Blairsville case puts highlight on other missing persons

By MEGAN MATTEUCCI

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Connie Grinstead should be happy to have more tips coming in to help find her missing stepdaughter, but all she can do is cry and pray.

The hunt for a missing Blairsville mom Kristi Cornwell has spawned more tips to come in for Tara Grinstead, a south Georgia teacher who was reported missing almost four years ago.

“It is not a cold case. A tip came in as recently as last week,” Connie Grinstead said Tuesday. “I still get phone calls. It’s amazing to me that people have not forgotten.”

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has spent the past two weeks searching for Cornwell, who was reportedly abducted while walking near her parents’ Blairsville home. The search for Cornwell, a 38-year-old former probation officer, has captured media attention across the nation.

While the Cornwell case has brought in a few hundred tips, the Grinstead mystery has attracted thousands of tips and remains the GBI’s largest case file. Grinstead has garnered more tips than other case in the GBI’s history, Special Agent Gary Rothwell said.

“It’s the darndest case I’ve ever seen,” said Rothwell, a GBI agent for 28 years. “We get information on that case all the time, just not information that is leading us anywhere. Typically with a case like this - even high profile cases - information diminishes. But we get information on the Grinstead case all the time.”

As of Tuesday, there were 421 women over the age of 18 missing in Georgia, according to GBI spokesman John Bankhead. The majority of the cases have turned “cold,” leaving investigators and families at a standstill.

For investigators, it means an open case file, random emails from psychics claiming to have the answer and having to let down family members.

For Connie Grinstead, not knowing what happened to her stepdaughter is harder than having to say goodbye at a funeral.

“We already lost her, but add on top of that we don’t even know what happened to her,” said Grinstead, of Birmingham. “You are still stuck in time, sitting on fence and can’t get off on either side because you don’t know.”

Tara Grinstead was a 30-year-old high school history teacher and former beauty queen. She was last seen Oct. 22, 2005 at a cookout about six blocks from her Ocilla home in south central Georgia.

She got a call on her cell phone and left. She didn’t show up at work the next day and her family has not heard from her, Rothwell said.

Grinstead’s cell phone, dog and cat were left in her house and there were no signs of a struggle. But her purse and car keys were gone, despite her car still sitting in the driveway, Rothwell said.

A cell phone call is also the last contact investigators have for Cornwell, who was talking to her boyfriend Douglas Davis in Atlanta when she was reportedly abducted.

Douglas told investigators Cornwell complained a car was following her. He then heard signs of struggle and Cornwell say “don’t take me,” Davis said.

Investigators have combed sections of three states, interviewed sex offenders and reviewed hundreds of tips in the Cornwell case, but received no “significant” leads, Bankhead said Tuesday.

This week, U.S. Marshals spent two days traipsing through woods in North Carolina after Fox’s “America’s Most Wanted” received a tip following Cornwell’s family’s appearance on the show.

“We didn’t think [the tip] was reliable from the beginning,” Bankhead said Tuesday. “But we’re checking into everything. You have to.”

The GBI said it prioritizes each tip based on the information, the caller’s knowledge of the individual and investigators’ ability to check it out.

Much of the time, the number of tips depends on the amount of media attention a case receives. The Grinstead case appeared on CBS’ “48 Hours,” along with regional media.

“You got cases in Atlanta that don’t receive that kind of attention,” Bankhead said. “We don’t make the decision about the media. We prioritize leads, not cases.”

In the majority of missing person’s cases, the victim usually knows their attackers, Bankhead said.

While the possibility a missing person simply left without telling anyone always exists, the GBI said in each of the cases they investigate it appears a crime occurred. Last year, the GBI went through all missing person cases in its files and trimmed the list by about 100 women who had returned on their own, Bankhead said.

Despite some cases growing cold, the GBI said it never assumes a person is dead until they find the individual.

In some cases, tips come out of nowhere like when a caller said Mary Shotwell Little, a newlywed reportedly abducted from a Buckhead parking lot in 1965, was under a garage floor in Forsyth County. The tip came in 30 years after the woman went missing. Agents dug up the floor, but found nothing, Bankhead said.

Little remains on the GBI’s list, a list that Connie Grinstead reviews frequently.

“Until we find her, we can not totally shut the door on hope,” Grinstead said about her stepdaughter. “When I saw the Kristi Cornwell story, I felt sick to my stomach because I know what is ahead for that family. I know they are just beginning that journey.”

Grinstead said she lights a candle on a Web site for her missing stepdaughter and posts a message each morning. She said she wants the Cornwell family to know that tiny steps like that help.

“If you start to think about what ifs, all the maybes and possibilities, the pain becomes unbearable,” she said. “Somebody may have taken our loved ones, but they can never take our precious memories of them. They are ours forever.”