Gainesville man indicted in Internet serial-killer hoax

A Gainesville man who called himself the "catch me killer" has been charged with making false claims that he killed 16 people and was responsible for the disappearance of an Oscilla woman.

"We had to spend hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars just to run this guy down," said Gary Rothwell, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent in charge in Perry.

Andrew Scott Haley was indicted Tuesday in Hall County for tampering with evidence and making false statements, the only felonies in Georgia law that covers the crime he is accused of committing.

The investigation started in February when the father of another missing woman saw a video posted on the internet site You Tube.

The video shows a man, believed to be Haley, with his face concealed and his voice distorted as he explained his "game." The man claims he had killed 16 people and would kill another if law enforcement tried to fiind him.

The GBI's Rothwell said in thier investigation they discoved to videos believed to have been made and posted by Haley.

The two videos made a specific references to Oscilla school teacher Tara Grinstead, who was last seen on Oct. 22, 2006. A link to one of the videos — "Confessions of a serial killer" — had been put on a website created by the father of an Orlando woman who has been missing three years, and he called police.

"To me you just can't hardly get any lower than this," Drew Kesse told an Orlando television station.

Jennifer Kesse, 24, disappeared from her condominium on Jan. 24, 2006. Florida authorities believe Kesse was the victim of a random crime.

"He had a game he wanted to play on the internet," Rothwell said of Haley. "He would provide clues [concerning the people he claimed he killed] and whoever was able to follow his clues would ultimately learn his identification. The first clue clearly regarded Tara Grinstead."

Grinstead, a popular 30-year-old high school teacher and beauty queen, vanished on Oct. 22, 2005. On that day, she helped contestants get ready for the Miss Sweet Potato Pageant in Fitzgerald in south Georgia before she joined friends at a barbecue.The friends said she went home around 11 p.m.

Grinstead was reported missing two days later because she did not report for work. Police found her cellphone at her house and her unlocked car in the driveway, but her purse and keys were gone. They believe she was a victim of someone she knew.