What happened to Tara Grinstead? Case explored as suspect Ryan Duke gets acquitted of murder charges

After a nine-day trial, on Friday, May 20, Ryan Duke was acquitted by a jury of murder in the 2005 death of school teacher and former beauty queen Tara Grinstead. However, he was sentenced on Monday to 10 years in prison for concealing the body of Grinstead.

Ryan Duke was found not guilty of various charges that included malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, and burglary. He was found guilty of concealing a death.

Duke will receive credit for the five years he has already served since his arrest back in 2017.

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Years later - Ryan Duke's arrest and acquittal

Ryan Duke was acquitted of murder in Tara Grinstead's case (Image via Dr. Maurice Godwin/Twitter)

In 2017 when he was first held, Ryan Duke admitted to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) that he had killed Grinstead. However, during the trial, when he was asked whether he caused Grinstead's death, Duke said, "I did not."

In his statement to GBI, Duke stated that he broke into Grinstead's house to steal money for drugs. Duke further noted that he struck her because Grinstead startled him.

Ryan Duke told the GBI agents:

"She snuck up on me and I hit her. It was reactionary. I ran. I didn’t know what else to do."

Once he ran, Duke said that he called Grinstead's house from a payphone, and when she didn't answer, he came to the scene to find her dead.

But during the trial, Duke denied all this and instead presented a new story where he said that Bo Dukes, his former friend, killed Grinstead. "He killed Tara." He claimed that Dukes also showed him Grinstead's purse and wallet.

Bo Dukes is serving 25 years in prison for burning Tara's body in 2005 (Image via Philip Holloway/Twitter)

After a jury conviction in 2019, Bo Dukes was sentenced to 25 years in prison for helping Duke remove Grinstead's body from the house and burning it in a pecan orchard. Like Duke, he, too, denied killing Grinstead and wasn't charged with murder.

After the verdict was announced, Attorney Philip A. Holloway, who closely followed the case for years in a report by Fox News Digital, said that the jury reached an "appropriate verdict" based on the evidence and testimony presented during the trial.

The verdict drew mixed reactions and was evident across several Twitter reactions.

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The truth shall set you free

30-year-old school teacher Tara Grinstead went missing in 2005 (Image via TrueCrimeSociety/Twitter)

After Grinstead failed to show up to school on October 24, 2005, her friends and neighbors knew something was wrong.

She lived on the street from downtown Ocilla, and when the cops visited her place, there was nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. Even her Halloween decorations were still in place.

However, when the officers checked in front of Grinstead's house, they found a latex glove.

In a report by CBS, former GBI Special Agent-in-charge Gary Rothwell was quoted saying:

"It appeared that Tara may have left on her own. However, we had a glove, a latex glove that we couldn't explain. So that gave us a stronger indication that something bad had happened."

The glove was sent to a lab for testing, where along with Grinstead's, the DNA of an unknown male was also identified. Decades went by, and there was no answer to what happened to Grinstead.

Officers undertook a thorough investigation, where they examined her dating life and chased down leads across the country. Unfortunately, there were no suspects in this case.

Then, in an interview with GBI, Bo Dukes told them that Ryan Duke had killed Grinstead and dumped her body in a pecan orchard owned by the Dukes' family. He then stated that they burned Grinstead's body in the orchard over two days.

In 2019, Bo Dukes first went on trial, where he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. In 2017, Ryan Duke was arrested as well following his confession. However, after all the drama and the current verdict, neither has been charged with murder.

The mystery remains unresolved to many people: who actually killed Tara Grinstead?

Some people involved in this case still believe that the truth is out there and will eventually put the decade-long case to rest.