Suspect sentenced to 10 years in prison after being acquitted in beauty queen murder

Ryan Duke was sentenced to 10 years prison for concealing Tara Grinstead’s death but acquitted of her murder

The body of former beauty queen Tara Grinstead has never been located (Georgia Bureau of Investigation)

A suspect who was acquitted of the 2005 murder of former Georgia beauty queen Tara Grinstead has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for concealing her death.

Ryan Duke, 36, was sentenced to the maximum term in Irwin County Superior Court on Monday and will be eligible for parole immediately for time served.

On Friday, a jury in Irwin County found him not guilty of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and burglary.

Ms Grinstead, a 30-year-old popular high school teacher, vanished from her home in small town of Ocilla in 2005.

Her disappearance baffled family, friends and investigators in her rural hometown for more than a decade.

In 2017, Duke was arrested and told Georgia Bureau of Investigation officers that he broke into Ms Grinstead’s home to steal money for drugs, and hit and killed her after she startled him.

He led detectives to a pecan orchard where he said he and a friend, Bo Dukes, burned her body.

However, when he took the witness stand during his trial, Duke insisted he had made a false confession and was innocent.

Ryan Duke, pictured in 2018, testified that he had falsely confessed to Ms Grinstead’s murder (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

GBI agents told the jury that Duke knew key details about the case that had never been disclosed to the public.

Duke testified that his confession was false. He said Dukes, who is no relation, woke him up at the mobile home where they lived together in 2005 and said he had killed Grinstead and showed Duke the teacher’s purse and wallet. Duke lied to investigators because Dukes had already killed one person and he was afraid, he testified.

Missing Teacher Georgia (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Duke was convicted in 2019 of helping move and burn Ms Grinstead’s body but was never charged with murder.

Ashleigh Merchant, one of Duke’s defense attorneys, told jurors during opening arguments that her client was coerced into confessing while under the influence of drugs and his statements to investigators can’t be trusted.

She said investigators “tried very hard” to find DNA on the glove matching a second man already convicted of helping dispose of Grinstead’s body, but test results were inconclusive.

After the trial, Ms Grinstead’s family told WSB-TV2 they were devastated by the verdict.

Irwin County District Attorney Bryce Johnson told the news outlet: “It’s been a 17-year nightmare for them. I know they are disappointed in the verdict like we are. We felt the evidence in this case was overwhelming.”

Ms Grinstead was a cheerleading coach who had been a contestant in the Miss Georgia pageant three times. In 1998, she began teaching history at Irwin County High School in Ocilla, Georgia, and completed a master’s degree in education at Valdosta State University in 2003.

The popular podcast Up and Vanished was credited with helping bring Ms Grinstead’s murder back into the spotlight.

Associated Press contributed to this report