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….