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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. Hey guys, over the weekend, I had the pleasure of sitting down with both Philip Holloway and Maurice Godwin in the same room together. We got the chance to discuss Tara Grinstead's case and to express our own thoughts and opinions to each other. And today, you'll get to hear it. This is Case Evidence. ♪
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The first thing I want to talk about, and I'll just kind of pose this question to both of you guys. What do you guys make of the indictment for Ryan Duke? And do you think that the narrative the GBI is pressing and putting out there for us is what really happened? And if you don't think that's what happened, how different do you think the truth is? Well, I've said all along that I think the indictment is...
potentially legally insufficient because it doesn't accurately and succinctly specifically describe how he allegedly used his hand in a deadly way.
So that could be a problem for them. Whether or not it's intentionally vague because there's maybe some deal in place is an open question. I've got my suspicions about it. If the indictment is challenged, it would be very easy for the DA to go back to the grand jury and get one that has more details and it's more specific so they can always reindite the case. As far as the narrative that we've been given, and by narrative I mean the
Piecing together what we can from what's been publicly released before the gag order, reading the language of the indictment and reading the language of the arrest warrants, the narrative that it was a burglary that went bad, I'm not buying it. I've never thought that was the truth. I think something else is the truth.
I don't know if it's because maybe law enforcement has been misled by witnesses in the case or whether it's intentionally vague just for some strategic reasons. I don't know the answer to those questions. It almost seems like they could have got some information that was –
Information that they deemed valid and they just jumped on the gun and ran with this theory and then maybe more time went on and different information surfaced. Maybe that's not what really happened. Maybe it happened differently. Or they may because there's no other witnesses that we know of to what Ryan did.
And they may only have just that amount of information. Maybe Ryan started and then just stopped, and that's all that they actually have. And that's what they used.
There's a possibility that it's vague because that's all they have is vague information from Ryan. And there's no witnesses, not less Bo collaborated with some. There's no other witnesses to what Ryan did except Ryan. So maybe they don't really have anything else to go there. But one thing that I've often wondered why is with the judge, when she originally did that order about having like a secret trial or whatever,
The original gag order. Yeah, the original gag order, because she didn't do that on her own. She was influenced to do that. I'm just wondering if the warrant is not purposely vague because there might be some bad stuff that what really happened, and maybe that was the original intent of the judge about to seek a court trial in the first place.
And that might be the reason to not let certain things come out about what happened. And Phil, can you recap me and the listeners on this secret trial that Maurice is talking about? So the original gag order was,
Essentially called for everything to be done in camera. And that's a Latin word. It's a legal phrase and it basically means in chambers or in private. Essentially what it would have called for would any proceeding that would have occurred, whether it was a trial or a plea or anything else, been done in a courtroom that was closed to the public.
And there's no way in hell I would ever agree to any kind of such order. If I'm taking a client to trial, I'm not going to agree that the trial is going to be held essentially in secret, even if there's a jury in the box. But the public's not allowed to watch. I'd have to call the judge out on that. It seemed very extreme and very fast for the gag order to come into place like that. Let me ask you a question. Did the defense attorney or the DA object to that?
I don't think anybody objected to it. Really, it was the media, as I recall, that had to essentially come in and say, you know, we're going to call BS on this. And, you know, there's a First Amendment right of the press and things like that. And the public has a right to access the court. So it was the media that came in and challenged. And interestingly enough, if you recall from from that court hearing,
Bo Dukes wasn't there. He wasn't represented. He didn't have a lawyer there. But the DA mentioned – I believe it was the DA mentioned that he was authorized to speak on behalf of Bo's lawyer and that they had no objection to the order and being included. And so he became part of the amended order. Yeah.
Yeah, as far as the in-camera stuff, ruling originally, the DA and the defense attorney didn't object to that, did they? Not to my knowledge. I don't recall any objection. So there might be something that both of them know about.
Yeah, I mean, I was in the courtroom when the AJC and a couple other media outlets opposed the gag order. I was there for that hearing, and I saw – I thought it was very strange, and I keep saying it even to this day –
the DA and the defense for Ryan were sitting at the same table across from all the media outlets who were opposing the gag order. They were basically on the same team. And it was different media outlets on one side of the courtroom, and they all came together as a whole to file a complaint and try to get this gag order removed. And on the other side of the courtroom, you have Ryan Duke's defense attorney,
Then you have the district attorney who is prosecuting Ryan right next to each other in support of the gag order. I thought that was very strange. Well, the defense attorney has an interest in protecting his client. He's got to protect his client's right to a fair trial. And they made some arguments in favor of a gag order to cut down on pretrial publicity.
And that's actually a legitimate thing for a defense attorney to do. But what I didn't hear was an objection to the courtroom being closed entirely. That was what was surprising is that why would you not object to at least to that part of it? I can see a legitimate strategic reason for the defense to.
concurring in the issuance of a gag order in the interest of protecting their clients' rights to a fair trial. But I can't see how one could go and say it's okay to close the courtroom, Judge, for a trial. Well, if you answered that why question, the reason they wanted that in-camera stuff, you might get answers to more about what Ron did.
Very true. Having everything so private in the judge's chambers is basically right. Right. In camera, traditionally it means that you go back in the judge's office and the judge reviews something by him or herself in chambers. But in this context, it could also mean just bringing in the jury and locking the courtroom door and having the trial without any evidence.
You answered the question of why they wanted that and why there was no objection by the DA or the defense on that. And you might find out something more about what Ryan did in this case or both. Meaning it's set up this way because there's more to the story. Oh, yeah. So this case has been unsolved for going on 12 years now since 2005. Maurice, I'll ask you first. Why do you think...
the GBI could never solve it. Why did it take till 2017 for the GBI to solve this? What was it about this case that made it so much different than the other cases? I just don't think they had the leadership in the beginning because in '06, I knew about the DNA, full male DNA profile on the glove, but it wasn't officially announced until
until 08 when Rothwell and them agreed to let 48 Hours announce it on that show. That's two years. And then February 23rd when they had the news conference for Ryan, that was the first news conference ever been held in this case. I mean, another thing in this type of case where you've got a small town and everything, you really need agents, need informants or somebody working around the two counties there and everything. And I...
They didn't have none of that. I'll tell you what happened, and it happens just not in this case, but a lot of cases, is that the DNA, waiting on a DNA CODIS match made the investigators lazy.
And they didn't do the shoe work. After a number of years, they just waiting for the DNA hit. Look what the agent did with my two witnesses, Mobley and Moshe. The guys who saw the black truck? Yeah. I mean, they come up there and question stuff and want to know if they had a drug test and treated them like suspects. And they never discussed anything.
what the agent originally went to see him about the truck. I mean, they're street smart, right? Yeah. And they got turned off. They could have had information about the killer. I believe that the answer to what we know about this case now since the arrest is
is within the 30 feet of files in the GBI's office. You know, you can have all the files you want to with all the information, but unless you've got somebody that can take some information from out of the files and work it and turn it around to something else, then that piece of information is no good, right? You know, that raises a question that I've had now, and I guess it's a good time to talk about it. When
Recently, in preparation for the first episode of Sworn, I met a dedicated law enforcement officer who's lead case agent on the unsolved double murder. And he was willing to basically open up his entire case file. And it's a big file. It may not be 30 feet long, but it's certainly huge. And he's brainstormed it with other law enforcement agencies and
And he's willing to do whatever it takes to share information to try to shake something out. So to your knowledge, has the GBI ever done anything like that? Nope. What is it? Is it a pride thing?
I mean, I know that there are certain reasons law enforcement holds back information because only the suspect would know that. I don't know for a fact that the GBI brought in an expert from the outside to look it over. I don't know that for sure, but I seriously doubt it. Save on Cox Internet when you add Cox Mobile and get fiber-powered Internet at home and unbeatable 5G reliability on the go. So whether you're playing a game at home... Yes, go! ...or attending one live...
You can do more without spending more. Learn how to save at Cox.com slash internet. Cox internet is connected to the premises via coaxial cable. Cox mobile runs on the network with unbeatable 5G reliability as measured by UCLA LLC in the U.S. to age 2023. Results may vary, not an endorsement of the restrictions apply. Does it do more hurting or helping to withhold information from the general public for an extended period of time? It weren't this case. Well, it's possible to crowdsource information
things to solve mysteries. There's legitimate reasons for law enforcement to withhold certain items of evidence. But it also makes sense to share some stuff with the public because as what we've seen with this podcast, the way I use the term is I say that the podcast literally shook the trees until something fell out. Now, what fell out? Is that the whole truth or a part of the truth?
That's an open question in my mind, but it definitely stirred things up to the point that there's now some arrests. Well, you know the saying, you've been in law enforcement, I was in law enforcement, that despite the efforts of investigators and police in any case, the public solves crime. By somebody coming forward, saying they saw something, giving a tip or something, the public solves crime.
How can the public solve this case when they never heard from the GBI about the case in the first place? It brings up a bigger issue, and it's really with Georgia on this one because different states have different laws, right, Phil, when it comes to the closed records law. North Carolina is one of the worst for that. The GBI could, if they choose to do so, open up their files. They can release anything. Yeah, they have the option. Right, of course, before the gag order, and now they can't.
Now they're judicially prohibited from it. But before that, they could have used the public because in every case that's a mystery, somebody somewhere knows something. That's right. And if you can stir the pot and make people nervous and somebody may talk. And that's what we eventually saw happen here. Absolutely. And like you said, Maurice, you're convinced that there's evidence and information in that 30 feet of files that the GBI has on the Tara Grinstead case.
that links to likely Ryan Duke or Bo Dukes and what may have really happened to Tara and that these aren't just brand new leads. This isn't just brand new random information, but maybe some of those little rabbit holes we were chasing, those little kernels of information inside that case file could link back to this. Maybe it's in there. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I've got my letter ready to send off FedEx.
my Georgia records request just as soon as the time is proper to get the whole entire file, which is probably about $2,000 or $3,000. Yeah, I'm sure they'll love you when you send that. Well, they put it in CD for you. But it probably costs $2,000 or $3,000 probably. Well, there will be probably lots of open records requests for it and probably every media outlet
Anyone that's interested in this case would file the same request and they would all get the same response. I mean, technically, Ryan Duke's attorney made that same request. I mean, he's allowed that. That's part of the… Well, he has to be given the information, the discovery process. They've got to give him everything, not just evidence that may show…
his guilt that they've got to show exculpatory information. And if you think about it, and what does that mean? That means other people that could be involved. Evidence is anything that points away from the accused guilt comes out of a case called Brady versus Maryland. It's called Brady material. It's exculpatory. And you think about it in this case, if you had any given person who was a suspect at any point in time, then you,
That is considered exculpatory as well. So if they considered me, for example, to have been a suspect in 2005, although I did have a good alibi, if they considered me as a suspect, then that would be fair game for cross-examination. Well,
Agent so-and-so, isn't it true that you at one time accused Holloway of this? Right. And so that's all Brady material. It's exculpatory. And the defense is entitled to have all of it. So Ron Duke's attorney is going to use that not only to maybe disprove what the GBI is saying, but also to suggest somebody else. That's all we got to do is create a kernel of reasonable doubt. And reasonable doubt is simply a doubt for which a reason can be attached. And it doesn't have to be much at all.
And if they can plant a seed of reasonable doubt in the mind of one single juror, that causes a mistrial if the jury gets hung. You know, when I try a case, I sit there with a notepad and I'm taking notes of what witnesses are saying. But I have a separate pad that's just for bullet points. When closing argument comes up.
If a witness has said something that was unusual, I'll just jot it down on my list. And so hopefully by the time the trial's over, I'll have a long laundry list of things. And I'll say to a jury, I'll say, look, this is what reasonable doubt is. It's a doubt for which a reason can be attached. And I don't know if you guys were listening during this trial, but I was. And I've got this long list of reasons right here, any one of which is sufficient to be reasonable doubt. And if you bite into any one of these and I just read through them,
then that's doubt for which a reason can be attached. And Ryan Duke's attorney has 30 feet of file to do that with, the largest case file in Georgia to do that with, to potentially disprove what they're saying and suggest somebody else. Well, I've got also a reason to believe that, and I think most people do believe, that Ryan has made either a full confession or some kind of incriminating statement that
So the defense might need to bring in an expert on false confessions, for example, because it's true. We all know that people have been exonerated who confessed.
False confessions do happen. I'm not saying that's what happened in this case, but if I'm defending it, it's something that I'm going to have to deal with. If my client's made a statement and I'm planning on trying this case, then I'm going to have to figure a way to work around that statement because that's going to be a big piece of the case against him. And Phil, to that same point, we don't know for sure if Ryan Duke did confess. That's purely speculation really to you because
Because of how specific the indictment is, even if it sounds crazy, it is very specific. I think he's told them that. I've got pretty solid reasons for believing he made some kind of statement, if not a full confession. But the warrants alleged, for example, that she died inside her home and that he took her dead body from her house. And how would they know that if –
He didn't tell them. The warrant was written before Ron was arrested. So the GBI didn't have...
Ryan in custody to find that out, to put it in a warrant. So it had to come from Bo. That's actually what I was getting at. The information inside the indictment about what Ryan allegedly did, could that have come from Bo and not Ryan himself? Did that have to come from Ryan or is that not enough to have someone else say, hey, this guy did this. OK, now we're going to charge him with that.
To be fair, we don't know when it was written up. Well, I hope it was before he was arrested. You know, the police can make an arrest. Let's say I go into the police station here and I confess to a crime. They can arrest me on the spot and put handcuffs on me and I'm in custody. Then they then go secure a warrant. That happens quite frequently. That's kind of the in between there. So you're suggesting maybe.
Ryan was either collected by law enforcement for an interrogation, asked him some questions, or he came and met with them. And they arranged something to question him about this. And maybe that's when he made some sort of small confession. And with that information, they charged him. That's what I believe happened. Okay. Okay. I believe they got some information from Brooke and her mom. And then they talked to Bo. Yeah.
And then later they talked to Ryan. And when they talked to Ryan, they made a decision to go ahead and make an arrest. That's how I believe it went down. And do you think that the GBI had to corroborate Bo's version of that story? Do you think Bo ever told the GBI at all a version of how or why Ryan killed Tara? Or is he just not telling me that? I mean,
I mean, and not him directly, but through Brooke, assuming that he never told Brooke. It would be very dangerous for him to withhold information from the GBI because if he's talking to them and giving them information, he's going to be a cooperating witness, then –
If they find out that he's said things to them that weren't true or that weren't the complete truth, it could jeopardize any deal that he's got. And it's also illegal in and of itself to give false statements to police.
So it would be very dangerous for him to not disclose anything that he doesn't know. Now, that being said, it happens a lot where people talk to the cops and they don't tell them the whole truth. In this GBI interrogation with Bo and the GBI, if Bo tells them this story,
Aren't they going to think it's weird and less believable if he has all these details but doesn't know the important things like why Ryan did this or how exactly it happened? Wouldn't they question that as far as his validity or Bo's personal involvement? If I'm investigating this case and if I'm interviewing Bo Dukes about what he knows –
I'm going to ask him lots of detailed questions and I'm going to ask him, what did Ryan say to you about this? I would ask him the question. I would say, did Ryan say why he did it? Did Ryan say how he did it? Did Ryan say anything else that about what he was doing over there at her house? Well, if he gave the same answer that Brooke gave me, which is allegedly what
Bo told Brooke, unless he said something different to the GBI, that answer would be a look of shame.
Nothing firm, just a look of shame. Is the GBI just going to accept that as truth? Or do they think it's weird, just like I think it's weird? If that's how it went down, they would have to believe it's weird. And quite frankly, that is also a good reason for a defense lawyer to argue that Bo is not credible. And if Bo has all these details about everything else except what happened inside the house...
Why wouldn't Bo simply ask Ryan when this body is presented to him? Why wouldn't he just say, what the hell did you do? Or how did you do it? Or why did you do it? According to Brooke, he did.
And he just never answered. Again, just the look of shame. That doesn't have the ring of truth. She took that look of shame as sexually somehow. Which is very strange, right? That's not what I would get from that. A look of shame. You could be shameful about a lot of things. Why specifically something sexual? I mean, that could be just killing Tara in any fashion. That's right.
But why she took it to the sexual part, I'm not really sure. Yeah, I don't either. Well, Bo knows a lot, apparently. But if his details are limited to just what happened afterwards, if you're on a jury, do you really believe that he's not going to ask Ryan Duke, why did you kill her? Or how did you kill her? Or what happened in that house?
That's what a rational person would do. That's certainly what I would do if you came to me and told me something like that or showed me where you just killed somebody. Especially if you were going to participate in destroying her body from that point forward. I don't care how evil you are. That is something that logically happens is that you find out what happened before you get involved. That's exactly my point.
If you come to me and show me that you've just killed somebody, probably the second thing I'm going to do is call the police. But the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to ask you what in the hell happened. And what is the benefit for Bo helping Ryan? That's what I can't figure out either. He was scared is what Brooke said. I don't buy that. I think that the burning and destroying the body benefited Bo just much as Ryan. It allowed both of them to get by with the crime for almost 12 years.
Oh, Maurice, you're suggesting, if I'm reading you correctly, that you think Bo may have been involved in the murder. That would be the impetus for him helping him like that. Bo would not be linked to killing Tara if he didn't kill Tara. So there is nothing in it for him to go try to get rid of the evidence. I don't believe that Ryan, with the lock gate out there and stuff, I don't believe that Ryan went to the pecan orchard out of his own choice without Bo knowing about it.
Because you have to wonder why he chose the orchard in the first place. That's right. It's not his orchard. That's right. So why did he trust that no one would find it out on the orchard? And it's always been private property. I'll be honest with you. I mean, according to Brooke's story, which is allegedly Bo's story, is that Bo found out for sure that Tara was murdered on that Wednesday. And that Wednesday is when Ryan...
allegedly took Bo to Tara's body and it was on the orchard. I don't believe that. It's very strange that Ryan would wait two days and then all of a sudden take him there in the first place. Do you know how intense the searching was going on by that time? And for Tara to just to be laying there in the open as described by Brooke is
very, very strange. The whole thing just smells funny to me. The indictment seems to go right along with that, smelling just as funny, if not funnier. I just think you should just keep on doing what you're doing. I agree with that 100% because somebody needs to question the narrative, and that's what the podcast is presently doing. It may very well be that
it happened exactly like it's alleged in the indictment. Okay. It may be that it didn't happen that way, but I think it's productive to question things the way that you're doing and to test whether or not what we're being told is the truth. Yeah. And if you're after the truth, a good investigator said to always follow the evidence wherever it leads. Okay. To the truth. And if you,
The law enforcement has been misled in this case and,
then you'd be doing them a service by letting them know that. If you uncover some information that it didn't exactly happen that way. You'd actually be doing law enforcement a service. You'd be doing a service to everybody who's interested in this case and certainly to Tara and to her family. Yeah, I mean, it's not about proving somebody wrong. I would try to find out if possible or just ask, what was the impetus for them wanting this whole thing within Canberra in secrecy?
They encumbered a secrecy that was originally written along with the gag order. What was the motive behind the reason why they wanted that? And who wanted it? Yeah, because the DA and the defense attorney didn't object to that. Who wanted it? I don't think it's something the judge would just do on her own. Oh, no. She'd have to be asked by one of the parties to do it. And there's no written motion in the case file asking for a gag order, so it had to be something that was discussed orally. That's right. ♪
Thanks for listening, guys. Today's episode was mixed and mastered by Resonate Recordings. If you want to improve the quality of your podcast or start a podcast of your own, check them out at resonaterecordings.com. And don't forget, our new podcast, Sworn, debuts this Wednesday, June 14th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
And if you haven't yet, please subscribe to Sworn on Apple Podcasts. We also have a special bonus episode for you. Coming this Friday, the Up and Vanished and Tenderfoot team attended the first annual CrimeCon event where we got to meet fans and do live Q&As and do some really cool interviews. And we recorded all of it for you to hear. So look for our bonus CrimeCon episode this Friday. And last but not least, episode 21 comes out next Monday.
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