Defendant testifies he falsely confessed to killing Ga. teacher

OCILLA, Ga. — The man standing trial in the killing of a Georgia high school teacher who vanished in 2005 took the witness stand Tuesday and testified that he gave a false confession to investigators.

Ryan Duke faces an automatic sentence of life in prison if he’s convicted of murdering Tara Grinstead, whose disappearance from her rural Georgia home remained a mystery for more than a decade until Duke and another man were arrested in 2017.

Asked in front of the jury Tuesday by defense attorney Evan Gibbs if he had murdered Grinstead, Duke replied: “I did not.”

Duke’s testimony in Irwin County Superior Court directly contradicts his recorded statements to Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents five years ago, when Duke said he broke into Grinstead’s house to steal money for drugs and fatally struck her when she startled him.

Duke told agents he tried calling Grinstead’s house from a payphone after he ran, and when she didn’t answer he returned to the scene to find her dead.

Duke said the night of the killing in October 2005 he was woken up by his friend with a similar last name, Bo Dukes, in the mobile home where they were living.

Duke testified: “He said he killed Tara.” He said Dukes then showed him Grinstead’s purse and wallet.

Dukes was sentenced to 25 years in prison after a jury convicted him in 2019 of helping Duke remove Grinstead’s body from the house and burn it in a pecan orchard. Dukes denied killing Grinstead and wasn’t charged with murder.

Defense attorneys for Duke have said he gave a false confession under the influence of drugs. When prosecutor J.D. Hart asked Duke on cross-examination why he would have told such a lie to investigators, Duke said he was afraid.