OCILLA, Ga. — What could be the final chapter of the Tara Grinstead case began in Ocilla Monday.
The prosecution and the defense began the process of selecting 12 jurors out of the 800 people summoned to give Ryan Duke, the man accused of killing her, a fair trial.
Duke faces the maximum penalty of life in prison with the possibility of parole. He’s charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, burglary, and concealing a death.
This trial comes more than 16 years after the Ocilla teacher and beauty queen vanished in October 2005. Five years ago, in February 2017, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation says Duke confessed to agents that he killed Grinstead. The confession led to the discovery of Tara Grinstead’s remains in a pecan orchard in Ben Hill County and the arrest of Bo Dukes. Dukes was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2019 for helping to conceal Grinstead’s body.
Today, it’s rare to find a person in town who does not know the name Tara Grinstead.
“Everybody loved her,” said Joyce Pitts.
Grinstead’s picture is sketched in their minds, and the years of searching have never been forgotten.
“We waited 11 years to see what had happened,” said Miles Maher.
Maher is just one of hundreds in Ocilla who can say they have some connection with Tara.
“Nice lady. She helped my daughter with her prom dress. Helped her with her makeup for prom for my daughter’s last school year,” Maher said.
He says shortly after, she went missing. Investigators scoured Irwin County for 11 years, looking for any traces of Tara.
“Every pond, they would get a hit on it. They’d drained it,” Pitts said.
Joyce Pitts says the search even stretched to a lake in her backyard.
Now, Pitts is one of the 800 people summoned to court to be a possible juror. The court asked 400 people to report Monday and 400 to report next Monday, May 9. As of noon Monday, the District Attorney’s Office said 40 to 50 percent of possible jurors reported to court.
“It’s a big thing. Ocilla ain’t never had anything this big,” Pitts said.
Just to put this into perspective, the 2020 Census reported Ocilla had a population of 3,498 people. Irwin County as a whole had a little over 9,666. The goal of the jury selection is to select 12 jurors along with some alternates who can give Ryan Duke a fair trial.
The District Attorney’s Office says the court summoned hundreds of people partially because of how well-known this case is. They need to find jurors that can judge solely based on the evidence and ensure they have not already made up their mind on whether or not Duke is guilty.
Maher says that could be a challenge.
“I don’t think it could ever be fair. I really don’t because so many people knew her or knew somebody that knew her. Because this is a small town,” Maher said.
The prosecution team says the other challenge in jury selection is finding people who can be away from work for a month or more-- the length of time the court estimates the trial could last.
Lindsey Forshee, the circuit administrator, says that just this process of jury selection could last up to next Friday, May 13. The voir dire process, meaning the actual act of selecting a juror through individual questioning, is set to start Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. for the first set of possible jurors.