Grinstead case: New documents reveal possible confession reported in 2005
Explosive new facts are coming to light through court documents related to the October 2005 disappearance of Tara Grinstead.
Both the State and attorneys for Ryan Duke filed multiple new motions and demands this week in the case against Duke for the killing of Grinstead.
The documents were obtained from the Irwin County Superior Court through an open records request.
One document filed by the public defender's office for Duke is a plea in bar and demurrer to counts two (felony murder), three (felony murder), four (aggravated assault), five (burglary), and six (concealing death of another) of the indictment, based upon the statute of limitations.
Within that document, Duke's attorneys included three exhibits that appear to be part of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's investigative case summary.
The first exhibit is a summary of the GBI's interview with a man named Garland Lott in February of 2017. According to the document, Lott told the GBI that back in 2005, maybe in November, he had heard both Bo Dukes and Ryan Duke tell the group they were with that they had killed Tara Grinstead and burned her body. Lott said both Dukes and Duke were intoxicated at the time.
Soon after that event, Lott said he met with Andy and Jannis Paulk, his employer, and several law enforcement officers to search an orchard. He noted that he had never been interviewed by law enforcement prior to the interview in February of 2017 with the GBI.
The second exhibit is a summary of the GBI's interview with Jannis Paulk in February 2017. Paulk told the GBI that approximately two to four weeks after Grinstead was reported missing, her employee, Garland Lott, told her about the statement he said both Bo Dukes and Ryan Duke had made regarding Grinstead's death.
Paulk said she and Lott met with Irwin County Chief Deputy Nelson Paulk and Investigator Alan Morgan near an orchard off Bowen's Mill Highway, north of Fitzgerald, during the same time frame. After a brief search of an older fire pit in the orchard, they left. Paulk said she spoke with Morgan again two to four weeks later, and Morgan told her that both Bo Dukes and Ryan Duke had been spoken to and denied killing Grinstead, claiming they had been drunk when they made the statements.
Paulk stated she gave this information to former GBI Agent Leah Lightner in 2008, but no one followed up until the GBI's interview with her in February 2017.
The third exhibit is a summary of an interview between the GBI and Nelson Paulk that occurred in February 2017. According to the GBI's summary, Nelson confirmed contact with Garland Lott and Jannis and Andy Paulk. Nelson said Lott told him what he had heard Bo Dukes and Ryan Duke say at the party a few weeks after Grinstead's disappearance.
The group showed Nelson an old burn pit in a pecan orchard north of Fitzgerald but found no evidentiary items. Nelson said he was unfamiliar with any documentation of the search and never completed or received any written statements. He believed Investigator Morgan may have completed some documentation, but Morgan no longer works with the Irwin County Sheriff's Office.
Special Agent in Charge J. T. Ricketson of the GBI’s Region 13 investigative office said he could not comment on the case as the GBI has turned over its case files to the District Attorney's office. A request for comment has also been made to the Irwin County Sheriff's Office.
The document in which these exhibits were submitted was a motion asking the court to dismiss several charges against Duke, not including the charge of malice murder, due to the statute of limitations.
That document, filed by Duke's attorneys, was submitted to the court on Wednesday, August 15, 2018, along with other motions including a motion to suppress Duke's statements and for a pretrial Jackson v. Denno hearing to determine the voluntariness of any statements and the validity of any waiver of counsel prior to interrogation.
On August 10, District Attorney Paul Bowden filed a Notice of Jackson-Denno hearing to be held at 9:30 a.m. on September 20.
Duke's attorneys also filed a special demurrer asking the court to dismiss the indictment in Duke's case. That document argues the counts on Duke's indictment are too "vague, ambiguous, and indefinite," depriving the defendant of his constitutional rights under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
Bowden filed several documents with the court on the same day, including a state's demand for the defendant to provide written notice of his intent to offer an alibi defense, a motion for individual and sequestered voir dire (jury selection), a motion requiring the defendant to identify in writing any motions requiring an evidentiary hearing, reciprocal discovery notice, and a notice of service of a list of witnesses.