Aug. 14, 2024

Slices of Betrayal

Slices of Betrayal

Head to FactorMeals.com/speak50 and use code speak50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month. That’s code speak50 at FactorMeals.com/speak50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is...

Apple Podcasts podcast player badge
Spotify podcast player badge
Castro podcast player badge
RSS Feed podcast player badge
Apple Podcasts podcast player iconSpotify podcast player iconCastro podcast player iconRSS Feed podcast player icon

Head to FactorMeals.com/speak50 and use code speak50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month. That’s code speak50 at FactorMeals.com/speak50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active!

In this episode of Unspeakable, KJ delves into the chilling disappearance of Tara Lynn Grant. Her high-profile job and husband Stephen's suspicious behavior sparked a mystery that ended with the harrowing discovery of Tara's dismembered remains in Stephen's garage.

Timestamps
14:26 Reporting Tara Missing
18:17 Law Enforcement's Initial Suspicions
20:59 Detectives' Gut Feeling
32:07 Uncovering Stephen's Email Bombshell
41:35 Discovery in the Garage
48:53 Stephen's Arrest and Confession
56:34 False Public Image Exposed
1:10:32 Macabre Scene at the Park

WEBVTT

1
00:00:06.120 --> 00:00:09.119
Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast. Or I tell

2
00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:12.480
stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are

3
00:00:12.519 --> 00:00:15.080
so shocking that many are left wondering how is this

4
00:00:15.199 --> 00:00:24.920
even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections,

5
00:00:25.239 --> 00:00:28.039
and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator,

6
00:00:28.160 --> 00:00:31.719
dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so

7
00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:52.679
evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning. Unspeakable as intended

8
00:00:52.719 --> 00:00:55.719
for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm

9
00:00:55.719 --> 00:00:59.320
not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all's kJ

10
00:00:59.399 --> 00:01:02.240
here back for an other episode of Unspeakable. What are

11
00:01:02.320 --> 00:01:07.040
y'all doing today? I had a long day of back

12
00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:09.200
at school today, and I said, you know what, I

13
00:01:09.239 --> 00:01:11.120
got a record after school, so I'm putting in. I'm

14
00:01:11.120 --> 00:01:13.719
putting the work for y'all today. I've got a great

15
00:01:13.799 --> 00:01:16.120
episode two. I'm pretty excited. I've got some shout outs

16
00:01:16.159 --> 00:01:19.040
though before I get started, and I've got some people,

17
00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:21.959
My people in Louisiana are showing up and showing out.

18
00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:26.439
I'm gonna start with you, Miss Michelle Dixon in Springfield, Louisiana. Hey, Michelle,

19
00:01:26.959 --> 00:01:29.400
what is up? I'm so glad to have you join

20
00:01:29.519 --> 00:01:35.239
my team, as well as Evan Jackson and Alexandria Louisiana. Hi, Evan,

21
00:01:35.560 --> 00:01:37.719
how are you doing? I don't have a lot of

22
00:01:37.719 --> 00:01:41.599
male presence in uh in my in my repertoire here,

23
00:01:41.640 --> 00:01:43.400
so I'm always excited when I see the men come

24
00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:46.040
come swooping in right. So, Hey Evan, I'm glad to

25
00:01:46.120 --> 00:01:49.719
have you. I've also got from Union City, Indiana, Miss

26
00:01:49.879 --> 00:01:52.439
Karen Shoemaker. Hey Karen, and I like the way you

27
00:01:52.480 --> 00:01:54.840
spell it. You spell it different, ka R I N

28
00:01:55.079 --> 00:01:59.920
that's different. Welcome, welcome. And then I've got here another

29
00:02:00.239 --> 00:02:03.920
let's see in Texas. Jennifer Phillips. Hi, Jennifer. I had

30
00:02:03.920 --> 00:02:06.359
a friend in high school named Jennifer Phillips. I don't

31
00:02:06.359 --> 00:02:08.240
know are you the same one? Did you move, Jennifer?

32
00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:12.159
Is that you either way? Hey girl? Thank you so much.

33
00:02:12.199 --> 00:02:14.919
And then Ashley Rodriguez, girl, you right here in my

34
00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:19.479
backyard in Denim Springs. Hey, Ashley. When my local people,

35
00:02:20.879 --> 00:02:22.360
you know, when y'all support me, I don't know how

36
00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:24.159
else to say, but when my local people support me

37
00:02:24.199 --> 00:02:25.919
and believe in me, it just it means the world.

38
00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:30.000
It's it's it's awesome. And then to tickle to tickle

39
00:02:30.039 --> 00:02:33.719
my fancy. In the opposite direction is when someone all

40
00:02:33.719 --> 00:02:37.479
the way from Clovis, California, Miss Veronica. You didn't put

41
00:02:37.479 --> 00:02:40.479
your last name, but Veronica in Clovis, California. Holy shit,

42
00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:43.879
all the way in California. Hey, hey girl, how are

43
00:02:43.919 --> 00:02:46.960
you Veronica? How's the weather? I feel like everyone in

44
00:02:47.240 --> 00:02:49.479
California is like cooler than me. I don't know, y'all

45
00:02:49.479 --> 00:02:52.919
get to like have beach and and there's like everybody's

46
00:02:52.919 --> 00:02:55.560
in California. I don't know. So thank you so much.

47
00:02:55.599 --> 00:02:58.199
And then last, but not least, is gonna be Candace.

48
00:02:58.240 --> 00:02:59.800
And Candace again, I don't you didn't put a last

49
00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:03.520
name here, but if you are Candace in Sandy Hook, Mississippi, girl,

50
00:03:03.560 --> 00:03:07.439
I'm talking to you, Hi, Candace. I've got so many

51
00:03:07.479 --> 00:03:09.919
people to thank for their continued support. I've got more

52
00:03:09.919 --> 00:03:12.919
shout outs that are gonna come next episode, so hang

53
00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:15.120
in there. I don't want to bombard you with forty

54
00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:17.039
five names, so I'm gonna do them a little bit

55
00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:19.400
at a time. But each one of you matters, and

56
00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:22.319
each one of you are very special to me. Please

57
00:03:22.360 --> 00:03:25.240
talk to me on Patreon. It's me, y'all. It's absolutely

58
00:03:25.240 --> 00:03:27.400
me talking to you. I just was speaking to a

59
00:03:27.719 --> 00:03:31.039
to a friend online here and I messaged her right back.

60
00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:33.439
I say, a friend a listener, and I messaged her

61
00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:35.800
right back and she said, oh my god, I'm fangirling, y'all.

62
00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:38.759
It's me. It's just me. So if you need anything,

63
00:03:38.759 --> 00:03:40.400
if you have a question, if you have a suggestion

64
00:03:40.520 --> 00:03:43.560
for an episode, reach out, let a girl know, and

65
00:03:43.599 --> 00:03:45.360
you never know, I might jump right on it right then.

66
00:03:46.199 --> 00:03:48.800
This one, though, we're gonna be in Michigan. We're going

67
00:03:48.840 --> 00:03:51.319
all the way to Michigan this week, and so this

68
00:03:51.319 --> 00:03:55.159
one's gonna go out to Michigan with Miss Tara Lynn Grant.

69
00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:57.360
That is who we're talking about today. She was born

70
00:03:57.520 --> 00:04:01.080
on June twenty eighth, nineteen seventy two, to proud parents

71
00:04:01.199 --> 00:04:03.479
Mike and Kim. Now this is not going to be

72
00:04:03.479 --> 00:04:06.039
a nineteen seventy two case. This is a closer to

73
00:04:06.120 --> 00:04:09.240
our time case. But she was the youngest of the bunch,

74
00:04:09.719 --> 00:04:12.000
and while she had a happy childhood there were no

75
00:04:12.039 --> 00:04:15.919
complaints about childhood. Her parents' marriage did ultimately not last,

76
00:04:16.279 --> 00:04:18.759
and so her parents separated whenever she was a kid.

77
00:04:19.040 --> 00:04:21.560
But this was a testament to her she did not

78
00:04:21.720 --> 00:04:24.720
let that hold her down, she continued to just be

79
00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:30.079
an absolute success. She strived for just greatness in everything

80
00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:32.720
that she did. She grew up in Rock and she

81
00:04:32.759 --> 00:04:36.399
attended Mid Peninsula High School where she was an active

82
00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:40.120
student and she participated in things like cheerleading and she

83
00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:43.199
was a liked kid. She did really well in school.

84
00:04:43.240 --> 00:04:46.399
And after she graduated high school, she enrolled in Michigan

85
00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:50.800
State University and her focus was to study in business administration.

86
00:04:51.439 --> 00:04:56.360
What was her focus in that business admin marketing? Now,

87
00:04:56.879 --> 00:05:00.360
let me tell you something about people in marketingccess tful

88
00:05:00.360 --> 00:05:04.319
people in marketing all seem to have these similar traits

89
00:05:04.360 --> 00:05:06.920
about them, and I think that this lends itself to

90
00:05:06.959 --> 00:05:09.879
who Tara was. When you look at people that are

91
00:05:09.879 --> 00:05:17.160
in marketing and do really well, you're looking at extroverted, energetic, creative, adventurous,

92
00:05:17.560 --> 00:05:20.519
but also assertive people. You know, you have to be

93
00:05:20.519 --> 00:05:23.399
able to live out loud and to have ideas and

94
00:05:23.439 --> 00:05:25.439
live outside of the box and draw people in. But

95
00:05:25.480 --> 00:05:29.360
you also have to have, you know, a practical essence

96
00:05:29.399 --> 00:05:31.639
to you that you you know, you're assertive and you

97
00:05:31.720 --> 00:05:33.680
have things that they need to go this way and

98
00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:34.839
this is the only way we can do it. To

99
00:05:34.879 --> 00:05:38.959
make it successful, and Tara fit the bill. She got

100
00:05:38.959 --> 00:05:43.199
her degree. She graduated in nineteen ninety four and eventually

101
00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:47.279
she went to work for Washington Group International, which is

102
00:05:47.319 --> 00:05:52.480
headquartered in Boise, Idaho. Now, professionally speaking, she was a

103
00:05:52.680 --> 00:05:58.040
rock star. Professionally, she knocked it out of the park. Physically,

104
00:05:58.600 --> 00:06:00.360
she was a thin little thing.

105
00:06:00.519 --> 00:06:00.720
She was.

106
00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:04.600
She had this tiny frame, curly ringlets. Her hair's kind

107
00:06:04.600 --> 00:06:07.959
of shoulder length. She has brown eyes, and she's got

108
00:06:07.959 --> 00:06:11.160
a small little button nose, a cute little nose. She

109
00:06:11.399 --> 00:06:14.240
dressed in the photos of her when I'm trying to

110
00:06:14.279 --> 00:06:18.120
figure her out, she dressed casually, comfortable in most of

111
00:06:18.160 --> 00:06:21.319
the pictures I saw, which were, you know, pretty colors,

112
00:06:21.800 --> 00:06:23.959
and it was giving, as the kids would say, it

113
00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:27.319
was giving Anne Klein vibes if you know fashion wise

114
00:06:27.399 --> 00:06:30.600
what I'm talking about. She liked thin sweaters with a

115
00:06:30.639 --> 00:06:35.120
scarf or a bright colored collared top with a nice

116
00:06:35.199 --> 00:06:42.240
over jacket. Well put together, organized and a perfectionist flare

117
00:06:42.360 --> 00:06:47.879
to her. Now relationship, she met Stephen Grant in college

118
00:06:47.920 --> 00:06:51.839
and they quickly became an item. They say this, and

119
00:06:51.920 --> 00:06:54.759
we all know it, Opposites attract, Okay, So he was

120
00:06:54.800 --> 00:06:58.800
a bit awkward and He was socially kind of off

121
00:06:59.759 --> 00:07:02.800
and odd. To be honest, you know, I'm just I'm

122
00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:04.839
shooting from the hip, y'all. Okay. He was a kind

123
00:07:04.839 --> 00:07:10.480
of a little strange bird. But he liked her and

124
00:07:10.519 --> 00:07:12.959
she liked him back. They just had these different qualities

125
00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:16.399
about them. Now looking at him, he was an average

126
00:07:16.439 --> 00:07:18.399
looking guy. One thing I did notice about him was

127
00:07:18.439 --> 00:07:22.000
he had big eyeballs. And I don't know why they

128
00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:24.000
stood out to me. Be kind of has those big eyeballs.

129
00:07:24.079 --> 00:07:25.720
My niece has big eyeballs. If she's listening to this,

130
00:07:25.720 --> 00:07:27.480
she's probably getting mad at me right now for saying that.

131
00:07:28.279 --> 00:07:31.560
But just big eyes. And you know, he was kind

132
00:07:31.560 --> 00:07:35.680
of on the door kier side, and nothing that would

133
00:07:35.720 --> 00:07:38.759
really make you, I think, look twice or anything. But

134
00:07:39.120 --> 00:07:43.279
just an average looking dude. His dreams were one day

135
00:07:43.279 --> 00:07:46.079
to work in politics. He was very driven by the

136
00:07:46.120 --> 00:07:50.600
political world, but he would never finish his degree. That

137
00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:53.519
though it didn't bother Tera, she didn't care. She loved him.

138
00:07:53.759 --> 00:07:56.279
He didn't have to graduate to be on par with

139
00:07:56.360 --> 00:07:59.800
her necessarily in terms of education. She loved him for him,

140
00:07:59.839 --> 00:08:03.240
and he loved her for her. He was attentive to

141
00:08:03.319 --> 00:08:08.480
Tara through their relationship, and it progressed, it continued to blossom,

142
00:08:08.759 --> 00:08:12.399
and that led him to propose at the Detroit Institute

143
00:08:12.439 --> 00:08:14.839
of Arts. So I was kind of wondering, why did

144
00:08:14.879 --> 00:08:17.639
he pick there? You know, that's kind of odd, maybe

145
00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:20.959
not odd, but that's different. And the answer is actually

146
00:08:21.040 --> 00:08:25.600
really sweet. Tara loved art, she loved it, and so

147
00:08:25.879 --> 00:08:28.319
he thought that that was the perfect fit for the

148
00:08:28.959 --> 00:08:32.000
proposal to the woman of his dreams. So they got

149
00:08:32.039 --> 00:08:35.000
married and by two thousand and three they had two children,

150
00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:38.559
were settled in nicely to the daily rush of life

151
00:08:39.039 --> 00:08:43.240
right there in Michigan. But their setup was a little

152
00:08:43.240 --> 00:08:49.159
bit non traditional. Tara was the breadwinner, big time breadwinner,

153
00:08:49.559 --> 00:08:53.279
and that meant that her job had her traveling a lot.

154
00:08:53.360 --> 00:08:54.720
And when I say a lot, I don't mean she

155
00:08:54.759 --> 00:08:57.600
was running down the road an hour away, or you know, hey,

156
00:08:57.600 --> 00:08:59.080
I have to go on a quick two day trip. No,

157
00:08:59.240 --> 00:09:02.120
she was like setting. She was going to London, she

158
00:09:02.200 --> 00:09:05.120
was going to Puerto Rico. She was flying all over

159
00:09:05.480 --> 00:09:11.320
for her job. But Stephen decided, look, I can be

160
00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:14.120
a stay at home dad. I don't have you know,

161
00:09:14.159 --> 00:09:16.399
he wasn't too proud for that. I'll be a stay

162
00:09:16.399 --> 00:09:19.240
at home dad. He said, I'll be the primary caretaker

163
00:09:19.279 --> 00:09:21.799
of the children so that Tara could go make that coin.

164
00:09:22.159 --> 00:09:24.600
And she was traveling, and honestly, she was good at

165
00:09:24.600 --> 00:09:27.480
what she did, and so it just worked well for

166
00:09:27.519 --> 00:09:33.559
their family. She was gone often, so Stephen, you know,

167
00:09:34.679 --> 00:09:37.639
was happy. He loved it. He loved taking care of

168
00:09:37.639 --> 00:09:39.799
his children. And when people would talk to him about

169
00:09:39.799 --> 00:09:42.519
what his life was like, he'd say, look with pride.

170
00:09:42.559 --> 00:09:44.879
He'd say, I'm mister mom. You know, my wife travels

171
00:09:44.879 --> 00:09:47.480
for a living, and so she flies in and out,

172
00:09:47.600 --> 00:09:51.360
and so I'm the mister mom daily. And I want

173
00:09:51.360 --> 00:09:56.919
to say this though, Tara loved their children. She loved

174
00:09:56.960 --> 00:10:01.039
her babies, and she was by no means absent mother.

175
00:10:01.480 --> 00:10:03.480
I would say she was more of a busy mother

176
00:10:03.799 --> 00:10:06.720
who was willing to sacrifice for the sake of her family.

177
00:10:07.039 --> 00:10:08.840
This was not a woman who dumped her kids off

178
00:10:08.919 --> 00:10:11.600
and then went and had fun in other countries. No, ma'am.

179
00:10:12.039 --> 00:10:15.000
She loved her children. She was very active in their lives.

180
00:10:15.279 --> 00:10:19.080
She just traveled more than the average bear. But by

181
00:10:19.120 --> 00:10:22.120
two thousand and seven, their children were now no longer

182
00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:25.440
little toddlers, little babies. The children, and I'm gonna tell

183
00:10:25.440 --> 00:10:27.720
you this I will name the children in this episode,

184
00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:30.360
and there's a reason for that that well, I'll get

185
00:10:30.399 --> 00:10:34.440
to later. So they have been in the public eye

186
00:10:34.440 --> 00:10:37.279
more than people might realize. So I don't feel like

187
00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:41.799
I'm being uncovering their names in some sort of malicious way,

188
00:10:41.840 --> 00:10:45.679
because they actually speak and are on social platforms and

189
00:10:45.679 --> 00:10:48.759
things like that. So in two thousand and seven, there

190
00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:50.840
was seven year old Lindsay and there was five year

191
00:10:50.840 --> 00:10:55.440
old Ian, and Steven knew that he had a catch

192
00:10:55.960 --> 00:10:59.200
in his wife Tara. She was a freakin' When I

193
00:10:59.200 --> 00:11:02.320
say stone cold fox, I don't necessarily mean, like, you know,

194
00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:06.480
a supermodel, but I mean she was whole package. Smart,

195
00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:10.120
she had tenacity, she was driven and homegirl wasn't scared

196
00:11:10.159 --> 00:11:13.240
to travel. She'd be out there jumping on those planes,

197
00:11:13.240 --> 00:11:15.759
getting from A to B and making that coin. So

198
00:11:16.120 --> 00:11:20.840
there was routine and there was absolute stability in their home.

199
00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:26.000
That's why it was rather odd when Tara stopped answering

200
00:11:26.039 --> 00:11:29.480
her phone in early February of two thousand and seven.

201
00:11:30.120 --> 00:11:32.759
She had just come in. She had just gotten off

202
00:11:32.759 --> 00:11:36.559
of a plane from Puerto Rico, where she had been working,

203
00:11:37.120 --> 00:11:41.120
and her recent schedule was she was flying into San Juan.

204
00:11:41.519 --> 00:11:44.600
She was working Monday through Friday, and then she would

205
00:11:44.679 --> 00:11:47.519
just jump back on a plane, fly home for the weekend,

206
00:11:47.559 --> 00:11:50.159
spend time with the family, and then she would fly

207
00:11:50.360 --> 00:11:53.799
back out again on Monday morning. So she was moving

208
00:11:53.840 --> 00:12:02.080
around a lot, so hectic, Yes, lucrative job, absolutely killing

209
00:12:02.120 --> 00:12:06.000
it professionally one hundred percent. Looking kind of into the

210
00:12:06.039 --> 00:12:09.759
family life. It wasn't that they had anything different from

211
00:12:09.799 --> 00:12:12.720
the rest of us. I mean, all couples have disagreements,

212
00:12:13.320 --> 00:12:17.759
and they had had just recently a rather larger one.

213
00:12:18.240 --> 00:12:21.919
But to ignore Steven's calls was just not her. That

214
00:12:22.039 --> 00:12:25.600
was not something she would do. She would be aggravated,

215
00:12:25.639 --> 00:12:30.200
but she would still answer the phone. So Tara told

216
00:12:30.240 --> 00:12:33.080
Stephen that she was going to have to return early

217
00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:35.759
on that weekend that she flew in. She said, look,

218
00:12:35.759 --> 00:12:38.120
i'mna have to fly back out on Sunday rather than

219
00:12:38.159 --> 00:12:41.159
on Monday. And so they got into an argument about it.

220
00:12:41.559 --> 00:12:46.159
Understandable frustration because I mean, she's gone a lot, and

221
00:12:46.759 --> 00:12:49.320
Stephen was kind of like, okay, look, mad Is okay,

222
00:12:49.399 --> 00:12:52.120
we can fight. Mad Is Okay. It just means you care,

223
00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:55.679
But to ignore your family and not answer your phone

224
00:12:56.080 --> 00:13:00.879
is not cool. So he got aggravated, and eventually Stephen

225
00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:02.840
left a voicemail on her.

226
00:13:02.720 --> 00:13:11.200
Phone, going on, I think you're on me and kids.

227
00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:15.279
The next flight and all.

228
00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:18.000
Was going on.

229
00:13:18.679 --> 00:13:23.399
But this voicemail he left remained unanswered. And y'all, you

230
00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:25.279
know we all do. As time goes on, you become

231
00:13:25.279 --> 00:13:28.200
increasingly alarmed, like okay, it's it's really not cool anymore.

232
00:13:28.440 --> 00:13:32.399
But she was angry with him. However, it just this

233
00:13:32.559 --> 00:13:35.039
wasn't normal. She's not gonna do this. And we y'all,

234
00:13:35.039 --> 00:13:37.559
we know our family, we know our friends. You know

235
00:13:37.639 --> 00:13:41.080
what someone's gonna do, you know what their limits are,

236
00:13:41.679 --> 00:13:45.039
and you know when it's just not right. So Stephen

237
00:13:45.080 --> 00:13:48.080
continued to call Tara for a few days and she

238
00:13:48.279 --> 00:13:51.159
still was not answering. So eventually he's like, all right,

239
00:13:51.240 --> 00:13:53.519
enough's enough. He picks up the phone and he makes

240
00:13:53.559 --> 00:13:56.080
a phone call to her boss in Puerto Rico. But

241
00:13:56.159 --> 00:13:58.480
he's like, look, I haven't seen her. She left to

242
00:13:58.519 --> 00:14:01.559
go home. She did not make it back. So he

243
00:14:01.639 --> 00:14:06.120
called her family, who you know. When he talked to them,

244
00:14:06.159 --> 00:14:08.919
they felt like, well, maybe she's needing some extra time.

245
00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:12.320
She'll cool off. You know, sure it's been a minute,

246
00:14:12.360 --> 00:14:15.200
but maybe he just really pissed her off, something good,

247
00:14:15.320 --> 00:14:19.559
you know, this time, and he kind of went along

248
00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:24.919
with it. But after five days, five days, no, come on,

249
00:14:25.440 --> 00:14:28.080
five days, Steven had enough and he went to the

250
00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:30.919
police and is like, look, my wife Tara is missing

251
00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:33.559
now when he went to go report her missing. This

252
00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:36.919
took place on Valentine's Day, a day that should be

253
00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:40.679
you know, loving and filled with flowers and candy, and

254
00:14:40.840 --> 00:14:44.679
now it was looking pretty bleak for Stephen and their

255
00:14:44.759 --> 00:14:49.879
kids because mom was missing. But you know this, we

256
00:14:49.960 --> 00:14:54.919
all know this as true crime. You know, people, adults

257
00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:58.240
are allowed to go missing. You're a grown ass adult.

258
00:14:58.519 --> 00:15:01.080
You are allowed to abscond and run away if you

259
00:15:01.159 --> 00:15:05.960
want to. The thing about this case that's kind of different, though,

260
00:15:06.039 --> 00:15:10.600
is that y'all. She is a super successful executive, big

261
00:15:10.639 --> 00:15:15.360
time making big money, and it just does not ring

262
00:15:15.519 --> 00:15:18.720
true that this person would not show back up to work.

263
00:15:19.399 --> 00:15:22.120
She may be pissed off as hell at Steven, but

264
00:15:22.159 --> 00:15:24.399
she's still going to go to work. She's not gonna

265
00:15:24.440 --> 00:15:28.919
just totally leave. So her absence was kind of this

266
00:15:29.279 --> 00:15:32.279
seems a little bit sketch. So that was turned over

267
00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:37.279
to detectives because a small fight shouldn't typically result in

268
00:15:37.360 --> 00:15:39.960
someone not being seen or heard from for five days.

269
00:15:40.759 --> 00:15:42.559
I mean, I can be an ass, y'all, I'm telling

270
00:15:42.559 --> 00:15:44.559
you straight up. I mean I can go a day

271
00:15:44.679 --> 00:15:48.080
or two and ignore you. That's fine, But I mean

272
00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:51.440
it's not your immediate family, you know, where you have

273
00:15:51.519 --> 00:15:54.759
children involved. So remember she's a loving mother. She is

274
00:15:54.799 --> 00:15:59.919
a successful professional, and she knows her importance not only

275
00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:02.399
the home but as well in the workforce. And she's

276
00:16:02.440 --> 00:16:05.559
not just gonna jump up and lead these people. Something

277
00:16:05.679 --> 00:16:08.919
was not adding up. So detectives had some more questions

278
00:16:08.919 --> 00:16:12.039
for her husband, Steven, and they wanted to try to

279
00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:14.320
see Okay, well let's talk about the argument. That's you know,

280
00:16:14.360 --> 00:16:17.080
the red flag here. That's way, then let's talk about it.

281
00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:19.960
Steven was open and honest with it. He said, Look,

282
00:16:20.639 --> 00:16:23.519
she came home. I was upset. I didn't want her

283
00:16:23.519 --> 00:16:25.759
to leave out a day early. She had just gotten back,

284
00:16:26.279 --> 00:16:29.080
and the last time that I saw her was right

285
00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:33.320
after we argued. He wanted her to stay. She was

286
00:16:33.399 --> 00:16:36.639
leading early. It just blew up. He just was in

287
00:16:36.679 --> 00:16:38.799
a bad spot. She got mad, and he said the

288
00:16:38.879 --> 00:16:42.039
last thing he remembered was Tara picking up her bags

289
00:16:42.279 --> 00:16:45.000
and that she headed down their driveway to a car,

290
00:16:45.320 --> 00:16:47.799
which he said was like a He didn't say these words,

291
00:16:47.799 --> 00:16:49.440
but I'm gonna say it kind of like an uber lyft.

292
00:16:49.480 --> 00:16:52.679
It was a car service, and that it was black.

293
00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:56.519
She got in the car, the car drove away. He said,

294
00:16:56.559 --> 00:16:59.360
I've been calling her ever since. She's not answering the phone.

295
00:17:00.159 --> 00:17:04.079
So for a little, a little perspective, here, a little

296
00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:07.559
insight to this. Here is why missing adults are not

297
00:17:07.880 --> 00:17:11.359
usually a rush to judgment situation. Other than the fact

298
00:17:11.400 --> 00:17:12.599
that you're a grown adult and you can do what

299
00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:14.759
you want. I wanted to give you a little more

300
00:17:14.799 --> 00:17:18.759
hard data on this. Between twenty sixteen and twenty nineteen,

301
00:17:19.119 --> 00:17:24.200
listen to this number, ninety five percent of adults that

302
00:17:24.240 --> 00:17:28.920
were reported as missing, it was solved within a month,

303
00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:34.240
ninety five percent were figured out and found, ninety eight

304
00:17:34.319 --> 00:17:37.559
percent were closed and figured out within a year. So,

305
00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:41.200
you know, put that into medical perspective. If the doctor's like, Nona,

306
00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:42.960
I'm ninety eight percent sure you'll be fine. You're kind

307
00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:45.519
of feeling good about it. You know that we'll figure

308
00:17:45.559 --> 00:17:49.559
this out. So, according to World Population dot Com, if

309
00:17:49.640 --> 00:17:55.519
y'all live in California or Texas, y'all better watch y'all's backs. Okay,

310
00:17:55.599 --> 00:17:59.680
because that's where a majority of people go missing, is

311
00:17:59.720 --> 00:18:06.200
in California or Texas. Now that's based on like you know,

312
00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:11.039
hard numbers. But Alaska has the highest rate of missing

313
00:18:11.079 --> 00:18:18.279
people per population. So this was Michigan too, so they

314
00:18:18.319 --> 00:18:23.319
don't have a high missing person rate by state. Statistically,

315
00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:27.000
we find these adults, especially in the neighborhood that they

316
00:18:27.119 --> 00:18:31.400
lived in. Okay, So she lived in extremely low risk lifestyle.

317
00:18:31.920 --> 00:18:33.480
I know right now, you're like, well, it's risky getting

318
00:18:33.480 --> 00:18:35.000
on a plane. That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about.

319
00:18:35.039 --> 00:18:37.240
She didn't do drugs. She wasn't now you know, prostituting

320
00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:39.759
on the street or anything. She had a low risk lifestyle.

321
00:18:39.880 --> 00:18:43.000
She lived in an expensive neighborhood. They both had brand

322
00:18:43.039 --> 00:18:45.359
new cars in the driveway, and her children were in

323
00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:49.279
private school. It just doesn't scream, I won't answer the phone.

324
00:18:49.759 --> 00:18:52.480
And the detectives agreed. That's why they were like, I

325
00:18:52.519 --> 00:18:54.079
don't know, man, we might need to dive into this

326
00:18:54.079 --> 00:18:59.240
one a little quicker. So Detective Sergeant Pam McLean and

327
00:18:59.319 --> 00:19:05.200
her partner, Detective Brian Kozlowski immediately felt like while Steven

328
00:19:05.400 --> 00:19:09.279
was talking with them, they just gut instinct felt like

329
00:19:09.400 --> 00:19:13.599
his responses were off. So not everyone is going to

330
00:19:13.640 --> 00:19:16.880
respond the same way. This was just a guttural feeling

331
00:19:16.920 --> 00:19:19.119
from the two of them that the vibe was he

332
00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:22.279
didn't pass the vibe check all right, So what made

333
00:19:22.319 --> 00:19:25.279
them feel this way? Well, when they went to the

334
00:19:25.319 --> 00:19:30.640
home to ask basic questions about what had happened, Steven

335
00:19:30.839 --> 00:19:34.119
was readily available to help, but they said he was

336
00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:39.640
super fidgety. And then they noted that he was overly cooperative.

337
00:19:40.519 --> 00:19:45.240
Overly cooperative and that, my friends, is always interesting because

338
00:19:46.319 --> 00:19:50.720
this is also what someone who is lying or leaving

339
00:19:50.759 --> 00:19:54.680
information out. They tend to do that whenever they're being

340
00:19:54.839 --> 00:19:59.000
questioned because oftentimes these people are trying to establish an alibi,

341
00:19:59.319 --> 00:20:01.640
and in an f to do so, they give way

342
00:20:01.680 --> 00:20:04.799
too many details that the average person who is under

343
00:20:04.839 --> 00:20:08.000
stress of their spouse missing, you know, they wouldn't be

344
00:20:08.119 --> 00:20:11.680
giving all of this. But these people, if they're lying,

345
00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:15.799
will give a lot of detail because they believe in

346
00:20:15.839 --> 00:20:18.680
their mind it makes them more believable. So an example like,

347
00:20:19.279 --> 00:20:20.960
you know, where were you at this time? Oh, I

348
00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:22.599
don't know. I was in the house. I went to

349
00:20:22.640 --> 00:20:25.480
the fridge. I got maybe six or ten grapes. You know,

350
00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:28.359
I ate those. I put them back in the fridge. Like,

351
00:20:28.720 --> 00:20:30.200
who the hell is going to tell you how many

352
00:20:30.279 --> 00:20:35.400
grapes they ate? What a weird thing to say. So,

353
00:20:37.319 --> 00:20:40.200
you know, that just kind of caught the attention of

354
00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:43.359
the detectives that he was being so incredibly detailed about

355
00:20:43.359 --> 00:20:46.599
what he was doing, and he was just so nervous

356
00:20:46.960 --> 00:20:51.000
that it was just eye catching. But remember, when you're

357
00:20:51.039 --> 00:20:54.160
doing this type of investigation, you still have to be

358
00:20:54.240 --> 00:20:58.440
somewhat delicate, because the man did just presumptively lose his

359
00:20:58.559 --> 00:21:01.799
wife in some way, and this is just a gut instinct.

360
00:21:01.960 --> 00:21:06.400
Nothing else pointed his direction. Obviously they were fighting, they

361
00:21:06.400 --> 00:21:13.160
weren't getting along, so curious to that extent, they wanted

362
00:21:13.160 --> 00:21:16.319
to know how many other immediate players in their family life.

363
00:21:16.799 --> 00:21:19.920
You know, how many more immediate players are there in

364
00:21:19.960 --> 00:21:22.880
this home that we might need to talk to? And

365
00:21:22.920 --> 00:21:25.519
so who all was in the house and who all

366
00:21:25.559 --> 00:21:29.480
are her close family and friends. So Stephen said, well,

367
00:21:29.640 --> 00:21:31.920
I mean, we live here, our kids live here, and

368
00:21:31.960 --> 00:21:34.720
we also have a nanny. But the nanny did not

369
00:21:34.799 --> 00:21:38.799
live there full time. She only lived there partially throughout

370
00:21:38.799 --> 00:21:42.359
the week. Basically, when Tara wasn't there, so this wasn't odd.

371
00:21:43.960 --> 00:21:46.519
Gathering a little bit more about this nanny. She was young.

372
00:21:46.599 --> 00:21:50.200
She was eighteen years old and her name was Verana Dirks.

373
00:21:50.720 --> 00:21:54.599
So I heard some people say Verena, verena whatever, tomato, tomato.

374
00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:57.880
So she looks like the average eighteen year old girl.

375
00:21:58.240 --> 00:21:59.880
Something kind of interesting about her is that she was

376
00:22:00.119 --> 00:22:03.319
German and she was just living in the States temporarily,

377
00:22:03.799 --> 00:22:08.920
so she had dark hair, her bangs swept over kind

378
00:22:08.960 --> 00:22:11.720
of in front of her eyes in the photos of

379
00:22:11.759 --> 00:22:14.039
that time. I mean, obviously people change, but at that

380
00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:16.720
time she had kind of an edgier haircut, kind of

381
00:22:16.759 --> 00:22:20.039
like today's wolf cut. And the photos totally give off

382
00:22:20.079 --> 00:22:23.359
these this Avril Levine air to them. I remember Avril

383
00:22:23.359 --> 00:22:25.680
when she was kind of in her punk kind of stage.

384
00:22:26.200 --> 00:22:30.000
So youthful is my point, young and free compared to

385
00:22:30.200 --> 00:22:35.119
the very successful and established Terra, she didn't seem at

386
00:22:35.119 --> 00:22:38.519
all an issue. There's a young girl that was helping

387
00:22:38.519 --> 00:22:41.759
to nanny the kids. But Lord have mercy if I

388
00:22:41.799 --> 00:22:43.759
am not jaded, because as soon as I hear the

389
00:22:43.799 --> 00:22:46.319
word nanny, all I can think of is, oh, hell,

390
00:22:46.480 --> 00:22:48.720
I don't know if you did too, but oh, Jesus.

391
00:22:49.200 --> 00:22:51.599
But I'm telling you there really wasn't much to her

392
00:22:51.960 --> 00:22:54.599
and her role in the life was minimal other than

393
00:22:54.640 --> 00:22:56.359
you know, picking up the kids, taking them here there,

394
00:22:57.319 --> 00:22:59.759
you know, fixing a sandwich. Like I said. She did

395
00:22:59.839 --> 00:23:02.119
live the home off and on, but that was just

396
00:23:02.160 --> 00:23:04.319
while Tara was gone. There was no secret to this.

397
00:23:04.880 --> 00:23:07.240
She was, you know, part of the family arrangement. She

398
00:23:07.279 --> 00:23:11.440
had her own room, her own bed Latida. So police

399
00:23:11.519 --> 00:23:15.720
questioned close family who they felt could give them more

400
00:23:15.759 --> 00:23:18.359
insight to what she was like, and they agreed that

401
00:23:18.400 --> 00:23:21.960
this was completely and utterly out of the blue. There

402
00:23:22.039 --> 00:23:24.400
was no history of problems in the marriage that they

403
00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:27.359
knew of. There was no domestic violence, there was no

404
00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:31.079
anything that they could say, yeah, you know, this is

405
00:23:31.119 --> 00:23:34.680
a problem. A matter of fact, Tara's mother spoke to

406
00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:38.720
her on February the fourth, and Tara was talking about

407
00:23:38.759 --> 00:23:41.079
how excited she was, she was looking forward to a vacation.

408
00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:43.880
She was expressing how tired she was and just she

409
00:23:43.960 --> 00:23:47.079
needed a break from work. So Tara wanted to come

410
00:23:47.119 --> 00:23:52.039
back home. She wanted a break. So maybe after the fight,

411
00:23:52.200 --> 00:23:55.079
you know, Tara decided to just leave for the vacation.

412
00:23:55.400 --> 00:23:59.559
Is what someone might say, but that's not what you know.

413
00:23:59.720 --> 00:24:02.559
That's not now what Steven said. Stephen said, No, she

414
00:24:02.759 --> 00:24:07.319
was leaving and her goal was to go back to work.

415
00:24:07.400 --> 00:24:11.880
She was not going on a vacation. Plus, Tara loved

416
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:14.920
being with her children, you know, they biked and they

417
00:24:15.039 --> 00:24:18.240
hiked and they played together whenever she was home. She

418
00:24:18.279 --> 00:24:20.160
didn't want to just leave her kids and go on

419
00:24:20.200 --> 00:24:22.559
a vacation by herself. And that's not something she would

420
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:25.759
have done. Even if she was pissed off to the

421
00:24:25.880 --> 00:24:29.359
end of the earth at Stephen and just went crazy,

422
00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:31.599
she still would have taken her children on vacation with her.

423
00:24:32.519 --> 00:24:38.839
So it literally seemed like Tara had left and just

424
00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:43.480
not returned. But there was just problems with this scenario.

425
00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:47.359
Number One, even if she did just run off, she

426
00:24:47.400 --> 00:24:49.720
would need money. She would have to have money. You

427
00:24:49.759 --> 00:24:52.839
can't survive in this world without money, and no money

428
00:24:52.880 --> 00:24:57.440
was being spent by her out of their account. She

429
00:24:57.480 --> 00:24:59.799
would have flown out. If she jumped in the car

430
00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:02.680
she was going to catch that plane, she would have

431
00:25:02.759 --> 00:25:07.039
flown out, right. So police checked her flight records to

432
00:25:07.039 --> 00:25:08.920
see if she had caught the flight, and guess what,

433
00:25:09.200 --> 00:25:11.839
she would have flown out, you know, she was supposed

434
00:25:11.839 --> 00:25:14.599
to go catch this plane. She was packing her bags

435
00:25:14.799 --> 00:25:17.519
for the trip back to work whenever they had their argument.

436
00:25:17.839 --> 00:25:21.519
So I mean, she was going somewhere, and she had

437
00:25:21.559 --> 00:25:24.920
these children that she greatly loved. So police said, all right,

438
00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:27.319
let's go check into her flight records. Let's see if

439
00:25:27.359 --> 00:25:30.319
she in fact actually caught the flight back to San Juan.

440
00:25:31.160 --> 00:25:35.079
This was expected to be on February the twelfth, okay,

441
00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:39.119
but she never boarded the plane. The flight would have

442
00:25:39.160 --> 00:25:42.079
been scheduled for February the ninth for her to fly

443
00:25:42.200 --> 00:25:45.799
back out. So you know, she wasn't reported missing until

444
00:25:46.440 --> 00:25:49.640
Valentine's Day, So where has she been all of these days?

445
00:25:49.680 --> 00:25:52.960
If she never even got on the plane. Here's the

446
00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:56.519
other rut row we're gonna hit. All cell phone usage

447
00:25:56.640 --> 00:26:00.480
stopped after the day she left the house in the

448
00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:06.440
uber car, So you know, this whole situation isn't looking good.

449
00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:10.680
And obviously she has not been in contact with anyone.

450
00:26:10.839 --> 00:26:16.440
So moving down the list of possible motive or influence

451
00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:20.200
in this case, police found that Stephen had made a

452
00:26:20.200 --> 00:26:23.920
phone call to Tara's work, as he had already stated,

453
00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:27.960
but the pretenses were a little different than how he

454
00:26:28.039 --> 00:26:30.519
had presented it. He said he was calling to check

455
00:26:30.559 --> 00:26:32.759
and see if she had flown back to work. But

456
00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:38.039
after more questioning, it turns out Stephen thought that Tara

457
00:26:38.960 --> 00:26:41.759
might be having an affair at work, and so he

458
00:26:41.839 --> 00:26:45.200
had called the man at work that he suspected she

459
00:26:45.400 --> 00:26:47.799
was having an affair with, So, you know, is she

460
00:26:47.880 --> 00:26:50.200
with you? It wasn't just hey, do you know where

461
00:26:50.240 --> 00:26:53.599
my wife is? She hasn't shown up. But looking further

462
00:26:53.799 --> 00:26:58.960
into this, there was no evidence, zero goose eggs of

463
00:26:59.039 --> 00:27:02.559
an affair that had happened with this man. Those aren't

464
00:27:02.519 --> 00:27:05.640
Stevens' words, by the way, those are Those are mine, Like,

465
00:27:05.720 --> 00:27:09.200
there was nothing I ever found that suggested she was

466
00:27:09.240 --> 00:27:14.960
having a literal physical affair with someone. So, while initially

467
00:27:15.720 --> 00:27:20.440
overly helpful, remember as time progressed and the police kept

468
00:27:20.519 --> 00:27:24.079
questioning and going back, he became a little less helpful

469
00:27:24.240 --> 00:27:32.960
to the police. So that willingness to help reduction really

470
00:27:33.559 --> 00:27:36.240
you know, took off. Whenever he was stopped for a

471
00:27:36.359 --> 00:27:40.079
traffic stop on February the fifteenth, so the day after

472
00:27:40.200 --> 00:27:44.880
Tara was marked as missing, he was found to be

473
00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:48.599
driving under a suspended license license whenever he was pulled over,

474
00:27:48.880 --> 00:27:52.240
And so this resulted in his arrest. Now, he felt

475
00:27:52.279 --> 00:27:55.839
like the arrest was ridiculous and that this was just

476
00:27:55.920 --> 00:27:58.279
a ploy for police to be able to get him

477
00:27:58.400 --> 00:28:03.519
into an interrogate room. Well, the reality was that he

478
00:28:03.599 --> 00:28:07.319
was actually driving with a suspended license, and so they

479
00:28:07.359 --> 00:28:10.240
had every right to arrest him. Now did they use

480
00:28:10.240 --> 00:28:14.440
it to their advantage? I'm assuming so your wife is missing,

481
00:28:15.279 --> 00:28:18.319
we'd like to talk to you more. But for him

482
00:28:18.359 --> 00:28:21.279
to act incredulous like this is ridiculous, you broke the law.

483
00:28:21.720 --> 00:28:23.960
They worked well within the bounds of what they are

484
00:28:23.960 --> 00:28:27.559
allowed to do, but he became extremely irritable about this

485
00:28:27.759 --> 00:28:33.799
entire situation from that point forward. Regardless of his feelings, though,

486
00:28:34.480 --> 00:28:37.160
his wife was still missing and police were no closer

487
00:28:37.160 --> 00:28:42.359
to finding her. So five days later, on February the twentieth,

488
00:28:42.440 --> 00:28:45.240
police asked Stephen, look, man, are you willing to take

489
00:28:45.240 --> 00:28:49.799
a polygraph test? And Steven said, no, I'm not going

490
00:28:49.880 --> 00:28:52.680
to do it. He's still angry. Okay, he feels like

491
00:28:52.720 --> 00:28:54.960
he's being mistreated and that they're pointing the finger at

492
00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.200
him without you know reason too, he hasn't done anything,

493
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:03.319
so he says no, But then he decides, look, I

494
00:29:03.359 --> 00:29:05.200
will take it, but I won't take it if you're

495
00:29:05.240 --> 00:29:07.759
the one. If the Macomb County Sheriff's Office is the

496
00:29:07.759 --> 00:29:09.559
one that's going to be giving it, I won't take it.

497
00:29:09.920 --> 00:29:12.240
But if there's a third party or something like that

498
00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:13.960
that will give it, I will take it with them.

499
00:29:14.039 --> 00:29:16.880
I just don't want to take it with you, all right. Cool.

500
00:29:17.400 --> 00:29:23.200
Strategically speaking, most people would tell you that taking a

501
00:29:23.200 --> 00:29:27.720
polygraph test probably is not a good idea. But on

502
00:29:27.799 --> 00:29:31.240
the other hand, I'm thinking about me personally. I always

503
00:29:31.240 --> 00:29:34.480
try to put myself in these shoes, and my wish

504
00:29:34.680 --> 00:29:39.880
to find my spouse would be heavily outweighing any personal

505
00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:43.000
risk that I might have in that situation. Sure, they

506
00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:44.680
may start looking at me as a suspect. Maybe they

507
00:29:44.720 --> 00:29:46.920
don't like what I say. Maybe I fail the dawn

508
00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:49.839
polygraph even if I had nothing to do with it. Strategically,

509
00:29:49.880 --> 00:29:51.160
it's just not a good idea to take it. But

510
00:29:51.160 --> 00:29:54.680
I'm telling you now, my sweetheart goes missing, you can

511
00:29:54.680 --> 00:29:56.920
do whatever the hell you want to me. I don't care.

512
00:29:57.240 --> 00:30:00.039
I'll go to jail even if it's just wrong. But

513
00:30:00.319 --> 00:30:02.240
if God, if you can just help me find him,

514
00:30:02.279 --> 00:30:08.200
I'll do anything. So under a lawyer's advice. You know,

515
00:30:08.720 --> 00:30:12.279
he says, you know, I'll take it if someone else

516
00:30:12.359 --> 00:30:15.319
is taking it. But the key here to it also

517
00:30:15.400 --> 00:30:18.119
is that they're not admissible in court. That's why strategically

518
00:30:18.400 --> 00:30:21.920
it doesn't make sense I guess to take one because

519
00:30:21.960 --> 00:30:23.799
they can't use it in court. So what are they

520
00:30:23.880 --> 00:30:25.920
using it for is what a lot of people will question. Well,

521
00:30:25.920 --> 00:30:27.799
it's to him me up, is what people would think.

522
00:30:28.240 --> 00:30:30.319
So it turns out that he did go take a

523
00:30:30.359 --> 00:30:33.359
private polygraph. He did take it shortly thereafter, but the

524
00:30:33.440 --> 00:30:36.680
results were just inconclusive. It didn't say, oh, he's flat outlying,

525
00:30:36.720 --> 00:30:38.720
and it didn't say, oh he's you know, an angel

526
00:30:38.759 --> 00:30:40.559
here on earth telling nothing but the truth. It just

527
00:30:40.599 --> 00:30:44.079
was inconclusive. It didn't really sway one way or the other.

528
00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:48.279
So police decided on a different strategy the next day,

529
00:30:48.480 --> 00:30:50.880
because remember it's been days now that this woman is missing.

530
00:30:51.279 --> 00:30:54.240
The next day they decide to hold a news conference

531
00:30:54.519 --> 00:30:58.039
and update the media about the case. Because by this

532
00:30:58.079 --> 00:31:00.960
point this case had blown up. People in the area

533
00:31:01.039 --> 00:31:06.960
knew that this mother was missing. That plan said, look,

534
00:31:07.039 --> 00:31:09.880
we're gonna hold our conference for the media, but not

535
00:31:09.960 --> 00:31:14.359
only that, we're gonna hold a press conference daily until

536
00:31:14.519 --> 00:31:17.119
she is found now. I don't know what was going

537
00:31:17.160 --> 00:31:20.640
on behind closed doors in the police's mind here. I

538
00:31:20.759 --> 00:31:24.519
wasn't there, but I have a feeling that this was

539
00:31:24.880 --> 00:31:30.559
being done to apply pressure to whom I can't say,

540
00:31:31.079 --> 00:31:34.160
but pressure, right. People who do things wrong want stuff

541
00:31:34.160 --> 00:31:35.680
to go away. They want it to go under the rug.

542
00:31:35.720 --> 00:31:37.480
They don't want people to talking about it. They want

543
00:31:37.519 --> 00:31:40.119
time and distance and people to be quiet. Well, when

544
00:31:40.119 --> 00:31:42.799
they say that they're gonna have a press conference every day,

545
00:31:43.039 --> 00:31:44.960
you can take it to the damn bank that they

546
00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.160
are hoping to smoke out somebody who might try to, Oh,

547
00:31:49.240 --> 00:31:51.200
I have a little bit of information here, you know,

548
00:31:51.240 --> 00:31:54.640
and come forward with something, even if it's to you know,

549
00:31:54.759 --> 00:31:59.519
maybe make people look in another direction than themselves. But y'all,

550
00:31:59.559 --> 00:32:03.799
that's not all they did, Okay, they dropped a freaking

551
00:32:04.279 --> 00:32:09.720
bombshell in this news conference. See what Stephen didn't know

552
00:32:11.039 --> 00:32:13.559
was he may not have wanted to speak with them,

553
00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:16.480
but they were still doing some investigating of their own,

554
00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:20.960
and this included that they switched gears and started focusing

555
00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:26.920
on Stephen's digital presence, which included his emails. He did

556
00:32:26.960 --> 00:32:32.559
not know this, and the bombshell that they dropped was

557
00:32:32.559 --> 00:32:36.960
that there was an email that really stood out to police.

558
00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:41.279
It was sent about a month before Tara went missing.

559
00:32:41.319 --> 00:32:45.880
The exact date was January twenty fifth. Tara was on

560
00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:48.240
a business trip in London at the time. She was

561
00:32:48.279 --> 00:32:53.079
not home and Steven sent a message an email to

562
00:32:53.200 --> 00:32:56.240
a former girlfriend. Her name was Dina Hardy, and the

563
00:32:56.279 --> 00:33:00.759
contents of that message were of a romantic tone and

564
00:33:01.359 --> 00:33:05.240
honestly they were just sexually suggestive. So I don't have

565
00:33:05.319 --> 00:33:06.880
a copy of that email at the time that I'm

566
00:33:06.920 --> 00:33:10.559
recording this. It wasn't for lack of trying. But he

567
00:33:10.599 --> 00:33:14.240
did make one statement that I do have that was

568
00:33:14.319 --> 00:33:18.559
kind of hm to me. They're discussing back and forth

569
00:33:18.559 --> 00:33:20.880
in this email, and this is a direct quote. He says,

570
00:33:21.319 --> 00:33:25.200
I don't care about being married. He said, it's a no,

571
00:33:25.200 --> 00:33:31.720
no conscience thing. Wow, you know, marriage to me is

572
00:33:31.759 --> 00:33:33.920
all about my conscience and that I need to sleep

573
00:33:33.960 --> 00:33:36.720
good at night and presumptively next to the person I married.

574
00:33:37.039 --> 00:33:39.680
So that's a strange thing to say that you don't

575
00:33:39.680 --> 00:33:45.720
have any conscience about, you know, your marriage. So there

576
00:33:45.799 --> 00:33:48.799
was nothing, by the way that indicated that this email

577
00:33:48.839 --> 00:33:51.480
had led to anything further with this woman, but it

578
00:33:51.559 --> 00:33:54.960
surely wasn't anything that Stephen had mentioned whenever there was

579
00:33:55.079 --> 00:33:58.759
all this questioning being done, and man, if that does

580
00:33:58.799 --> 00:34:03.839
not stink of possible motive. The bombshell wasn't just that

581
00:34:04.279 --> 00:34:08.079
the media was going to tell everybody that her husband's

582
00:34:08.079 --> 00:34:10.599
looking kind of suspicion here because he would have had

583
00:34:10.599 --> 00:34:13.360
a you know, romantic email with an ex. No, no, no,

584
00:34:13.360 --> 00:34:19.079
no no. They actually released the emails, okay, to the public.

585
00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:21.719
Now again, I searched for those and I had a

586
00:34:21.760 --> 00:34:25.039
really hard time finding them. So but they during this

587
00:34:25.119 --> 00:34:30.920
press conference at some point released the emails. So that's

588
00:34:31.320 --> 00:34:34.559
what we would call, like I said, applying the pressure

589
00:34:34.719 --> 00:34:38.599
and Lucy, you got some explaining to do, as Ricky

590
00:34:38.679 --> 00:34:43.400
Ricardo would say. So while Steven had been telling the

591
00:34:43.440 --> 00:34:46.840
police that he suspected Tara was having an affair, it

592
00:34:46.920 --> 00:34:49.320
surely was now seeming like the pot was calling the

593
00:34:49.360 --> 00:34:53.519
kettle black based on these emails. And y'all now that

594
00:34:53.599 --> 00:34:58.360
pot was pissed because he felt like his private life

595
00:34:58.559 --> 00:35:02.480
had now been put on display. Maybe you're hello, are

596
00:35:02.519 --> 00:35:06.000
you listening? Sorry? Your wife is missing the emails? To

597
00:35:06.039 --> 00:35:09.679
be damned, where's your wife? But he got upset about it,

598
00:35:10.519 --> 00:35:13.800
and police kept their word too, y'all, because the very

599
00:35:13.840 --> 00:35:17.880
next day they held another conference, and that's when they

600
00:35:17.920 --> 00:35:20.079
told the public, you know what, we're going to start

601
00:35:20.079 --> 00:35:23.039
doing ground searches. We're looking for her now, we are

602
00:35:23.079 --> 00:35:25.800
actively looking. And I do remember her sister saying something

603
00:35:25.840 --> 00:35:27.679
I don't have it here in my notes, but something

604
00:35:27.679 --> 00:35:29.800
to the effect of that made the family feel really

605
00:35:29.840 --> 00:35:32.519
sick because they knew what that meant. You know, if

606
00:35:32.559 --> 00:35:35.760
you're doing ground searches for someone, everyone pretty much knows

607
00:35:35.800 --> 00:35:38.079
you're probably looking for a body at that point, but

608
00:35:38.159 --> 00:35:42.360
they didn't have one. Interestingly, at that point when they

609
00:35:42.440 --> 00:35:44.440
vocalized to the world, hey, we're going to be doing

610
00:35:44.440 --> 00:35:48.480
ground searches, Steven then said, well, look, the night that

611
00:35:48.519 --> 00:35:51.920
I overheard, you know, or that we had our fight,

612
00:35:52.519 --> 00:35:55.440
I did overhear her on the phone with someone saying

613
00:35:55.440 --> 00:35:56.840
that she was going to meet them at the end

614
00:35:56.880 --> 00:35:59.559
of the driveway. So he was kind of making it

615
00:35:59.599 --> 00:36:02.000
seem like, well, maybe she was calling a lover, or

616
00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:05.280
maybe she was calling someone, you know that it should

617
00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:07.400
have been me she was talking to. So police were like,

618
00:36:07.440 --> 00:36:10.119
all right, well checkmate, and they checked the phone records.

619
00:36:10.119 --> 00:36:13.400
Well guess what, that was a flat out lie. That

620
00:36:13.519 --> 00:36:17.159
phone record did not exist, and before Steven could even

621
00:36:17.199 --> 00:36:19.320
say no, it wasn't her cell phone, it was the

622
00:36:19.360 --> 00:36:22.880
house phone. They checked the house phone records too. No

623
00:36:23.039 --> 00:36:28.199
call was made to the you know, notation of what

624
00:36:28.280 --> 00:36:32.599
he was saying happened. So, of course the release of

625
00:36:32.639 --> 00:36:36.480
the emails had people talking and the media is kind

626
00:36:36.519 --> 00:36:38.599
of sniffing around this, going, hey boy, you know, why

627
00:36:38.639 --> 00:36:40.639
don't you give us a little something something, you know,

628
00:36:40.760 --> 00:36:43.440
maybe you ought to explain yourself here. So there was

629
00:36:43.480 --> 00:36:46.480
a local TV station, they were called Local four. They

630
00:36:46.559 --> 00:36:49.760
reached out to Steven's attorney. Yes, he went and got

631
00:36:49.760 --> 00:36:53.920
an attorney at that point, and the attorney spoke for

632
00:36:54.000 --> 00:36:57.920
Stephen to them and said, Stephen is an absolute emotional

633
00:36:57.960 --> 00:37:01.800
wreck because his wife is missing and the mistreatment by

634
00:37:01.840 --> 00:37:05.480
the police department isn't helping him. He's basically having a

635
00:37:05.519 --> 00:37:12.159
nervous breakdown. So the next day police say, all right, man,

636
00:37:12.239 --> 00:37:15.800
we need to see your home computers. So they wanted

637
00:37:15.800 --> 00:37:17.760
to check them for any evidence that might be helpful.

638
00:37:17.960 --> 00:37:21.079
And Steven did pack up the computers and he went

639
00:37:21.119 --> 00:37:24.159
to the police station and he turned those into the

640
00:37:24.199 --> 00:37:30.000
Macombe County Sheriff's office. So searches had been underway at

641
00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:33.880
that point, like the ground searches to look for any

642
00:37:34.679 --> 00:37:37.519
sign of Terra, and so they decided that they wanted

643
00:37:37.559 --> 00:37:39.760
to go to areas where that she was familiar with.

644
00:37:40.239 --> 00:37:44.599
So to start, they searched a three mile area that

645
00:37:44.719 --> 00:37:49.599
surrounded the home, the Tara Grant Home. They didn't find anything,

646
00:37:50.159 --> 00:37:54.719
and this was no low key search either. They had helicopters,

647
00:37:55.199 --> 00:37:58.400
they had search dogs out there. They had over one

648
00:37:58.480 --> 00:38:02.440
hundred and fifty people boots on the ground combing through

649
00:38:02.480 --> 00:38:05.639
the area and they found nothing. So I guess, if

650
00:38:05.639 --> 00:38:07.880
you're her family, that's kind of a good thing because

651
00:38:07.880 --> 00:38:10.320
that means she's not dead. But it's not, you know,

652
00:38:10.400 --> 00:38:11.920
it's also a bad things. We don't have her and

653
00:38:11.920 --> 00:38:14.760
we don't know where she is. So they then went

654
00:38:15.239 --> 00:38:18.320
and even searched. Her family had a family cabin back

655
00:38:18.360 --> 00:38:20.840
in that rock area where she grew up, and it

656
00:38:20.960 --> 00:38:24.360
was a forty four acre area that they used for hunting.

657
00:38:24.400 --> 00:38:26.599
And I think I read somewhere too that the family

658
00:38:26.639 --> 00:38:30.000
made like maple syrup and stuff like it, a wholesome

659
00:38:30.079 --> 00:38:31.920
family type stuff. I love that too. I think that's

660
00:38:31.920 --> 00:38:35.360
really neat. But they had this this family cabin, and

661
00:38:35.400 --> 00:38:37.559
so they thought, well, hey, maybe she went there. Maybe

662
00:38:37.599 --> 00:38:39.320
she got so pissed off she just went off the

663
00:38:39.320 --> 00:38:42.000
grid to the cabin and she's trying to cool off there.

664
00:38:42.639 --> 00:38:50.079
So the cabin was eight hours away from the you know,

665
00:38:50.119 --> 00:38:52.400
the home that Tara shared with her family, which was

666
00:38:52.400 --> 00:38:58.199
in Washington Township, eight hours away. So although that was

667
00:38:58.239 --> 00:39:01.440
a stretch, they still police went and they did the

668
00:39:01.440 --> 00:39:05.559
searches there and they found nothing, absolutely nothing at the home.

669
00:39:06.199 --> 00:39:09.079
Then they also went and searched another property that was

670
00:39:09.159 --> 00:39:12.079
south of that location, but the only thing they found

671
00:39:12.159 --> 00:39:14.440
that was of any interest at all was deer tracks.

672
00:39:14.599 --> 00:39:17.159
I mean, there was there was no you know, foot

673
00:39:17.199 --> 00:39:20.559
tracks of people or anything there. So finding her was

674
00:39:20.559 --> 00:39:23.400
seeming more like finding a needle in a haystack. If

675
00:39:23.400 --> 00:39:25.920
she was even in this area, she was just gone.

676
00:39:26.320 --> 00:39:31.280
So by February the twenty fifth, this case made national headlines.

677
00:39:31.880 --> 00:39:36.039
And the more people that knew about this case, the

678
00:39:36.039 --> 00:39:40.239
more that people started focusing on things that maybe in

679
00:39:40.320 --> 00:39:43.679
the moment didn't matter or mean much, but looking back

680
00:39:43.719 --> 00:39:47.559
on it, it kind of was making them go hmm.

681
00:39:47.679 --> 00:39:53.000
So let me give you an example. This included the

682
00:39:53.039 --> 00:39:58.039
fact that when Steven had been arrested for his suspended license.

683
00:39:59.519 --> 00:40:03.360
They did like a search incidental to his arrest, and

684
00:40:03.400 --> 00:40:08.920
they found four thousand dollars in cash in envelopes in

685
00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:12.360
his car. So it did make you just kind of

686
00:40:12.400 --> 00:40:16.159
wonder what was he doing with four thousand dollars cash

687
00:40:17.880 --> 00:40:22.039
yet his wife isn't spending any money any other way

688
00:40:22.199 --> 00:40:24.719
outside of the home. That's a large quantity of cash

689
00:40:24.719 --> 00:40:27.960
for someone who's just found out that their wife was missing,

690
00:40:28.199 --> 00:40:31.039
and he didn't seem to have anywhere specific that he

691
00:40:31.159 --> 00:40:36.280
was going with the cash. So about three weeks after

692
00:40:36.400 --> 00:40:39.800
Tara went missing, a judge signed off on a search

693
00:40:39.880 --> 00:40:44.119
warrant for the Grant home as well as a family

694
00:40:44.239 --> 00:40:47.400
business of Steven Grant's, and this was like a machine

695
00:40:47.400 --> 00:40:52.480
shop of some type that his family owned. And this

696
00:40:52.639 --> 00:40:55.760
was not just one detective or two detectives showing up

697
00:40:55.800 --> 00:40:57.960
to the house on the search warrant. This was a

698
00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:01.679
whole investigative team that showed up up to search this house.

699
00:41:01.719 --> 00:41:05.519
So they meant business when they showed up, so they

700
00:41:05.599 --> 00:41:08.639
kind of blindsided Steven. He got irritated at all of

701
00:41:08.679 --> 00:41:10.679
the people and he said, look, can I just go

702
00:41:10.719 --> 00:41:12.679
walk my dog. I'm just gonna go walk the dog,

703
00:41:13.159 --> 00:41:15.239
and the police are like, yeah, bro, you're not under arrest.

704
00:41:15.280 --> 00:41:17.079
You can go walk your dog. We're just gonna execute

705
00:41:17.079 --> 00:41:19.400
this search horn. So he's like fine, So he grabs

706
00:41:19.400 --> 00:41:22.559
his dog and he goes out for a walk. And

707
00:41:22.719 --> 00:41:26.599
this is where I am just so amazed by police

708
00:41:26.880 --> 00:41:31.920
gut instincts, because this is so by chance that this happened.

709
00:41:32.599 --> 00:41:37.320
But he leaves to go walk the dog, and there's

710
00:41:37.440 --> 00:41:42.199
two detectives that are standing in the garage of the

711
00:41:42.239 --> 00:41:47.159
Grant home. Now their garage, y'all, it's pretty neat for

712
00:41:47.320 --> 00:41:51.239
a regular use family garage. You know. They've got their

713
00:41:51.280 --> 00:41:54.000
items in there, like a lot of us, do you know,

714
00:41:54.119 --> 00:41:58.320
lined up, you know, tupperware buckets with kids toys in it,

715
00:41:58.360 --> 00:42:00.840
stuff like that. So I want you to imagine if

716
00:42:00.840 --> 00:42:03.280
you walked into a garage, the garage door goes up,

717
00:42:03.559 --> 00:42:09.360
you look to your left and there is a like

718
00:42:09.599 --> 00:42:12.119
a shelving unit that's right there on the wall. And

719
00:42:12.159 --> 00:42:15.360
on top of that shelving unit, it's got miscellaneous little

720
00:42:15.400 --> 00:42:17.880
like tools and items just kind of set on all

721
00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:22.360
of these shelving units. In front of that, on the

722
00:42:22.440 --> 00:42:26.400
floor is a blue tupperware bucket, like a like a

723
00:42:26.400 --> 00:42:28.920
big one like you store stuff in and on top

724
00:42:28.960 --> 00:42:31.280
of that is an empty fish tank like they had

725
00:42:31.320 --> 00:42:33.360
petfish and they just cleaned it out and set it

726
00:42:33.400 --> 00:42:37.840
on top. And then right next to that tupperware bucket

727
00:42:38.320 --> 00:42:42.880
is a green tupperware bucket, again regular bucket, nice and

728
00:42:42.920 --> 00:42:47.760
neat stacked, and there's a nicely folded black tarp on

729
00:42:47.800 --> 00:42:49.559
top of it. It looks like it's never been used,

730
00:42:49.599 --> 00:42:52.320
like it's a freshly pressed tarp just laying on top

731
00:42:52.360 --> 00:42:55.559
of it. Then on the side of that bucket is

732
00:42:55.599 --> 00:42:59.760
a Little Tikes kid wagon which is full of young

733
00:42:59.800 --> 00:43:03.440
kids toys, you know, like like plastic baseball bats and

734
00:43:03.719 --> 00:43:06.079
you know, little boy toys and stuff like that. And

735
00:43:06.119 --> 00:43:09.239
then right next to that is a trash can, but

736
00:43:09.280 --> 00:43:12.079
that trash can is like a clean trash can, and

737
00:43:12.320 --> 00:43:15.880
it's just filled to the top with more kids toys. So,

738
00:43:16.199 --> 00:43:21.079
like I'm saying, there's nothing bizarre in this garage. So

739
00:43:21.119 --> 00:43:24.480
the two detectives are standing there talking to each other about,

740
00:43:24.920 --> 00:43:27.480
you know, I guess what procedure they want to take

741
00:43:27.519 --> 00:43:30.960
to go through the home. And one detective is standing

742
00:43:30.960 --> 00:43:33.880
in the garage and mentions to the other detective that

743
00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:38.400
he just didn't remember that green tupperware bucket being there

744
00:43:38.719 --> 00:43:41.639
the very last time that they were there talking to

745
00:43:41.679 --> 00:43:45.960
Steven and so, ye'all, it's nothing out of the ordinary.

746
00:43:45.960 --> 00:43:47.880
It's just a green tupperwaar bucket like you would put

747
00:43:47.920 --> 00:43:51.400
in your attic with your decorations or something. But feeling,

748
00:43:51.559 --> 00:43:54.480
and there's nothing more here than a feeling feeling like

749
00:43:54.599 --> 00:43:57.440
it just wasn't right, Like why is this bucket now

750
00:43:57.519 --> 00:44:01.960
here inserted between all of this other stuff. The detective

751
00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:04.320
decided he wanted to walk over and open it, so

752
00:44:04.360 --> 00:44:07.440
he just popped the lid off of it, and inside

753
00:44:07.440 --> 00:44:11.800
of it was some thick plastic that something was wrapped in.

754
00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:16.280
So the detective just leans down and presses his hand

755
00:44:16.360 --> 00:44:21.480
into the plastic, and he says, immediately, as soon as

756
00:44:21.480 --> 00:44:26.199
his hand pushed in, immediately he knew something was not

757
00:44:26.400 --> 00:44:29.840
right about the contents of that one bucket. He said,

758
00:44:29.840 --> 00:44:33.320
it was it was dense, y'all, and it had some

759
00:44:33.480 --> 00:44:37.280
give to it. And you know exactly where this is going.

760
00:44:38.159 --> 00:44:41.679
So he decided to cut open the bag, and to

761
00:44:41.880 --> 00:44:44.719
his shock, when he just opcuts the bag and he

762
00:44:44.920 --> 00:44:49.639
opens it, he's looking at the severed end of a

763
00:44:49.880 --> 00:44:55.239
human neck where a head used to be. He's looking

764
00:44:55.280 --> 00:45:00.000
at a cut off, there's a neck there, So he stumped.

765
00:45:00.599 --> 00:45:03.199
He calls out to everybody else to come here, and

766
00:45:03.239 --> 00:45:06.760
that's when they pull it open and they all realize

767
00:45:07.079 --> 00:45:11.440
that they are most likely looking at Tara Grant's neck

768
00:45:12.440 --> 00:45:17.119
and torso down to the tops of her thighs. So

769
00:45:17.199 --> 00:45:20.239
there's no head and there's no knee in below, and

770
00:45:20.280 --> 00:45:23.679
there's no arms. It's just her neck down to her

771
00:45:23.760 --> 00:45:29.360
upper thighs. It's in the face up position in this bucket.

772
00:45:29.440 --> 00:45:32.599
She is still wearing her bral, she still has on

773
00:45:32.679 --> 00:45:37.880
her panties. So clearly police now need to go grab

774
00:45:37.960 --> 00:45:42.440
Stephen and the dog and we need to talk like,

775
00:45:42.559 --> 00:45:46.960
now we just found her torso, you know, in your garage,

776
00:45:47.079 --> 00:45:50.159
and so their whole belief system here in the background

777
00:45:50.199 --> 00:45:52.920
that you know, Stephen must have had something to do

778
00:45:53.000 --> 00:45:55.760
with this. This motive that he must have had somewhere

779
00:45:55.880 --> 00:45:59.719
is now looking really accurate. Okay, considering how he felt

780
00:45:59.719 --> 00:46:02.519
like he was harassed by police. So he was last

781
00:46:02.559 --> 00:46:04.880
seen walking the dog. He wasn't under arrest or anything.

782
00:46:04.920 --> 00:46:07.400
But now that they're going to look for him, guess what,

783
00:46:07.920 --> 00:46:10.800
he's nowhere in sight. So it was kind of looking

784
00:46:10.880 --> 00:46:13.800
like maybe he knew the jig was up, and he

785
00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:16.639
ran off with the dog to walk it like under

786
00:46:16.719 --> 00:46:18.280
this guise that that's what he was going to do,

787
00:46:18.360 --> 00:46:21.400
and really maybe he was trying to run away. So

788
00:46:21.840 --> 00:46:25.519
Stephen Grant was believed to have killed his wife was

789
00:46:25.599 --> 00:46:28.840
now on the run. But where had his wife's body

790
00:46:28.920 --> 00:46:32.000
been all those weeks? Because it had not been in

791
00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:35.760
that garage when they were there before, so where had

792
00:46:35.760 --> 00:46:40.280
it been? As luck would have it, there was a

793
00:46:40.320 --> 00:46:43.079
woman that was taking a walk in a local park

794
00:46:43.519 --> 00:46:47.239
and she was very intrigued by a baggie that she

795
00:46:47.400 --> 00:46:51.039
saw that was stashed into a tree. Caught her attention,

796
00:46:51.159 --> 00:46:55.880
and we ladies are curious creatures, and so it just

797
00:46:55.920 --> 00:46:58.480
seemed so suspicion to her that she said, I'm gonna

798
00:46:58.480 --> 00:47:00.599
go up there and actually go look at it. So

799
00:47:00.679 --> 00:47:03.800
she grows and grabs the bag and inside there are

800
00:47:03.840 --> 00:47:09.960
some very unsettling items, which was mainly sticking out where

801
00:47:09.960 --> 00:47:13.599
these bloody gloves that were inside. So detectives did their thing,

802
00:47:14.000 --> 00:47:16.159
They gathered the items, they went and they had the

803
00:47:16.159 --> 00:47:20.280
blood tested on those gloves, and wouldn't you know that

804
00:47:20.360 --> 00:47:25.519
blood came back positive as Tara Grant's blood. So by

805
00:47:25.599 --> 00:47:28.159
March the third the police announced to the public that

806
00:47:28.199 --> 00:47:31.400
the body parts you know had been located in the

807
00:47:31.440 --> 00:47:33.719
Grant home or a body part I guess had been

808
00:47:34.039 --> 00:47:37.000
found in the Grant home and they pointed at Stephen

809
00:47:37.079 --> 00:47:41.159
Grant as suspect number one, and from there a massive

810
00:47:41.400 --> 00:47:47.280
man hunt ensued. Lucky for investigators, Steven may have been

811
00:47:47.519 --> 00:47:50.559
desperate to get away, but he was also unwilling to

812
00:47:50.559 --> 00:47:54.320
completely cut ties with his family, and so he made

813
00:47:54.320 --> 00:47:57.280
a call to his sister, which police were able to

814
00:47:57.320 --> 00:48:01.079
trace to the Wilderness State Park in northern Michigan. The

815
00:48:01.280 --> 00:48:05.639
hunt was on, so they go searching for him, and

816
00:48:05.719 --> 00:48:09.639
the very next day, and this was right before seven am,

817
00:48:09.960 --> 00:48:15.320
they located Stephen Grant and he was in really bad shape. Now,

818
00:48:16.440 --> 00:48:18.320
to be honest, he was in shape. He was one

819
00:48:18.639 --> 00:48:21.079
body part at least he was he was whole, but

820
00:48:21.159 --> 00:48:25.559
he was not looking good. So it turns out whenever

821
00:48:25.639 --> 00:48:28.920
the police had the search warrant, Steven knew he realized

822
00:48:28.920 --> 00:48:31.639
they were gonna find that piece of body. So instead

823
00:48:31.639 --> 00:48:34.159
of walking the dog, he had actually gone and called

824
00:48:34.199 --> 00:48:36.440
a friend who was none the wise or did not

825
00:48:36.639 --> 00:48:39.239
know that this was happening, and he asked if he

826
00:48:39.239 --> 00:48:41.719
could borrow the car under the pretense that Hey, don't

827
00:48:41.719 --> 00:48:43.199
have a car at the moment, Can I borrow your car?

828
00:48:43.280 --> 00:48:45.480
The friend says sure, and then he went on the

829
00:48:45.559 --> 00:48:49.360
run to that Michigan park where he was found. Just

830
00:48:49.800 --> 00:48:52.519
you know, he was in the throes of a all

831
00:48:52.559 --> 00:48:56.400
out suicidal meltdown. He brought alcohol with him, he brought

832
00:48:56.440 --> 00:49:00.280
some pills, but he also brought a toy gun. So

833
00:49:00.679 --> 00:49:05.440
why a toy gun? Well, I think this is proof

834
00:49:05.280 --> 00:49:09.719
of cowardice myself. But he was hoping for a suicide

835
00:49:09.880 --> 00:49:11.800
by cop. So if you don't know what that is,

836
00:49:11.840 --> 00:49:16.280
real quick, I'll explain. But he had bought this toy

837
00:49:16.320 --> 00:49:18.559
gun because he didn't want to kill himself. But he

838
00:49:18.599 --> 00:49:20.599
figured if he pointed the gun at the police, or

839
00:49:20.599 --> 00:49:22.800
he came out with a gun pointed the fake one

840
00:49:22.800 --> 00:49:24.679
that looked real, then they would light him up and

841
00:49:24.760 --> 00:49:29.039
kill him for himself. But you know that didn't happen.

842
00:49:29.079 --> 00:49:32.639
They found him and he was still alive. He had

843
00:49:32.679 --> 00:49:35.880
made the time while he was getting away to write

844
00:49:35.920 --> 00:49:40.599
two goodbye letters to his children, so you know, he

845
00:49:40.679 --> 00:49:43.679
was absolutely on the run. And when he was located,

846
00:49:43.840 --> 00:49:47.639
he was sitting underneath a tree and was just semi conscious.

847
00:49:47.679 --> 00:49:52.360
He had extreme hypothermia and he was actually talking to

848
00:49:52.519 --> 00:49:55.960
the tree. He was very like, absolutely delirious when they

849
00:49:55.960 --> 00:49:58.239
found him, but they didn't shoot him. There was no

850
00:49:58.280 --> 00:50:00.599
reason to shoot him. They got him because he was

851
00:50:00.639 --> 00:50:04.679
barely alive, and they got him airlifted to a hospital.

852
00:50:04.840 --> 00:50:07.559
Once he got to the hospital and everything was stabilized,

853
00:50:07.719 --> 00:50:12.159
he was placed under arrest and once able, he requested

854
00:50:12.159 --> 00:50:15.239
to talk to the police, but he had a stipulation,

855
00:50:15.880 --> 00:50:20.760
I will talk to you only if the conversation is recorded.

856
00:50:22.280 --> 00:50:25.360
So I don't know what that's about. In my mind,

857
00:50:25.360 --> 00:50:27.239
it's so that he can just lock in a statement

858
00:50:27.239 --> 00:50:29.360
and then he's hoping that then he can refer to

859
00:50:29.400 --> 00:50:31.559
the statement. I don't know what he thought was going

860
00:50:31.599 --> 00:50:35.039
on there. So they agree and they record his statement.

861
00:50:35.559 --> 00:50:39.159
Steven's account of the night Tara died began with her

862
00:50:39.280 --> 00:50:43.280
unpacking from that recent trip, and he says that he

863
00:50:43.400 --> 00:50:46.360
was getting ready for bed, so apparently he slept naked,

864
00:50:46.599 --> 00:50:49.360
so he was getting ready for bed. He was naked,

865
00:50:49.599 --> 00:50:54.239
and that's whenever the argument ensued about the constant traveling,

866
00:50:54.320 --> 00:50:57.760
and he said that it just escalated. It got really ugly,

867
00:50:58.079 --> 00:51:03.039
and that's when he claims Tera slapped him across the face,

868
00:51:03.599 --> 00:51:06.960
and then, in his own words, he responded, and that's

869
00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:10.960
when I hit and I choked her. So, as he

870
00:51:11.119 --> 00:51:16.760
was choking her, he says that she began to fight back,

871
00:51:17.440 --> 00:51:20.480
and while she's fighting back, he's got his hands around

872
00:51:20.480 --> 00:51:23.840
her throat. He is choking the life out of his wife.

873
00:51:24.320 --> 00:51:27.719
He says, their eyes locked, and she was looking into

874
00:51:27.760 --> 00:51:31.480
his eyes with just absolute fear and terror while he

875
00:51:31.559 --> 00:51:35.480
is choking her to death. So did he stop, Did

876
00:51:35.480 --> 00:51:38.400
he have a moment of remorse or oh my god,

877
00:51:38.440 --> 00:51:41.880
what am I doing? No, he continued to choke her.

878
00:51:42.159 --> 00:51:45.320
He reached over, grabbed a piece of clothing and he

879
00:51:45.480 --> 00:51:50.400
covered her face with it, and not out of some

880
00:51:50.480 --> 00:51:52.960
type of you know, I don't know, reverence or something

881
00:51:52.960 --> 00:51:54.880
for her. It's because he didn't want to have to

882
00:51:54.960 --> 00:51:58.840
look at her while he choked her for over four minutes.

883
00:51:58.920 --> 00:52:00.679
He didn't want to have to look at her face,

884
00:52:00.960 --> 00:52:04.400
so he covered it. As over four minutes, he continued

885
00:52:04.440 --> 00:52:10.360
to squeeze her throat until he choked the life out

886
00:52:10.360 --> 00:52:16.239
of the woman he vowed to love forever. The entire time,

887
00:52:16.800 --> 00:52:22.679
their two children were sleeping in the adjacent room. His

888
00:52:22.840 --> 00:52:26.719
discussion and his explanation of the entire thing is so

889
00:52:27.440 --> 00:52:32.079
callous and so cold. It almost seems like he's just

890
00:52:32.159 --> 00:52:37.400
talking about taking out the trash. It's unbelievable. This is

891
00:52:37.440 --> 00:52:44.639
the mother of his children, and so it's just actually

892
00:52:44.639 --> 00:52:48.440
it's so chilling. But I want you to listen to

893
00:52:48.480 --> 00:52:51.960
it in his own words, not the part I just

894
00:52:52.000 --> 00:52:55.239
told you, but the next part when he is describing

895
00:52:55.559 --> 00:52:59.599
how he moved her body from point A to point

896
00:52:59.599 --> 00:53:02.119
B after she was dead.

897
00:53:03.079 --> 00:53:06.519
I wrapped something felt around her neck. I think it

898
00:53:06.599 --> 00:53:08.599
was my brown leather belt, and I know I couldn't

899
00:53:08.639 --> 00:53:10.320
carry her, so I wrapped that around her neck and

900
00:53:10.360 --> 00:53:13.599
I used it to pull her downstairs.

901
00:53:14.119 --> 00:53:19.559
Were you as As I was listening to that, I

902
00:53:21.719 --> 00:53:27.599
was so unimpressed by how he just says what he

903
00:53:27.880 --> 00:53:31.480
said about the woman he married and gave birth to

904
00:53:31.559 --> 00:53:36.960
his children, and then he doesn't even bother getting dressed

905
00:53:37.800 --> 00:53:40.519
after she's dead. He doesn't even get dressed. That's when

906
00:53:40.519 --> 00:53:43.320
he decides, like you know that, he drags her all

907
00:53:43.360 --> 00:53:46.639
the way to the garage and he's trying to stuff

908
00:53:46.679 --> 00:53:49.760
her in the back of her own suv, and so

909
00:53:49.800 --> 00:53:51.599
he goes on to kind of discuss how he was

910
00:53:51.639 --> 00:53:55.960
struggling under her literal dead weight, and he finally was

911
00:53:56.000 --> 00:53:59.119
able to get her in the car, but not before

912
00:53:59.639 --> 00:54:02.840
he dropped her a couple of times because of her weight,

913
00:54:02.880 --> 00:54:07.280
and it was awkward, and he his description of what

914
00:54:07.760 --> 00:54:09.599
I have to tell you this, he said, I was

915
00:54:09.639 --> 00:54:13.679
struggling underneath her weight. And he said that, you know,

916
00:54:13.719 --> 00:54:16.320
I dropped her, and he said, it was a disgusting

917
00:54:16.440 --> 00:54:18.400
sound when I just dropped her. It kind of sounded

918
00:54:18.440 --> 00:54:21.280
like if you dropped a watermelon on the concrete. What

919
00:54:23.800 --> 00:54:27.400
I just I was so just when you hear people

920
00:54:27.440 --> 00:54:31.480
say this and describe something so horrendous and just compare

921
00:54:31.519 --> 00:54:33.320
it to oh, yeah, I was like dropping a watermelon

922
00:54:33.360 --> 00:54:39.800
the way on the concrete, unbelievable. Well, moments after he

923
00:54:39.840 --> 00:54:41.840
finally was able to get her body in the car,

924
00:54:42.880 --> 00:54:45.519
he walked back in the house and that's when their

925
00:54:45.599 --> 00:54:48.199
nanny showed up. Remember that nanny that came to watch

926
00:54:48.239 --> 00:54:54.199
the kids. So now you maybe like, well, Kelly, you

927
00:54:54.199 --> 00:54:57.360
gave away what happened kind of quickly in the story. Yeah,

928
00:54:57.400 --> 00:54:59.440
but I did that on purpose, because now what I

929
00:54:59.480 --> 00:55:01.679
want to do is kind of reverse engineer a few

930
00:55:01.719 --> 00:55:04.239
things for you that are going to really hammer home

931
00:55:04.559 --> 00:55:08.639
what type of person Steven Grant was I'm going to

932
00:55:08.719 --> 00:55:12.559
insert now some little some some unknown facts that he

933
00:55:12.760 --> 00:55:18.320
conveniently left out of his confession, but that was figured

934
00:55:18.360 --> 00:55:21.719
out later on, okay, And I want to tell it

935
00:55:21.760 --> 00:55:24.039
to you now so you can really figure out what

936
00:55:24.079 --> 00:55:26.599
was going on the whole time that this argument went down,

937
00:55:27.639 --> 00:55:31.000
So that eighteen year old nanny, who at first was

938
00:55:31.079 --> 00:55:35.199
not part of this in any way, would eventually come

939
00:55:35.320 --> 00:55:39.119
forward and she would come forward to police with the

940
00:55:39.159 --> 00:55:43.480
fact that you guessed it, she was having an affair

941
00:55:44.119 --> 00:55:49.559
with Steven Grant. Now, she didn't come forward though, until

942
00:55:49.599 --> 00:55:53.800
after Tara's body was found. And so my question is

943
00:55:54.000 --> 00:55:58.800
why why would she wait to come forward with the

944
00:55:58.840 --> 00:56:02.920
affair when Sarah went missing? But y'all, it actually makes sense.

945
00:56:03.760 --> 00:56:05.760
I'm not saying that this is good or she should

946
00:56:05.800 --> 00:56:08.199
be proud of it, but it makes sense why. The

947
00:56:08.320 --> 00:56:12.920
answer is because she did not know Tara was dead. Remember,

948
00:56:13.360 --> 00:56:16.719
Steven knew nothing when this all went down. He was

949
00:56:16.760 --> 00:56:19.519
even having press conferences at first where he was the

950
00:56:19.639 --> 00:56:22.800
heartbroken husband. And matter of fact, I'll put a video

951
00:56:22.920 --> 00:56:25.039
of that on Patreon for you if you want to go,

952
00:56:25.159 --> 00:56:26.960
or you can google it yourself, but I'll put a

953
00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:30.320
google a video on Patreon, So you can see how

954
00:56:30.320 --> 00:56:34.239
he's crying, y'all, lip quivering and all. You know, the

955
00:56:34.239 --> 00:56:36.159
whole thing, call me if you know where she is,

956
00:56:36.199 --> 00:56:39.840
if you see her, And the whole time he knew

957
00:56:39.840 --> 00:56:46.159
where she was, Okay. But whenever he later accounts the

958
00:56:46.159 --> 00:56:49.280
fight that they had, he makes it out as she

959
00:56:49.760 --> 00:56:53.599
hit him and when she hit him. That's what threw

960
00:56:53.679 --> 00:56:56.559
him over the edge, was when Tara punched him and

961
00:56:56.639 --> 00:57:00.599
hit him. But now we know that he was the

962
00:57:00.639 --> 00:57:04.360
one having the affair, which, by the way, he was

963
00:57:04.400 --> 00:57:07.079
accusing her of, which was never shown to be true.

964
00:57:07.719 --> 00:57:10.599
Well that Nanny Verena, however you would like to say it,

965
00:57:10.719 --> 00:57:16.280
Verena Verena. Her account of things was that she and Stephen, yes,

966
00:57:16.440 --> 00:57:21.079
we were having an affair, but the romantic shift in

967
00:57:21.119 --> 00:57:24.880
our relationship didn't start until just a couple of weeks

968
00:57:24.960 --> 00:57:28.719
before Tara went missing. And the reason she says I

969
00:57:28.760 --> 00:57:31.800
didn't come forward was at first she said, I wanted

970
00:57:31.800 --> 00:57:33.440
to protect him. You know, I thought we were in

971
00:57:33.519 --> 00:57:37.960
love and so I wanted to protect him. But that

972
00:57:38.159 --> 00:57:42.400
was all based on the story he told her when

973
00:57:42.480 --> 00:57:46.639
she came into the house unexpectedly after he had just

974
00:57:46.719 --> 00:57:50.719
shoved the body in the suv. Verena didn't know anything

975
00:57:50.760 --> 00:57:56.119
about that. She says, I came into the house and okay,

976
00:57:56.199 --> 00:57:57.920
me telling you the story. You know now that he

977
00:57:57.960 --> 00:58:00.400
had just killed Tara. She didn't know that. And when

978
00:58:00.440 --> 00:58:05.360
she came in the house, she says, before that day,

979
00:58:06.000 --> 00:58:09.039
he had confided in me that he and Tara were

980
00:58:09.079 --> 00:58:13.159
having marital problems, and their marital problems was because Tara

981
00:58:13.599 --> 00:58:17.880
was having an affair. He even brought out emails that

982
00:58:17.960 --> 00:58:22.320
were two years old and he showed them to her,

983
00:58:22.840 --> 00:58:25.000
trying to say, see, I think she's in an intimate

984
00:58:25.039 --> 00:58:28.199
relationship with an old friend, which was never proven to

985
00:58:28.239 --> 00:58:32.760
be true or even accurate. And so after he showed

986
00:58:32.800 --> 00:58:37.000
her those emails before Tara was dead, he started to

987
00:58:37.039 --> 00:58:40.760
then pursue the eighteen year old nanny. But he was

988
00:58:40.800 --> 00:58:43.880
concocting a whole house of cards here where he made

989
00:58:43.960 --> 00:58:46.719
her believe that Tara was being a bad wife cheating

990
00:58:46.760 --> 00:58:52.920
on him. He was victimized, and so after seeing the emails,

991
00:58:53.239 --> 00:58:56.239
she assumed that their relationship was ending because he was

992
00:58:56.639 --> 00:59:00.320
hinting to that, and so she once he started to

993
00:59:00.360 --> 00:59:03.840
pursue her, at first was not accepting it, but once

994
00:59:04.440 --> 00:59:07.159
all of this came to light supposedly, and she believed it.

995
00:59:07.960 --> 00:59:13.039
She then caved to the advances. It wasn't until the

996
00:59:13.159 --> 00:59:17.679
day that she came home and step and Stephen you know,

997
00:59:18.679 --> 00:59:22.039
was naked standing there in the house that he told her,

998
00:59:22.519 --> 00:59:27.280
oh my god, Tarah left me. Tarah left me. Her

999
00:59:27.280 --> 00:59:30.119
account was that she wasn't enjoying and an evening out

1000
00:59:30.159 --> 00:59:33.000
with her friends and she was just having drinks and whatever.

1001
00:59:33.280 --> 00:59:35.599
And she said, I got really annoyed with all of

1002
00:59:35.639 --> 00:59:38.519
the texts from Stephen and he kept saying that like

1003
00:59:38.800 --> 00:59:41.159
she owed him a kiss for example, for being out

1004
00:59:41.199 --> 00:59:44.199
without him. So she was kind of getting annoyed with it.

1005
00:59:44.280 --> 00:59:46.519
So she packed up her things and she went back

1006
00:59:46.559 --> 00:59:49.159
to the house to go, I guess talk to him

1007
00:59:49.199 --> 00:59:52.440
about whatever, because she was annoyed. When she came home,

1008
00:59:52.880 --> 00:59:55.679
she said, I walked in the door and Steven this

1009
00:59:55.719 --> 00:59:58.440
is a direct quote, was running down the stairs and

1010
00:59:58.480 --> 01:00:00.480
he was yelling. He yelled, what the the fuck are

1011
01:00:00.480 --> 01:00:05.039
you still doing here? So she was kind of surprised

1012
01:00:05.079 --> 01:00:08.480
when he said that, and she said she just kind

1013
01:00:08.480 --> 01:00:11.840
of stood there until Stephen said, oh, I thought you

1014
01:00:11.920 --> 01:00:15.599
were Tara. We just had a huge argument. She slapped

1015
01:00:15.599 --> 01:00:18.639
me in the face and she left. So he was saying, Oh,

1016
01:00:18.679 --> 01:00:21.440
I'm surprised because I thought you were Tara coming in.

1017
01:00:22.920 --> 01:00:26.280
So Verena was still surprised at this point, and so

1018
01:00:26.440 --> 01:00:29.679
she said. At that point, Stephen ran past her and

1019
01:00:29.719 --> 01:00:32.599
he ran into the dining room, where he collapsed and

1020
01:00:32.599 --> 01:00:35.000
he started crying and he plopped down in a chair

1021
01:00:35.039 --> 01:00:39.599
and he was sobbing. Tara left me. He was very emotional,

1022
01:00:39.840 --> 01:00:41.800
she said. He started pouring his heart out to her,

1023
01:00:41.840 --> 01:00:45.320
and he said that he needed her, he needed Verena.

1024
01:00:45.920 --> 01:00:48.840
But she was just going to have to be quiet

1025
01:00:48.880 --> 01:00:51.599
about their relationship because there was going to be a

1026
01:00:51.639 --> 01:00:53.920
divorce and he did not want to lose the kids

1027
01:00:54.280 --> 01:00:57.159
in a divorce if people knew that he had been

1028
01:00:57.199 --> 01:01:02.199
flirting with her. Now, the young girl believed that she

1029
01:01:02.280 --> 01:01:04.320
and Stephen were in love, even though this was only

1030
01:01:04.400 --> 01:01:06.320
a couple of weeks that they had been flirting with

1031
01:01:06.360 --> 01:01:11.360
one another, and she said she felt so compassionate towards him,

1032
01:01:11.880 --> 01:01:14.960
thinking Tara was doing him so wrong, and she felt bad.

1033
01:01:14.960 --> 01:01:17.239
She didn't want to be the reason that he would

1034
01:01:17.239 --> 01:01:20.440
lose the kids in the divorce. And so together they

1035
01:01:20.519 --> 01:01:23.639
sat down and they deleted all of their text messages

1036
01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:27.880
between one another that were, you know, flirtatious, flirtatious. Can

1037
01:01:27.920 --> 01:01:31.920
you not see the manipulation here? Like on so many levels?

1038
01:01:32.920 --> 01:01:36.639
And look, I know it seems stupid that she thought

1039
01:01:36.760 --> 01:01:39.639
it was this simple okay that oh my wife let

1040
01:01:39.679 --> 01:01:42.239
me left me, so now you know, I'm flirting with you.

1041
01:01:42.320 --> 01:01:46.079
But remember, y'all, she's eighteen, and I can see how

1042
01:01:46.119 --> 01:01:48.480
she would be swept up in the attention of this

1043
01:01:48.639 --> 01:01:52.679
older man who is this broken person and his marriage

1044
01:01:52.719 --> 01:01:55.079
is going bad, and he's mistreated and his wife has

1045
01:01:55.159 --> 01:01:58.840
hit him. You know, she's young, and I'm gonna chalk

1046
01:01:58.880 --> 01:02:01.039
it up to that. A really that in my gut

1047
01:02:01.079 --> 01:02:04.199
that she knew better than to have this relationship with him,

1048
01:02:04.239 --> 01:02:06.760
because that's why she kind of pushed it off at first.

1049
01:02:07.000 --> 01:02:10.239
It wasn't until she believed that Tara left him and

1050
01:02:10.239 --> 01:02:13.000
that he had been hit by Tara that she caved

1051
01:02:13.119 --> 01:02:18.480
to you know, her wants with him. He basically just

1052
01:02:18.519 --> 01:02:21.519
opined to her. Look, I do all the work with

1053
01:02:21.559 --> 01:02:24.440
the children. She's never here. You know that. That's why

1054
01:02:24.480 --> 01:02:27.800
you're hired here. I'm the mother, I'm also the father,

1055
01:02:28.239 --> 01:02:31.000
and she's not interested in doing her motherly duties. It's

1056
01:02:31.039 --> 01:02:34.280
all on me. And it was about this same time

1057
01:02:35.320 --> 01:02:38.519
that Steven, just so you can see the manipulation here,

1058
01:02:39.360 --> 01:02:42.760
called and made that voicemail that you heard, and left

1059
01:02:42.800 --> 01:02:46.639
that voicemail on Tara's phone, claiming that she needed to

1060
01:02:46.639 --> 01:02:49.880
call him back and stop ignoring him, when in reality,

1061
01:02:50.159 --> 01:02:52.800
he was lying so that young girl would believe it.

1062
01:02:53.079 --> 01:02:55.920
He had already killed Tara, and now he was throwing

1063
01:02:55.960 --> 01:03:00.800
Tara and her reputation under the bus, leaving that Tara

1064
01:03:00.880 --> 01:03:04.519
had left and just absconded from her family. Verena then

1065
01:03:04.639 --> 01:03:08.199
was happy to just freely love him, because remember they'd

1066
01:03:08.239 --> 01:03:11.639
been flirting for weeks, and that's when if you're ready

1067
01:03:11.639 --> 01:03:15.880
to get pissed off even more, that's when this guy

1068
01:03:16.360 --> 01:03:20.559
who has murdered his wife and is lying to this

1069
01:03:20.719 --> 01:03:24.320
young girl and is emailing if you remember an ex girlfriend,

1070
01:03:24.960 --> 01:03:27.280
that's when he just jumps on the sex train with

1071
01:03:27.320 --> 01:03:30.320
this young girl and they engage in oral sex together.

1072
01:03:30.840 --> 01:03:33.920
That night, they expressed their love to one another, and

1073
01:03:33.960 --> 01:03:37.119
then they spent the next few evenings kissing and cuddling

1074
01:03:37.400 --> 01:03:43.679
in the marital bed of Stephen and Tara. She continued

1075
01:03:43.719 --> 01:03:46.480
to see him for weeks, and she said admittedly it

1076
01:03:46.519 --> 01:03:50.239
was in secret, but it was secret because he kept

1077
01:03:50.280 --> 01:03:53.079
pleading with me, please don't say anything about our relationship,

1078
01:03:53.360 --> 01:03:56.679
because innocent people go to jail, and he didn't want

1079
01:03:56.679 --> 01:04:00.519
that to happen to him. He was really worried that

1080
01:04:00.559 --> 01:04:02.760
people might think he might be involved in his wife's

1081
01:04:02.760 --> 01:04:06.239
disappearance because he was messing around with this young girl,

1082
01:04:06.239 --> 01:04:09.400
and that's exactly what people were going to think. She,

1083
01:04:09.639 --> 01:04:12.880
on the other hand, had that conscience, remember the one

1084
01:04:12.920 --> 01:04:14.559
that he just didn't have that he talked about in

1085
01:04:14.559 --> 01:04:17.800
the emails. She started thinking, oh my god, Okay, your

1086
01:04:17.840 --> 01:04:21.280
wife's really missing. Now it's making news. I don't want

1087
01:04:21.320 --> 01:04:25.119
them to think I was involved somehow. So she did

1088
01:04:25.159 --> 01:04:28.519
remain quiet, but she started to worry, like, this is scary.

1089
01:04:28.599 --> 01:04:30.440
I don't know where your wife went, and now the

1090
01:04:30.480 --> 01:04:34.559
police don't know where she went. Once Terra's body was found,

1091
01:04:35.599 --> 01:04:40.719
that's when she was like, whoa hold on? She was scared,

1092
01:04:41.760 --> 01:04:44.199
and she said she called him secretly and they were

1093
01:04:44.199 --> 01:04:48.119
talking about it, and she said that Steven almost gave

1094
01:04:48.159 --> 01:04:52.599
off this feeling of like he was pleased with all

1095
01:04:52.639 --> 01:04:54.719
of the media attention that he had been getting, and

1096
01:04:54.760 --> 01:04:56.559
he was even gloating to her about having been on

1097
01:04:56.679 --> 01:05:01.280
dateline and it just didn't sit right with her, even

1098
01:05:01.320 --> 01:05:03.800
though she thought she loved him, this is still wrong, Like,

1099
01:05:04.199 --> 01:05:06.079
why do you seem excited to have been on the news?

1100
01:05:06.239 --> 01:05:11.800
You know, on February first, days before the killing, he

1101
01:05:12.000 --> 01:05:15.920
was up front saying to this young girl before he

1102
01:05:15.960 --> 01:05:18.679
even killed Tara, hey, I want to start sleeping with you.

1103
01:05:18.679 --> 01:05:20.119
I don't know how he worded it, but that's pretty

1104
01:05:20.199 --> 01:05:24.119
much what he was saying, and it escalated on February seventh,

1105
01:05:24.360 --> 01:05:27.519
whenever she says that he just dropped his pajama pants

1106
01:05:27.559 --> 01:05:31.480
in front of her and said, I guess today, I

1107
01:05:31.519 --> 01:05:33.480
don't know what he said, but he dropped his pants,

1108
01:05:33.760 --> 01:05:35.960
and she said that they ended up sleeping together for

1109
01:05:36.000 --> 01:05:39.400
the first time that day. This is before Tara was

1110
01:05:39.440 --> 01:05:46.360
even dead. He then the very next day confessed that

1111
01:05:46.440 --> 01:05:49.480
he loved her during oral sex. Well, I'm sure he did.

1112
01:05:51.039 --> 01:05:54.519
And that's when Tara and Stephen's six year old daughter

1113
01:05:55.519 --> 01:05:59.920
busted in the room and caught them in the bed

1114
01:06:00.719 --> 01:06:03.000
that next morning. So she said, I was hiding under

1115
01:06:03.039 --> 01:06:05.039
a blanket so the little girl wouldn't see me under

1116
01:06:05.039 --> 01:06:07.679
the bed because you know, her mom wasn't in town

1117
01:06:07.800 --> 01:06:10.199
or wasn't there, and so I was afraid we got busted.

1118
01:06:10.920 --> 01:06:13.719
She said that they also engaged in oral sex in

1119
01:06:13.760 --> 01:06:19.280
the grant's bed, and you know, the entire time that

1120
01:06:19.320 --> 01:06:22.960
this was happening, she's thinking Tara left Stephen, but Tara

1121
01:06:23.480 --> 01:06:27.119
was dead and had been cut up into pieces. She

1122
01:06:27.360 --> 01:06:30.880
also said, okay, well, now I'm thinking back on this,

1123
01:06:30.920 --> 01:06:34.760
and she said, so, you know, I was only scheduled

1124
01:06:34.760 --> 01:06:38.280
to work Monday through Friday for the family, and so

1125
01:06:38.920 --> 01:06:41.199
it was kind of odd to her that he asked

1126
01:06:41.239 --> 01:06:44.079
her to come over on a Saturday and a Sunday,

1127
01:06:44.119 --> 01:06:47.159
this was February tenth and February eleventh, because he said

1128
01:06:47.199 --> 01:06:48.960
he had to go run a bunch of errands and

1129
01:06:49.000 --> 01:06:51.960
he needed I guess her to watch the kids. And

1130
01:06:52.000 --> 01:06:55.000
based on an investigation and looking at the statements that

1131
01:06:55.079 --> 01:06:59.039
Vanna made, that's when police are like, okay, this makes sense,

1132
01:06:59.400 --> 01:07:02.239
Steven did I'd go run errands? He ran errands to

1133
01:07:02.280 --> 01:07:10.719
his family's machine shop. Ten days later, she returned to Germany,

1134
01:07:11.519 --> 01:07:14.519
but they were continuing to talk secretly by phone and

1135
01:07:14.599 --> 01:07:20.800
by email. Once Terras Torso had been located, he called

1136
01:07:20.800 --> 01:07:23.760
her about two o'clock in the morning that morning on

1137
01:07:23.880 --> 01:07:27.559
March the third, and he confessed, Okay, look she's not missing.

1138
01:07:27.920 --> 01:07:32.400
I killed her. He said, I want to tell you goodbye.

1139
01:07:32.440 --> 01:07:33.960
I'm going to go to prison for the rest of

1140
01:07:34.000 --> 01:07:36.000
my life, but I just need you to know it

1141
01:07:36.079 --> 01:07:38.639
was an accident. It was an accident. It was an accident.

1142
01:07:40.199 --> 01:07:43.639
After Stephen confessed it, she immediately hung up and called

1143
01:07:43.639 --> 01:07:46.119
the police. So I just I don't hate on this

1144
01:07:46.159 --> 01:07:48.599
little girl, this young girl. I mean, she's eighteen. I

1145
01:07:48.599 --> 01:07:50.840
don't hate on her. I think that she was manipulated.

1146
01:07:51.360 --> 01:07:51.599
I do.

1147
01:07:53.159 --> 01:07:57.199
Once she gave that timeline of the weekend and that

1148
01:07:57.320 --> 01:08:00.320
she worked on days she didn't normally work, they were

1149
01:08:00.360 --> 01:08:04.000
able to figure out this. Tara's body was in the

1150
01:08:04.039 --> 01:08:08.519
back of the suv when she came to babysit the kids,

1151
01:08:09.000 --> 01:08:13.280
and that's when Steven drove to his family's machine shop

1152
01:08:14.199 --> 01:08:17.479
and cut up her body. That's how he had the

1153
01:08:17.520 --> 01:08:19.760
time to do it. And I don't know if you've

1154
01:08:19.760 --> 01:08:23.239
ever watched the Netflix series it's called You Like You.

1155
01:08:23.399 --> 01:08:26.279
It's really good, go check it out. But this is

1156
01:08:26.439 --> 01:08:30.039
literally one of the episodes that happens in that series.

1157
01:08:30.479 --> 01:08:32.279
The whole time. When I was watching that series back

1158
01:08:32.279 --> 01:08:34.560
in the day, I was thinking, Oh my god, yeah, right,

1159
01:08:35.199 --> 01:08:37.840
truth is stranger than fiction. He uses a machine shop

1160
01:08:37.880 --> 01:08:40.000
to cut up a body, and then this happens in

1161
01:08:40.039 --> 01:08:42.720
real life. They believe he laid out a bunch of

1162
01:08:42.760 --> 01:08:45.079
tarps on the floor. He took the body out of

1163
01:08:45.079 --> 01:08:47.960
the suv. Nobody's there, they don't know it. He places

1164
01:08:48.000 --> 01:08:49.920
her on top of the tarp and that's when he

1165
01:08:49.920 --> 01:08:53.279
started to dismember her. After he cut her up, he

1166
01:08:53.439 --> 01:08:57.119
had placed the pieces of her body all around the

1167
01:08:57.159 --> 01:09:02.399
Stony Creek metro Park. Okay, scattered her. But once the

1168
01:09:02.439 --> 01:09:09.279
police then made that pressure police conference and he realized

1169
01:09:09.279 --> 01:09:11.600
that they were starting to go do that search, he

1170
01:09:11.720 --> 01:09:14.239
ran back and he picked up her torso. He went

1171
01:09:14.319 --> 01:09:18.359
back and got the dorso. And I'm guessing and the

1172
01:09:18.399 --> 01:09:19.920
police are kind of thinking maybe he thought he was

1173
01:09:19.960 --> 01:09:21.600
going to go move it somewhere else because that was

1174
01:09:21.640 --> 01:09:25.520
the main part of the body, but that warrant was

1175
01:09:25.640 --> 01:09:29.000
executed before he had time to go get rid of

1176
01:09:29.000 --> 01:09:33.279
that torso. And as if this is not barbaric enough

1177
01:09:33.359 --> 01:09:39.119
on all fronts, and I'm gonna go ahead and tell you, you

1178
01:09:37.600 --> 01:09:41.399
know this is rough. Okay, I'm gonna let you listen

1179
01:09:41.520 --> 01:09:45.159
to his confession in his own words about how he

1180
01:09:45.239 --> 01:09:48.119
cut her up. Take a listen to this back up

1181
01:09:48.119 --> 01:09:50.640
tear's hands up that I cut to the next joint

1182
01:09:50.920 --> 01:09:54.600
and the next joint and stand with her legs and.

1183
01:09:56.359 --> 01:10:01.159
Something I threw up, and I took again, and I

1184
01:10:01.239 --> 01:10:03.079
just told myself, look, if you don't do this, you're

1185
01:10:03.079 --> 01:10:06.279
going to prison for the rest of your life. And he

1186
01:10:06.399 --> 01:10:09.680
kept cutting on. I put everything. I think I put

1187
01:10:09.720 --> 01:10:12.439
some newspaper in there, because at one point there was

1188
01:10:12.479 --> 01:10:15.880
some blood. It was real stick like like syrup. So

1189
01:10:16.000 --> 01:10:19.359
you had terrors entire body in one in one rubbers container.

1190
01:10:19.479 --> 01:10:22.720
So early the next day, if you're not just completely

1191
01:10:22.760 --> 01:10:25.840
just grossed out by now, early the next day. The

1192
01:10:25.880 --> 01:10:30.600
next morning, after disassembling his wife, he goes to Stony

1193
01:10:30.640 --> 01:10:35.960
Creek Park with his kid's sled. It's snowy okay. He

1194
01:10:36.079 --> 01:10:40.159
goes with his kid's sled and he places his wife's

1195
01:10:40.279 --> 01:10:45.319
body parts that are in the buckets on top of

1196
01:10:45.359 --> 01:10:48.800
the sled. Now they're at the top of a hill

1197
01:10:48.840 --> 01:10:54.960
where he's at and like something out of a bad movie, y'all,

1198
01:10:55.680 --> 01:10:59.600
the sled takes off down the hill with the body

1199
01:10:59.640 --> 01:11:04.000
parts in it. If this it would almost be comical.

1200
01:11:04.039 --> 01:11:06.680
If this wasn't the most horrific thing that I'm expressing

1201
01:11:06.720 --> 01:11:09.680
to you. There is a runaway sled with his wife's

1202
01:11:09.680 --> 01:11:12.159
body parts in it, and he's having to chase after

1203
01:11:12.239 --> 01:11:15.680
it to catch it. Listen in his own words, Listen

1204
01:11:15.680 --> 01:11:17.079
to him as he describes it.

1205
01:11:17.079 --> 01:11:21.159
It was like Keston tops the sledge to both and

1206
01:11:21.199 --> 01:11:24.479
now I'm chasing after this sled that has my wife's

1207
01:11:24.520 --> 01:11:27.960
kind of body in it down a hill and I

1208
01:11:28.039 --> 01:11:31.800
finally got to stop when it fell over and curl.

1209
01:11:32.640 --> 01:11:38.279
It's not all these pieces of now fall always like unbelievable.

1210
01:11:39.439 --> 01:11:43.000
I wouldn't even believe this if it wasn't like, you know,

1211
01:11:43.119 --> 01:11:47.520
proven that this happened. He ultimately, in his mind, was

1212
01:11:47.560 --> 01:11:50.960
hoping that the animals in the park would scatter her

1213
01:11:51.000 --> 01:11:53.000
body and eat it and it would all just kind

1214
01:11:53.039 --> 01:11:55.239
of go away, and that nothing would be left. But

1215
01:11:55.800 --> 01:11:57.960
you know, obviously he had to go back and he

1216
01:11:58.319 --> 01:12:01.560
had to move her to keep her torso from being found.

1217
01:12:03.199 --> 01:12:08.439
So with the use of canine dogs and officers out

1218
01:12:08.479 --> 01:12:12.079
there on foot, once this confession was made, the canine

1219
01:12:12.119 --> 01:12:16.479
officers were able to locate a majority of Tara's remains

1220
01:12:17.279 --> 01:12:22.319
back in the Stony Creek, Park in Shelby Township. They

1221
01:12:22.319 --> 01:12:24.680
did not get all of her parts back, but they

1222
01:12:24.720 --> 01:12:28.000
were able to get a majority of her back so

1223
01:12:28.119 --> 01:12:32.800
that she could be laid to rest. Stephen was charged

1224
01:12:32.920 --> 01:12:37.319
with murder, and after a three week trial, he was

1225
01:12:37.319 --> 01:12:42.159
found guilty of second degree murder and mutilation of a corpse,

1226
01:12:42.920 --> 01:12:47.039
and he was sentenced to fifty to eighty years in prison.

1227
01:12:49.079 --> 01:12:52.279
I hope Stephen enjoys his prison life. He earned it.

1228
01:12:53.159 --> 01:12:55.560
I hope he enjoys it, and look, having done some

1229
01:12:55.680 --> 01:12:59.600
time myself behind prison walls, I do want to give

1230
01:12:59.680 --> 01:13:05.239
him a little unsolicited advice, and that would be to

1231
01:13:05.279 --> 01:13:08.920
take care of your eyes, because, based on everything that

1232
01:13:08.960 --> 01:13:11.920
I've learned about you, those are the only balls you've got.