Acquitted of murder, man sentenced for hiding teacher's body

OCILLA, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia man was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday for hiding the death of a popular high school teacher whose disappearance baffled family, friends and investigators in her rural hometown for more than a decade.

Ryan Alexander Duke was sentenced in Irwin County Superior Court just three days after a jury acquitted him of murder in the 2005 death of Tara Grinstead. Duke testified that he gave investigators a false confession after a friend killed Grinstead. He was convicted only of concealing her death.

The 10-year sentence imposed by Judge Bill Reinhardt was the maximum punishment allowed. Duke has already served about half that time in jail awaiting trial.

A history teacher and former beauty queen, Grinstead vanished at age 30 from her home in Ocilla. Even as years passed, her family held out hope that Grinstead would be found alive until Duke told investigators in 2017 that he killed Grinstead and with the help of a friend burned her body to ash.

“Every day, they couldn’t find Tara," Judge Reinhardt told Duke at sentencing. "And it is true that despite whatever your selfish feelings were for not coming forward, you had to the power to stop that pain for years.”

Five years ago, Duke told agents with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that he had broken into Grinstead's home in October 2005 to steal money for drugs. He saidhe fatally struck Grinstead when she startled him.

But Duke recanted his 2017 confession during his trial, testifying to the jury that he made it up under the influence of drugs and in fear of the real killer — his friend with a similar last name, Bo Dukes.

Prosecutors insisted Duke's confession included details only the killer would know — such as Duke telling investigators he called Grinstead's home from a pay phone...