Deep Dive
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Hi, I'm a listener in Maryland with a few questions. My biggest question is, what was the explanation given by the owner of the expedition that was burned at Snapdragon Road? What was his explanation for having his vehicle parked there when he wasn't there at the time?
Another question I have is about the cell phone records of Tara. You know, I know they know a lot about Heath Sykes calling and all these messages and other text messages that she sent throughout the night. But, you know, what was her last call? Did someone call, you know, and ask her to meet up with them or something?
I just wish there was more information on her cell phone and you know, where it was pinging from, you know, calls that she was receiving or pinging from that kind of thing. Um, and finally something that Dr. Godwin said on the last, um, Q and a was, uh, he mentioned that Joe, the neighbor had Tara's car detailed on Wednesday after she went missing, unless I heard that incorrectly.
Why would somebody have her car detailed after she went missing? That seems so bizarre. And I wonder why that was the decision made by Joe. I look forward to you coming back for season two. Thank you.
The only thing I could decipher in my investigation back in 06 and on to today, I mean, I don't have access to the case files. None of us do. But he said that he was house-setting. Now, there's been some postings on various type of websites saying that he wasn't, that his wife had a key or something to do a little cleaning. But it's my understanding that he was supposed to be house-setting
For the lady who owned the place who lived in Florida, the elderly lady. In regards to the cell phone records, as far as the pings and the official records, the GBI has those, never been able to get hold of them. I was told that I would be given the records back in March of 06. It never happened.
I never was given the records, which would have helped me. Well, Tara's records, I was told that, not anyone else's. That would have helped me immensely, but they were never given to me. In regards to Joe washing the car after that Monday, it's my understanding that his reason was about the fingerprint powder. Tara had a fairly expensive sports car, and it was white, and so...
He said he had it cleaned, washed because of the fingerpip powder is my understanding. But a lot of people, and that is, view that as suspicious. I view it as suspicious too. Thank you very much for the question.
Hey, this is Tamara from Illinois. I've been listening to your podcast and I actually had to listen to all the episodes again and something really struck me in episode five about the black truck and just about Tara in general. You know, I was kind of approaching it as it being a possible male suspect, someone she could be romantically linked with also, but as
As I listened more and more and re-reviewed the audio, it just appears to me that there's a female involvement in this. You know, there was a partially broken necklace in Tara's home in her bedroom. It does appear like a struggle had happened.
it is very possible the struggle happened and a female would have went to go make the bed or to kind of stage the room as if to show that no struggle had occurred. That black truck kind of hit me too because I was thinking about the fact that it could have been the wife or girlfriend of someone that Tara may have been possibly romantically involved with or been rumored to be involved with. Jealousy could have played a part in there and then he could have been a part of it in the
sense of helping to clean up the scene or to hide Tara's body if that's what happened. But to me, the overall feel of it is that this was perpetrated by a female. And I don't know if you all have pursued it. Tara was highly involved in pageants and it could be a possibility that there was someone who was jealous of
if she did assist a particular pageant girl and that girl won. There could be some jealousy on that. So, you know, just if you have the inclination, if you wouldn't mind just kind of taking a look at the women that kind of surround Tara, I think it might be worth your while. Thank you. It's very possible that a female could be involved, but there's no evidence to suggest that the DNA on the glove
is a full profile of a white male. If a female is involved, then their accomplice, the male accomplice, we do not know who that is. In regards to the scene in the bedroom and the necklace, a male could easily pull a necklace off as a female could.
So I don't really see a black truck, which I'm the one that found the information about the black truck. I don't see a black truck being linked to a female as much as I do a male. So, I mean, one could be in the background of this, but...
I'm just not convinced because if there was one involved, as I said, we don't know who the male accomplice is because so far there's been no DNA match. Thank you very much. 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 or attending one live,
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Hi, my name is Ian. I'm listening from Boston, Mass. My question is if you guys have ever considered or thought about or have a theory on how many people might be involved, if you think it's one or multiple. I mean, my theory is that it might have been one person with multiple people covering it up.
but I didn't know if there was a theory that either of you guys had on that. And the second thing would be if we know anything about a connection between Dykes and the police department in Osceola, if there was a positive relationship or no relationship or maybe even a bad relationship between those two. Thank you. Appreciate the podcast. Take care. Bye. That's a good question. GBI has swabbed many people internationally.
And the main persons of interest, they've polygraphed a lot of them. They've checked their alibis with no DNA match, with no fingerprint match to the partial print and passing the polygraph doesn't seem to be able to clear anyone. So it may be that thinking, well, the DNA, one of these persons of interest could be involved here.
but they had accomplice, and they don't know who that person is. So that might be the DNA of the white male that's on the glove, the accomplice. That might be one of the reasons why some of these other people has never been cleared. Again, thank you for listening to the podcast.
Hi, this is Corey from Fayetteville, Arkansas. I'm wondering, in one of the first episodes, there was mention of, I think it was a pearl necklace that was scattered on the floor of Tara's house. And I'm wondering if it was confirmed by anyone if she was wearing that necklace that night at the cookout. Because if she was, obviously that would place her in the house and give credence to any sort of scuffle that might have happened.
Thanks a lot. Keep up the good work. It's always been reported that
The necklace that Tara had on, and there's a picture of it, that she had on at the pageant and that she had on at the barbecue. This necklace she had made, she had gone to the arts and crafts store and got some supplies and she had made a necklace out of one that was one of her family members that had been passed down to her.
And that was the part of the necklace that was found on the floor the next day after she went missing. I think it was found on Tuesday, scattered on the floor. So, yes, this has always been reported in the media that they're saying the necklace and that it was found, parts of it was found on the floor. And I also found, now I don't know if it's related to this particular necklace, but during my search of her bedroom, I found a clasp.
that you hooked the necklace, and that had been pulled apart. And there's a picture on my blog about that, showing that clasp, and that was turned over. It was collected back and turned over to the GBI in March of 06. Thank you for the question. I use stamps.com to simplify my life. I actually can't remember the last time I went to the post office, and that's a good thing. I use stamps.com for Up and Vanished to communicate with people.
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Hi, this is Jennifer. I'm calling from Ackworth, Georgia. I've been listening to the podcast from the beginning, and I don't remember hearing anybody say that there's a possibility that Tara might actually still be alive. There's no body, and I know it seems like she may have been murdered, but is there any possibility that she's alive somewhere, maybe being held, or maybe...
Somewhere where she doesn't want to be found. Thanks. Bye. I guess anything's possible in any case. In this case, I don't think so. There's been no financial activity since October when she went disappeared that Saturday. There's been no use of the Social Security card. And then her father had her declared dead in 010 and she was declared dead. I seriously doubt that she's alive. No way to sustain herself.
or anything like that. Thank you for the question. I'm a listener from Atlanta. My question is about this latex glove that is being beat to death, but I'm a paramedic in the area, and I was wondering if you guys know if the glove was inside out, because I know when somebody takes off a glove, it turns inside out, or if it was just kind of fallen there, like it hadn't been used yet. So thanks for answering. See you. Bye. Looking at some of the photographs,
that was shown on the 48 Hours show, which were actually filmed by 48 Hours at the GBI where Rothwell was showing some of the 8x10 photographs, you really can't tell. You can tell the color of it, white or office white, but you can't tell really if the glove was turned inside out or not because if you blow it up or enlarge it, it becomes too blurry.
But that would be an interesting fact to know, that if it was just dropped or if it was turned inside out. Thank you very much for the question.
Hi, my name is Ellie and I'm a listener from the Houston area. And I had a theory that I wanted to share about the conundrum of the latex glove. What if the perpetrator had unknowingly dropped the glove in Tara's yard during the night of her disappearance? Let's hypothesize that the perpetrator had connections with law enforcement and word got back to the perpetrator that a latex glove had been found in Tara's yard.
As that glove would obviously implicate the perpetrator, he replaced the original latex glove with a plant. This glove exchange would have happened when the glove was in Osceola PD custody. I know the glove is forensically linked to Tara, but the perpetrator would have had access to Tara's body and could have made sure to link the planted glove to Tara so that the planted glove would be assumed to be the original glove.
This theory would make sense with the conflicts about the color of the glove and the fact that the DNA on the glove has never been traced to anyone. So I'm curious as to whether this could be a valid theory and would love to hear Dr. Godwin's thoughts. Thanks. Interesting theory. The only problem with it is, is if the person was in law enforcement,
And they realized that the glove that was on the ground, I mean, they had dropped the glove, and it was later switched out by the law enforcement person.
You said that because the glove is like forensically linked back to terror somehow, that they had access to the body. And the problem with that is, is that even after that Monday, like on Wednesday, supposedly where the glove was at in the police department. And I don't know that that's actually accurate or not. But let's assume that that person would have to take the glove back to where the body was at.
get the DNA of her own glove with the unknown DNA so it won't be linked to them and carry it back and put it back in there. Now, you're also dealing not just with DNA. You're also dealing with a partial print. So now you've got what you consider the original glove that's been destroyed and replaced with one with Tara's DNA on it and an unknown male DNA on it and a partial print.
That's very difficult to pull off. But it's interesting theory you had there, but I don't think that that happened at all. Thank you very much for the question. Hi, Payne. I'm a listener from San Francisco, and I've really enjoyed the podcast. I just had a sort of theory slash question for you, which is something I thought about the other day when I was trying to locate my cell phone is that one of the reasons that you would call a cell phone 30 times in one day is because you're trying to find that cell phone.
Has anyone thought about the fact that one of the reasons he's
might have called that phone over and over if he had been with Tara the night before for any reason and had thought that she might have her cell phone on her and was desperately trying to find it so that he could get rid of it for some reason. I don't know. It's just a theory that I thought of. If somebody didn't know her cell phone was sitting there in her home and they thought it was with her and something happened to her, they might be trying to find the phone. So the phone couldn't be used to find her if it was on her person using Find My Phone, right?
Okay, just a thought. Thanks. Very good question. And I've not heard this one before. The only problem with that is if he's calling the phone trying to find the phone, then he is pinging his phone in the same general area. Now, there are some criminals that do this and they're sitting in prison. This is a seasoned detective and he would know better than that. Now, there's a possible way around that.
is that a person could be using a burner phone, and the phone that you actually made the phone calls with would be the actual phone with his number, and then the burner phone was used some other way. But I just don't see it because him calling the cell phone, he could have been calling the phone
standing outside of the house Sunday night when he was there. He could have called it several times to see if it was ringing inside. I mean, I don't know that that happened, but in case to see if he lost it where it was at so the pings wouldn't be used to show the general location of the body, that would implicate him because his phone would be pinging in the general area. And if he's calling her phone,
Her phone is pinging in the same area. You definitely do not want that in a missing murder case. So I very seriously doubt that that happened.
Thank you very much for the good question. Hello, love the show, love the podcast. Question regarding the case file. You can't, Tara's family petitioned the court to declare her legally dead, and if so, since this isn't a murder case, wouldn't that just close that file and allow you then or anyone access to
to those files to do some additional digging. Thanks so much. It's an interesting question. She was declared dead at 10 by her father. Does that make the case closed? Absolutely not. Is this a missing person case? Absolutely. Is this a murder case? 99.9% or more that this is a homicide case. And it's been treated
for over 10 years, although still missing person officially, it's been treated as a homicide case. It is an active, open investigation with sensitive information, sensitive people's information. So yes, the family could hire a lawyer, and this has been done by families, and they could petition the court and have a hearing, and a judge could say,
hey, you've not moved this thing forward. The family wants to bring in a private investigator or whatever, and they need access to the files. Would the judge rule like that against the Georgia Open Records law? That's doubtful. If it was a 25-year-old case, you may have a little bit more of a stronger case to do that.
That's never been explored in this case about trying to get the case files by the family. Good question, and thank you for listening to the podcast.
My name's Drew, big fan, calling from Destin, Florida. Yeah, just with everything you've said about how the GBI has been handling the case and whatnot, I was just curious why the FBI hasn't stepped in, given that it is a missing persons case. There's allegations of mishandling of evidence with the chain of custody and everything.
I think there's enough precedence for their jurisdiction in this case. Just wondering if they've had anything to do with it. Thank you very much for asking the question and listening to the podcast out of Florida. The FBI really can't get involved in the case unless they're across state lines. And there's no evidence that there's any state lines that's been crossed in this case. We don't know where she's at.
Also, they have to be asked to end by the state, by the investigative agency. They are in jurisdiction of the case was turned over from a cell of P.D. to the G.B.I. And it's been their case since that Monday in 2005 for the FBI to come in. They would have to be asked to come in by the G.B.I.,
Will that happen? Not unless there's something of hers that is found in, say, in Florida or South Carolina or some other state, and they probably could ask them to come in to do some things. But I don't think that the FBI would be asked in in this case. Thank you very much.
Hey guys, thanks for listening. As a reminder, episode 13 comes out on February 27th. But before that, there'll be a bonus case evidence this coming Monday. Don't forget about our contest either. We're giving away five framed Up and Vanish posters from framebridge.com. To enter, all you have to do is rate and write a review of Up and Vanish on iTunes. We're picking five random people out of all the reviews. I also want to give a special thanks to Resonate Recordings for editing and mixing today's episodes.
They specialize in podcast editing and production. If you're looking to improve the quality of your podcast or start a podcast of your own, check them out at ResonateRecordings.com. Thanks, guys, and I'll see you Monday. I'm sending my Aunt Tina money directly to her bank account in the Philippines with Western Union. She's the self-proclaimed bingo queen of Manila, and I know better to interrupt her on bingo night, even to pick up cash.
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