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Man charged in 2005 disappearance, death of Georgia beauty queen

OCILLA, Ga. — The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Thursday afternoon that a man has been arrested in connection with the 2005 disappearance and murder of Georgia teacher Tara Grinstead.

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Agents said someone walked into the sheriff's office earlier this week with information linking a man named Ryan Alexander Duke to Grinstead's disappearance and murder.

Duke attended the high school where Grinstead worked and graduated three years prior to her disappearance, according to the GBI.

He was arrested Wednesday afternoon.

GBI officials said the investigation continues and that authorities plan to do more interviews.

WSBTV reported on Thursday morning that authorities had gotten a major break in the more than 10-year-old case.

Grinstead, a former beauty pageant queen, was reported missing from her Ocilla home in October 2005.

Witnesses last saw Grinstead at a beauty pageant and then at a co-worker's barbecue on Oct. 22, 2005. Two days later, she was reported missing when she didn't show up to teach history at the county high school.

In a February 2006 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Anita Gattis said her sister would not have left on her own.

Gattis believed her sister left with someone she knew on the night she disappeared. Her house was locked but her car, a pearl white Mitsubishi 3000 GT, was unlocked and in the carport, with $100 in the console and clay on the tires.

"Tara never left her car unlocked and never drove on dirt roads," Gattis said.

Police found Grinstead's cellphone at her home. They also found a single latex glove outside.

"There was no struggle in the house. Tara was a singer. That was her talent in pageants," Gattis said of her sister, thrice crowned Miss Tifton and a contestant in several Miss Georgia pageants. "If someone was removing her, she'd project her voice. And she took self-defense. She'd go out kicking and screaming and fighting."