The man charged with murdering the beauty queen of Georgia Tara Grinstead He failed to get many testimonies from the longtime friend whom he wanted to blame for the murder. The friend, who was previously jailed on separate but related charges, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on Tuesday.
RyanDuke has insisted that his co-defendant Bo dukes (no relative) was Grinstead’s real killer, but the former made little headway when the latter invoked his constitutional rights.
Interrogated by Ryan’s attorney Ashleigh KaufmanBo wouldn’t even give his name as he came to court or respond to being shown an exhibit.
Bo Dukes is already serving a 25-year sentence, but only for burning Grinstead’s body in 2005. Prosecutors said Ryan is the one who fatally hit Grinstead at her home after she caught him breaking in. He asked Bo for help, they said.
But Ryan — who initially admitted to killing Grinstead in an interview with authorities in 2017 — recanted his admission in his testimony on Tuesday. He claimed that it was Bo who actually killed Grinstead sometime on October 22 or 23, 2005. In this version of eventsBo recruited roommate Ryan, who had become ill in her bathroom from drinking beer and tequila.
Ryan testified that Bo took him to a pecan orchard and showed him Grinstead’s body. Bo petted the remains, he said. In this version of events, they took wood from a barn and burned the body. Ryan insisted that until the investigation in 2017 he never revealed the truth because he was afraid of what Bo might do and that he made the false confession because Bo would never tell the truth.
Ryan emphasized this allegation during cross-examination, saying Bo’s powerful family got him a lawyer. prosecutor JD Hart challenged him about it, saying Bo’s family had written him off.
As Ryan testified, at the time of the murder, Bo was living with him and Ryan’s brother in a trailer, but Bo made no financial contribution, only driving the vehicleless Ryan around when requested.
In other words, Bo was a jerk. Ryan dismisses Hart’s characterization that the men — who have known each other since high school — are “best friends.” Ryan claimed that he was just Bo’s “friend,” but he didn’t think Bo was ever his friend.
But witnesses said you couldn’t see one without the other, Hart told him about their relationship. As Ryan testified, they lived together not in one, but in two apartments.
Ryan and Bo “were bandaged at the waist,” she said during cross-examination.
Hart also challenged the defendant about a phone call he made at Grinstead’s home and that he traveled to what he reportedly believed to be the murdered woman’s home. Ryan had said that he initially tried to return Grinstead’s purse, which he believed Bo had stolen.
Ryan admitted under cross-examination that he was in the orchard with the body, that he touched the body (although he claimed it was only after being told to do so), that he helped move the body, that he cut the wood got to burn the body and that he was in the truck when they drove to the place where they burned it. He said he had only been there once and he wasn’t sure if Bo had returned.
 was Grinstead’s real killer, but the former made little headway when the latter invoked his constitutional rights.){kind=link}