TARA GRINSTEAD--REWARD DOUBLES

Ocilla- The reward in the case of Missing Georgia teacher, Tara Grinstead is going up to $200,000. There will be a press conference tomorrow to announce a $100,000 increase in the reward is expected. A private citizen working with both the Grinstead family and the relatives of missing teen Natalee Holloway, says the money has been donated anonymously. $100,000 has already been raised.



No one really knows for certain precisely what Tara did after she pulled into her little carport that night. Neighbors would later say that they heard her dog barking, but that was hardly unusual.

A creature of habit, she turned on the nightstand lamp, her signal to neighbors Joe and Myrtle Portier, even though she knew they were already asleep. She plugged her cell phone into its charger and changed out of the clothes she had worn that evening. She dropped them on the divan beside her bed. Later, they would be found there, partially hidden under a pile of other garments, many of them still on hangers.

But there was something else Tara had been grappling with, her close friends knew. For months, she had been bouncing between emotional extremes while trying to come to terms with the end of her six-year relationship with Marcus Harper. She had hoped they might marry. But Marcus had other plans. His stint in the Army Rangers had opened a whole new world for the former Ocilla cop, and now, serving as an independent consultant traveling often to war torn Iraq, he and Tara had become very different people.

Though Tara ended the relationship, she remained deeply disturbed by its failure, by all accounts. As many of the people closest to her would later say, despite it all, she remained deeply in love with him.

Clues to Ponder:

• The devoutly religious 30-year-old failed to show up for church services. It was when Tara Grinstead wasn't greeting students with her welcoming smile on Monday morning, October 24, that co-workers and friends realized something was wrong.

• Her cell phone, which she never left the house without, was still inside on the charger.

• Her bedroom lamp was knocked askew and her digital alarm clock had apparently fallen to the floor and was six hours off.

• The driver's seat on Tara's car had been pushed back further than the 5-foot-3 woman would have been likely to favor it.

• There was a latex glove discovered (the kind worn by doctors, and paramedics and cops) on Tara's front lawn.

• Harper, Tara's ex-boyfriend was a former Ocilla police officer who still had strong ties to the department.

• Investigators interviewed Harper, Dykes, and others she dated, among them Rhett Roberts, the son of the couple who rented the house to Tara, whom she had dated briefly following her breakup with Harper.

• They also quizzed young Anthony Vickers, a 20-year-old former student who had developed an unhealthy attachment to the young teacher, and was once arrested on a disorderly person's charge after banging on Tara's door repeatedly.

• Even though authorities had not identified him as such, Harper then retained an attorney, Thomas Pajadas, a local lawyer for whom Harper's father works as a paralegal.

• There was a report that Harper and Tara had been seen arguing in the days before her disappearance.

• Harper claimed in a statement that Tara had threatened to commit suicide, and added that Tara had returned later that day and asked him for a hug, apparently indicating that it would be the last time.

• Since his interview last week with Greta Van Susteren, Harper has declined other requests for interviews.