dark_shadows
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Just some info to post;
by Seamus McGraw
March 30, 2006
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) Acting on what they describe as promising tips, friends, relatives and volunteers are planning to resume their search this weekend for missing schoolteacher and former beauty queen Tara Grinstead.
Larry Gattis, the missing woman's brother-in-law, declined Wednesday to describe the precise location of the search, but acknowledge that the teams, aided by cadaver dogs, would be dispatched to areas of two counties next to Irwin County, where Grinstead lived and where she was last seen some five months ago.
As in other recent searches, the targeted locations will be announced on Saturday when searchers arrive in Ocilla. Gattis has said that the family has insisted on the secrecy because they worry that advance notice might tip off any potential suspects.
So far, authorities have declined to identify any potential suspects in the case that began on Oct. 22, when 31-year-old Grinstead vanished after returning home from the annual Sweet Potato Festival and dinner with friends. Despite a series of massive searches, aided in some cases by high-tech aerial surveillance equipment provided by the nationally known search and rescue operation Texas EquuSearch, authorities say they have found no evidence that conclusively points to Grinstead's fate. The case officially remains a missing person probe. Although authorities have not identified any potential suspects, they have interviewed, in some cases several times, men in Grinstead's life including her former longtime boyfriend. All have insisted that they had no role in her disappearance.
But the lingering mystery over the young woman's whereabouts has fueled intense local and national interest. In just the past few days, several national television news programs, including NBC's "Dateline," have compiled reports on the probe.
And in recent weeks, family members have also drawn support from criminology professor Maurice Godwin, a professor who specializes in geographic profiling, and have turned to psychics, including Court TV's psychic profiler Carla Baron.
Based in part on information provided by them, and on tips from the public, teams of searchers last week scoured some ponds and swamps in the region, Gattis said. Divers probed two sections of a murky 32-foot deep pond that matched a description given to them by Baron, and cadaver dogs were also deployed. "That pond does fit some of the characteristics that Carla had talked to us about," Gattis said. "She said we wouldn't find Tara there, but we may find some clues." While data from that search is still being analyzed and has yet to yield any solid clues, Gattis said there was cause for further investigation. "We had dog alerts on one pond, and we're still in the process of trying to find out what the dogs hit on," Gattis said. "We're sending some water samples off to see if there's any chemicals that might have made the dogs hit."
by Seamus McGraw
March 30, 2006
OCILLA, Ga. (Crime Library) Acting on what they describe as promising tips, friends, relatives and volunteers are planning to resume their search this weekend for missing schoolteacher and former beauty queen Tara Grinstead.
Larry Gattis, the missing woman's brother-in-law, declined Wednesday to describe the precise location of the search, but acknowledge that the teams, aided by cadaver dogs, would be dispatched to areas of two counties next to Irwin County, where Grinstead lived and where she was last seen some five months ago.
As in other recent searches, the targeted locations will be announced on Saturday when searchers arrive in Ocilla. Gattis has said that the family has insisted on the secrecy because they worry that advance notice might tip off any potential suspects.
So far, authorities have declined to identify any potential suspects in the case that began on Oct. 22, when 31-year-old Grinstead vanished after returning home from the annual Sweet Potato Festival and dinner with friends. Despite a series of massive searches, aided in some cases by high-tech aerial surveillance equipment provided by the nationally known search and rescue operation Texas EquuSearch, authorities say they have found no evidence that conclusively points to Grinstead's fate. The case officially remains a missing person probe. Although authorities have not identified any potential suspects, they have interviewed, in some cases several times, men in Grinstead's life including her former longtime boyfriend. All have insisted that they had no role in her disappearance.
But the lingering mystery over the young woman's whereabouts has fueled intense local and national interest. In just the past few days, several national television news programs, including NBC's "Dateline," have compiled reports on the probe.
And in recent weeks, family members have also drawn support from criminology professor Maurice Godwin, a professor who specializes in geographic profiling, and have turned to psychics, including Court TV's psychic profiler Carla Baron.
Based in part on information provided by them, and on tips from the public, teams of searchers last week scoured some ponds and swamps in the region, Gattis said. Divers probed two sections of a murky 32-foot deep pond that matched a description given to them by Baron, and cadaver dogs were also deployed. "That pond does fit some of the characteristics that Carla had talked to us about," Gattis said. "She said we wouldn't find Tara there, but we may find some clues." While data from that search is still being analyzed and has yet to yield any solid clues, Gattis said there was cause for further investigation. "We had dog alerts on one pond, and we're still in the process of trying to find out what the dogs hit on," Gattis said. "We're sending some water samples off to see if there's any chemicals that might have made the dogs hit."
