COULD THE INVESTIGATION INTO WHAT HAPPENED TO A GEORGIA TEACHER AND FORMER BEAUTY QUEEN HAVE BEEN SOLVED YEARS AGO?

"48 Hours" Investigates in "The Tara Grinstead Mystery"

Saturday, Jan. 2

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. Correspondent Peter Van Sant and 48 HOURS investigate the young woman's disappearance and the quest for answers in "The Tara Grinstead Mystery" to be broadcast Saturday, Jan. 2 (10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

John McCullough, who maintains he tried to get investigators a key tip in 2007 that could have cracked the case, speaks out on television the first time on 48 HOURS. McCullough said a buddy named Bo Dukes told him he knew who killed Grinstead. McCullough said he called authorities but they never followed up.

"He told me that his friend accidentally strangled her and he needed help getting rid of the body," McCullough tells Van Sant.

The small town of Ocilla, Ga., has been consumed with suspicion and theories about the disappearance of Grinstead. On the morning of Oct. 22, 2005, Grinstead helped some teens prepare for a local beauty pageant. She later went to a cookout and was last seen heading home.

"There were people who believed she ran away. Somebody has abducted her and holding her somewhere hostage. And, the one we didn't want to think about was somebody killed her," says Jannis Paulk, who started a website to help find Grinstead.

"I covered this story for 12 years, and hardly anyone thought this case would ever be solved," Van Sant reports.

For years the case was a mystery - even when people who said knew something began to talk.

McCullough says he left a message on a tip line willing to help and no one called back, even when he reached out to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. "I would say from the year of 2007 until 2016, I would probably say I reached out nine or 10 times to the GBI," McCullough says.

A decade after McCullough's attempt to reach investigators, Brooke Sheridan came forward with a similar story from the same Bo Dukes, then her boyfriend. She said Dukes confided to her that his friend, Ryan Duke, no relation, but a similar name, said he killed Grinstead during a robbery. Bo Dukes also told Sheridan that he helped Ryan Duke burn her body at a pecan orchard. Brooke Sheridan says she encouraged Bo Dukes to tell his story to investigators.

"I said, 'You need to confess. You need to own what you've done and confess," Sheridan says.

Was this the evidence investigators needed to move forward? And what really happened? It seems that question is still up for debate.

Bo Dukes was convicted on charges relating to covering up the crime and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Ryan Duke was arrested in 2017 and is awaiting trial. He has pleaded not guilty and his defense team has made public statements that Bo Dukes killed Grinstead, not Ryan Duke.

Will Grinstead's friends and family ever really know what happened to her?

"I have come to the conclusion that I'm just gonna have to live the rest of my life not knowing," says friend Maria Woods Harber.

48 HOURS: "The Tara Grinstead Mystery" is produced by Alec Sirken and Lauren Clark. Michelle Feuer is the development producer. Shaheen Tokhi and David Dow are the associate producers. Greg Kaplan, Phillip J. Tangel and Marcus Balsam are the editors. Anthony Batson is the senior broadcast producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.

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