ABBEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — After a jury convicted Bo Dukes for helping conceal the 2005 death of Tara Grinstead yesterday, he has now been sentenced.
Dukes was convicted on four counts, including two counts of making a false statement, hindering the apprehension of a criminal, and concealing the death of another.
A Wilcox County judge sentenced Dukes to the maximum amount allowed by the prosecution – 25 years. The jury deliberated less than an hour before rendering the verdict.
Dukes denied knowing anything about Grinstead’s disappearance or death, but confessed months later. Dukes claimed he had not killed the 30-year-old history teacher from Ocilla, but had helped his friend Ryan Duke burn her body to ash over a grisly two-day period on his Dukes’ family’s pecan farm.
Ryan Duke is charged with the murder and his trial is set for April 1.
In a leaked GBI confession, Duke told agents during a four hour interview he had broken into a random house looking for drug money and when Grinstead had walked in and caught him, he’d punched her. He also told agents then that he didn’t remember removing her clothing.
WSB-TV Atlanta reported that during the confession, Duke said he’d been a coward for not telling what happened sooner, and that he had gone to a pay phone to call Grinstead’s home hours later to see if she would answer. Agents wrote in their report that they had known for years about a call from that phone and that his knowledge of it was critical.
After he called and she didn’t answer, he returned to her home, wrapped her in a blanket and placed it in the back of a truck which belonged to Bo Dukes, after which he transported it to a pecan orchard and dumped it. Later, Duke and Dukes returned and moved her farther back into the woods and burned it, which required days. They returned to the burn pile only once to re-burn it and throw trash over it.
A jury has convicted Bo Dukes of concealing the death of Tara Grinstead whose slaying remained a mystery for more than a decade after her body was burned to ash and bone fragments in a rural pecan orchard.
Dukes was the first of two suspects to stand trial in the 2005 death of Tara Grinstead. The fate of the teacher and former beauty queen didn’t come to light until the men were arrested in 2017.
