That is, until Payne Lindsey came along.
That is until Payne Lindsey came along.
2 on the iTunes charts.
Credit: Tim Daust
And just six months after the show launched, all of Lindseys hard work paid off.
One week later, a second arrest was made.
On Wednesday,a grand jury indictedRyan Duke, on murder charges.
Tenderfoot
Dukes is currently out on bail.
To start, Payne searched through the GBIs cold case files online.
It was there that he found Grinsteads case and was immediately hooked.
Elliott Minor/AP
His first stroke of luck arrived whenDr.
Its not impossible to solve an unsolved case or make a difference as a journalist.
I felt like there was a lot of room for answers.
Ryan Duke (left) was arrested Feb. 22, 2017. Bo Dukes (right) was taken into custody March 3.Georgia Bureau of Investigation via AP; Ben Hill County Sheriff’s Office/WMAZ via AP
I can find the answer to that!
It almost gets you pumped up, like, well let me take a stab at it.
As a documentarian, you obviously know how to tell a good story.
Outside Tara Grinstead’s home in Ocilla, Ga.Elliott Minor/AP
But true crime was foreign territory.
How did you know where to even start?It was different.
I approached it from a storytelling standpoint.
I never really viewed myself as a journalist, per se, but technically I am.
My passion was always in telling other peoples stories in a way that theyve never been told.
I wanted to paint this whole narrative of this bizarre unsolved mystery.
I almost didnt do the podcast because I didnt think I could do it.
Not that I didnt have confidence in myself, I just didnt view myself as a podcaster.
It felt like I was trying to be somebody I wasnt.
You have these professionals and thats their thing.
What I do is not that so why am I trying to be that?
One day, I pulled the trigger and said you know what, Im just going to do it.
I could ask him off-the-cuff questions and not sound like I was stupid.
I really didnt know anything.
I did not have any sort of advantage when it came to figuring some of this stuff out.
I didnt know any more than anybody else did.
But I wanted to learn how.
But what I tried to use to my advantage was my people skills.
What I knew how to do was attempt to get people to talk to me like a person.
Did I think I could do it?
Statistically, that doesnt happen.
That was my motto throughout the whole thing.
Youve talked to a number of people for this podcast.
I didnt want to come across like an opportunist or something.
Early on I talked to the police chief in Ocilla and hes still really close to Taras family.
Thats kind of how they found out about me.
… Ive never talked to them directly.
Once the dust settles a little bit, I plan on connecting with them.
I would love to have them on the podcast only if its something theyd want to do.
So theres still a lot left to tell in the story.
Were working on that behind the scenes now and can announce it in the near future.
At what point do you stop and move on to another case?Thats a tough question.
So well probably go after episode 18 for a little bit.
Whats left to tell?Really the biggest points are: What really happened here?
Who is Ryan Duke, who is Bo Dukes?
What were their roles?
Are the charges that are laid against them the right charges?
Are the roles switched?
Are they more involved, less involved?
Did somebody know about this beforehand?
Was there a way to have solved this 10 or 12 years ago?
And if there was, lets not cover that up.
Lets let that out there, lets let the truth out.
Also, its the story of the healing process.
How does [Taras ex-boyfriend] Marcus Harper feel?
How does anybody whos been labeled a person of interest in this case feel?
Whats their real story?
How do they explain some of the things that made them look guilty or cause suspicion over the years?
What are their stories?
Its this whole other chapter to this, the aftermath.
We have some truth but we dont have the whole truth.
We cant count on the police or anybody else to just tell us that.
