the police chief says it's white, Maurice says it's white, but Tara's sister says it's blue. Maurice also said that Tara's friend saw the gloves just sitting in a bag on a desk at the police station several days later. I knew the friend he was talking about because I tried to reach out to her almost six months ago.

So I hit her up again, and this time, she was down to talk. She told me she was concerned about her safety, and she didn't want me using her name.

I walked to that house. I got there daylight. There were already police people in there. Have you been to that house yet? I've been to it. I haven't been inside it, though. Okay, when you go right up to the door, the glove was laying in like a bed, like in the middle of the yard between two trees. It wasn't like a flower bed. It was more like just a pine straw bed that had two trees in it. I saw it.

Like, Bill Bars and them had not even found it when I got there. I saw them pick it up and put it in a paper bag. Nobody saw it. Okay, so I said, I said, hey, you know, there's that. And they were supposedly like they already saw it, but they had not picked it up yet. Well, they went and picked it up and put it in a brown paper bag. Three days later, it was still sitting behind Bill Bars' desk. And the GBI had been there. I was like, man, when are you going to give them that glove?

So that thing had sat there unsealed for three days. So I don't trust that glove. That glove don't mean shit to me. It could be changed out. It was a blue latex glove, and I'm not even sure that the one they have now is blue. You are 100% certain it was blue? I'm 100% certain. Thank you guys for listening to Episode 9.

Thank you.

Maurice will be on as a special guest and we'll answer some of your questions. If you want to participate, just call our voicemail line anytime. The number is 770-545-6411. We're taking a short week off for Christmas. So after the Q&A episode this Thursday, the next episode will come out on Monday, January 2nd. And by the way, we got a new website. Just go to upandvanish.com to check it out. And for the latest updates on this case, check out the discussions page.

Thanks for listening, guys. And I'll see you this Thursday.