Vanished

On Monday November 24th 2005 Tara Grinstead's Mother received a phone call that Tara did not report to work. She had just finished her first year as an 11th grade history teacher at a local High School and loved her work. She was very punctual and dedicated to her work. If for some reason she wasn't going to be at work she made sure she had a substitute lined up. Her Mother, Connie, says she could not have imagined anything like this could have happened. Tara was a beautiful person inside and out. She was a beauty pageant winner who enjoyed competing because she knew it would force her to come out of her comfort zone and make her strive to do her very best. What happened to her and a girl named Jennifer Kesse became two of the greatest mysteries the states of Georgia and Florida have ever known.



Tara was an extremely busy girl. She was scheduled to graduate from Valdosta State University with her specialist degree. Her future was bright and her career was on her way up. When Tara didn't show up for school on that Monday morning her Mother knew something was wrong and something beyond her control had happened. So the search was on in Ocilla Georgia for the missing teacher. It was the beginning of one of the largest investigations the GBI has ever conducted says special Agent Gary Rockwell who is in charge of the Tara Grinstead missing person case. What was immediately disturbing about the case was the presence of a latex glove in the front yard of her residence. It was a strong indication that something bad had happened. When they began interviewing people they discovered that Tara led a very complex life both personally and professionally and they can't rule out that someone is responsible for her disappearance that they don't even know about.



In his nearly 27 years as a Special Agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Gary Rockwell says he has never encountered such a complex and difficult case. Three months after Tara's disappearance another beautiful young woman by the name of Jennifer Kesse vanished from her home in Orlando Florida. The GBI doesn't know for sure if the cases are related but they are desperately trying to determine that. Although it seems incredible that someone can just disappear off the face of the earth but it does happen. On that Monday the officials at the school came over the intercom and asked that Tara Grinstead please report to the office. Student Dana Wilder remembers her sense of dread when she heard that announcement. Dana was sitting in class at Irwin County High School wondering why Tara didn't report to the office. Besides being a Beauty Pageant winner Tara was also a mentor to Dana especially when it came to their passions, Beauty Pageants.



Her and all of her friends looked up to Tara. Just two days earlier Dana had been at Tara's house with some friends to get ready for a big local event in this small town. The event was the Miss Georgia Sweet Potato Pageant. Tara would teach the girls how to walk and how to pick out songs and their wardrobe for the event. Tara's Stepmother Connie and her father Billy say Tara fell in love with Pageants as a teenager. Tara didn't do just any Pageants, she did scholarship Pageants to help in her education. The Pageants helped fill another goal for Tara, money for school. But none of the Pageants meant more to Tara than winning the title of Miss Tifton in 1999. Her best friend Maria Quelets says winning the crown meant she could now fulfill her lifelong dream, competing in the Miss Georgia pageant. A week before the Pageant, Tara was interviewed by a local reporter.



During the interview she explained all she had done to get ready for the Pageant by honing her interview skills, exercising, and shopping for clothes. Tara didn't place in the competition but was thrilled when her friend, Oshsa Anderson won. She absolutely loved the experience however. Her friends say after the Miss Georgia Pageant she refocused herself on her career in education. She actually wanted to be a principal of a school. By the fall of 2005 she was teaching by day and taking classes by night. She was even filling in as an assistant principal from time to time. Everything seemed to be going so well for Tara until that October morning. The Chief of Police of Ocilla, Billy Hancock received a telephone call from Tara's neighbor that she was missing. By the time he arrived at Tara's house nobody had seen or heard from Tara in 34 hours. Her car was parked in the carport which was a red flag but most disturbing was the latex glove in the front yard which was collected as evidence.



Inside the house everything appeared to be normal. There was no sign of struggle and her cell phone was in it's charger by the nightstand. Her pocketbook and keys, however, were missing. At 11:00 AM Chief Hancock called Gary Rockwell. It appeared to him that Tara may have left on her own, however they couldn't explain that latex glove away. He was also intrigued by something else he found at the house, something odd. There was a business card wedged in her front door. Investigators sealed the house and took Tara's car and the glove in for processing. Then they started reconstructing her last known movements. On the last day she was seen, Saturday October 22nd, she spent the day with Dana and the Pageant girls at home. That evening she went to the Sweet Potato Pageant. At 8:00PM she stopped by the house of a neighbor and stayed there for a half an hour before going to a cookout a few blocks from her home. She remained at the cookout until about 11:00PM at which time she returned home.



The clothes she had been wearing that night are on the floor in her bedroom. After that Investigators have no idea what happened to her. Hours after her disappearance Irwin County teachers and students sprang into action. They had T shirts and missing persons fliers made up and handed them out until 11:00PM each night. Volunteers and authorities joined in a massive search for the missing teacher. The search was the most extensive that Gary Hancock has ever been associated with in his career. They searched fields, swamps, and abandoned buildings. But in a place the size of Irwin County finding Tara was like looking for a needle in a haystack. It looked to Investigators like Tara left with someone she knew since her purse and keys were missing but her car was still in the carport. Investigators put Tara's private life under the microscope. They went back and looked at every boyfriend she ever had and soon discovered it wasn't as simple as they thought it was going to be.



One of the things that makes this case so difficult is that she did have several relationships within a close proximity of time from one another. Investigators first focused on her ex boyfriend, former cop and Army Ranger Marcus Harper. He and Tara had had a relationship that had lasted approximately six years. It had been a stormy relationship and there had been trouble in the last two years of their romance. Tara wanted to marry Marcus and even throughout there troubles Tara had always hoped that things would work out between them. But just two weeks before her disappearance Marcus told Tara their relationship was over for good. Tara was absolutely devastated. Tara's friends saw the pain she was in firsthand. Marcus told Greta Van Seustren that the last time he saw Tara was a week before she vanished when she begged him not to leave her. He said that if she couldn't have him she would commit suicide. Gary Rockwell doesn't believe Tara committed suicide and neither do her friends.



On the last night Tara was seen Marcus says he was at a bar with friends and afterwards rode around the town until dawn with a friend who was on the local police force. His alibi was corroborated and there was no history of violence between the couple. But Tara had been the target of a violent outburst before, ironically by one of her students. IN March 2005, Anthony Vickers, a former student of Tara's tried to force his way into Tara's house. Friends say Tara had taken Vickers under her wing but he was becoming unmanageable. Tara reported the incident to the local police and stated that he began to knock on the windows and the door and shouted for her to come out. During all of this Anthony used obscene language and appeared to be out of control. Could Anthony Vickers have been involved in Tara's disappearance? The GBI looked into it and say they can't make a connection. And the business card that was left in the door of Tara's house.



Turns out it was left by a police officer in a nearby town who happened to be a married man. Neighbors have said he was a frequent visitor to Tara's house. In fact he had been there Sunday night the day before she went missing and said he did not get an answer at the door. The man also left almost two dozen messages on Tara's answering machine the weekend she disappeared. All of the men in Tara's life claim innocence and the GBI cannot prove otherwise. But the GBI isn't ruling anyone out because none of the men's alibis covers the full 34 hours before Tara vanished. This is a very difficult spot for law enforcement to be in. For 2 1/2 years the GBI has continued to investigate anyone and everyone Tara knew. Tara's family and friends remain frustrated. Since her disappearance rumors have run wild in the small town of Ocilla. Everything from a crazy person is around abducting normal folks to she left on her own.



The latex glove was sent to the GBI crime lab in Atlanta for testing just days after Tara went missing. Trace evidence specialist Larry Peterson wasn't optimistic. However the glove did reveal a DNA sample and a fingerprint from an unknown male. When they compared the DNA and the fingerprint to the men in Tara's life there was no match. Over 100 people were tested without making a single match. No match nationally either. Still the GBI can't eliminate any of the men in Tara's life since they might have had an accomplice. Then just three months after Tara's disappearance another beautiful woman vanished without a trace. This one was named Jennifer Kesse and was from Orlando Florida. The similarities to Tara's case were eerie. They are both young, attractive, successful women who simply vanished. Even as a child, people were drawn to Jennifer Kesse says her mother Joyce. When she walked into a room people noticed her because she was so vibrant and full of life.



Her best friend Loran Dolahan met Jennifer when she was in the second grade. Jennifer's younger Brother Logan seemed to always be underfoot. By the time she was in her twenties her Father Drew said she had blossomed into a beautiful young lady. And her career as a financial analyst was taking off. She was a self starter and very practical when it came to safety. She carried a safety whistle and mace with her at all times. She also used what she called "safe phone calls". By January 2006 24 year old Jennifer seemed to have everything going for her. She had bought a brand new condo in Orlando, she had been promoted at work and there was a new man in her life. Rob Allen a 32 year old Englishman lived 2 1/2 hours away in Fort Lauderdale. The couple had been dating for a year and saw each other every other weekend. In January 2006 Rob and Jennifer took a vacation to St. Croix. They flew back from vacation on Sunday January 22nd. Jennifer stayed at Rob's Sunday night.



She left his house around 6:00 AM Sunday morning and drove to Orlando and had a full day at work. That evening Jennifer spoke to Rob again. It would be their last conversation. The first clue that something was wrong came the next morning. Jennifer failed to show up for a meeting at work. Co workers at Westgate Resorts couldn't reach her at home or on her cell phone so they called her parents. Joice called the manager of Jennifer's apartment complex. He went to her unit. Jennifer wasn't there and neither was her car. Jennifer's Parents and her Brother Logan raced from their home in Bradenton Florida to Jennifer's apartment. There was absolutely nothing amiss in her apartment. Her clothes were on the bed, the blow drier was out and the shower was wet. Just like in Tara Grinstead's case there were no signs of forced entry and no signs of a struggle. Her luggage was still in the front hall untouched but her purse, her keys and her cell phone she always kept with her were missing.



Her parent's called the hospital and the local police. Detectives checked for activity on her ATM card and pinged her phone to pinpoint her location. No response. At 7:00PM they entered her into the computer as a missing person and put out an alert for her and her missing vehicle. Police learned that her Brother and some of his buddies had stayed in her condo while she was out of town. One of his friends had left his cellphone there. At that point the prevailing thought was that maybe she left her condo after talking to Rob to try to mail the cellphone back to it's owner. Less than an hour after Jennifer was reported missing Sgt. Roger Brennan started searching the streets of Orlando. He was looking for Jennifer or her car. Within 48 hours they would find one of them. The search of the local Fed Ex locations where Jennifer may have tried to return the friend's cell phone turned up nothing. Back at Jennifer's Condo friends and family of Jennifer's organized their own search calling themselves Jennifer's Army.



Jennifer's boyfriend Rob Allen and her best friend Loran arrived at the scene still numb from the news. But when the Detectives tried to track Jennifer's movements they find there is no cell phone activity, no banking activity and no EZ pass activity at all. And there were no witnesses at Jennifer's condo complex. Once the police learned about her concern for safety they realized she wouldn't have gone out at night to mail that cell phone. They now believe she must have been abducted the next morning. Since her Condo was locked it is the opinion of Homicide Detective Joel Wright that Jennifer at least made it out of her Condo. The next day Detectives interviewed family members and Rob. But nothing raised suspicion. Rob's alibi checked out as he was at work 2 1/2 hours away in Fort Lauderdale. Meanwhile huge numbers of volunteers and police were looking everywhere for Jennifer. The nearby woods were searched by horseback and the waterways were searched by dive teams. Helicopters and dogs were used as well.



Then two days after her disappearance a major discovery. Her Chevy Malibu was discovered just one mile from her home and a security camera was watching. After staying in the car for about 35 seconds a ghostly figure emerges from the car and walks along a wrought iron fence then calmly strolls away as if on an afternoon walk. The person is the major suspect in Jennifer's abduction and should be easy to identify. But because the security camera only takes a photograph every three seconds the picture of his face is obscured by the large pillars of the fence. Investigators can't even say for sure if the person of interest is a man or a woman. All they know is it is someone 5'3" to 5'5" tall. Inside Jennifer's car was more frustration for investigators. There was no sign of a struggle, no identifiable fingerprints except Jennifer's. But there was one item found that Bothered Detectives. There was a DVD player in the car that was not stolen and the investigators have no idea where it came from.



But it does indicate that her abduction wasn't a car jacking and someone was in it for the money. It appears they were in it for Jennifer. Bloodhounds were called in to track any scent from Jennifer's car. One of the dogs tracked back to her complex. So could the abductor be someone who lived in her own complex? There was extensive remodeling going on there and Jennifer had complained that the workers were staring at her. In fact of the 447 units in Jennifer's complex only about half were occupied at the time. Workers were allowed to live in the empty units. Police could not search many of the units in Jennifer's complex because many were privately owned. They could also not count on getting any reliable evidence from Jennifer's Condo because over a half a dozen people were in the Condo in the first 24 hours. Jennifer Kesse did have a fear of being taken and nobody knowing where she went. On January 24th 2006 her worst nightmare came true.



Three years after her disappearance her family and friends are still looking for her. Orlando police are still looking for that person in that grainy surveillance video. Detectives have followed up on over 1000 tips in all 50 states but so far nothing has proven fruitful. For Jennifer's boyfriend Rob and her best friend Loran it's like living in a constant of limbo. Losing Jennifer has left Rob wondering about a life they could have had. In Ocilla Georgia the unsolved case of Tara Grinstead now hinges on finding a DNA match left in that latex glove. And the Detectives in the Tara Grinstead case met for the first time about a year ago with Detectives in the Jennifer Kesse case to compare notes. But after three hours behind closed doors it's clear the Detectives aren't getting the answers they were hoping for. Two beautiful beloved women gone but not forgotten. Jennifer's Family was instrumental in passing a law to improve police procedures when a person goes missing. They are all hoping that someone somewhere will share some information with police that will help solve these baffling mysteries.