Georgia Supreme Court rules Ryan Duke can use state funds for defense in Grinstead case
Their decision says the trial court made an error when it ruled that Duke doesn t have a right to state-funded experts Author: 13WMAZ Staff Updated: 10:21 AM EDT March 15, 2021
ATLANTA
Editor s Note: The video in this story is from when the case went before the Georgia Supreme Court.
The Georgia Supreme Court issued a decision Monday in the Tara Grinstead case reversing part of a ruling that would have kept her accused killer from using state funds to prepare for trial.
The issue was whether the state should pay for expert witnesses and investigators to help assemble Ryan Duke’s defense.
CBS News
Teacher and former beauty queen disappeared in October 2005. 2021 Jan 02
Tara Grinstead was a teacher and former beauty queen when she disappeared in October 2005. But nearly 12 years would pass before investigators finally learned what happened and now recent revelations indicate local law enforcement and state investigators may have been able to solve the case soon after she vanished.
John McCullough, who maintains he tried to give investigators a key tip in 2007 that could have cracked the case, speaks out on television for the first time to 48 Hours correspondent Peter Van Sant. . McCullough said a buddy named Bo Dukes told him he knew who killed Grinstead. McCullough said he called authorities, but they never followed up.
48 Hours correspondent Peter Van Sant investigates the young woman s disappearance and the quest for answers in the case he s covered for 12 years in The Tara Grinstead Mystery.
On the afternoon of Saturday, October 22, 2005, Tara had helped younger contestants prepare for a local beauty pageant. Afterwards she went to a barbecue. Sometime around 11 p.m. she returned to the small house where she lived alone.
When she failed to show up to teach her history class on Monday morning at Irwin County High School, her friends knew something was wrong. She would never do that, she would never leave her kids, said her best friend Maria Woods Harber.