If you followed my work when I was at Court TV you may recall the case of Tara Lynn Grant, a Michigan mother of two who was murdered and dismembered by her husband, Stephen Grant, in Feb. 2007. Unfortunately, the tragedy surrounding this case did not end there and now may have played a role in the death of Stephen Grant's father.
For those of you not familiar with the case, I'll recap some of the major events.
Stephen Grant reported his wife missing on Feb. 14, 2007. Grant told police that he had an argument with his wife five days prior and that she had walked out of the house and got into a dark sedan and they drove off.
"It's very suspect," Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackell said in a Feb. 2007 interview with FOXNews.com. "There are a lot of questions still unanswered. No one has seen or heard from her since her husband last saw her ... Nobody seems to know where she's at."
Tara's sister, Alicia Standerfer, agreed. When I interviewed her for Crime Library in Feb. 2007, she said she had been going over every scenario in her head but was desperately trying to "keep the bad and ugly" out of her brain.
In the days that followed, The Detroit News published a partial transcript of e-mails Grant had allegedly exchanged with an ex-girlfriend prior to his wife's disappearance. Within the e-mails, Grant made several sexual innuendos and in one particular message he boldly wrote:
"I just think of marriage vows like speed limits. Sometimes you have to break them, and sometimes you get caught. You just need to keep an eye on the road to avoid detection."
Not long after the e-mails were released, Grant agreed to an interview with The Detroit News. During the interview, Grant said his wife had been angry with him because he told her he wanted a divorce.
"Before she left, the last words she said to me were, 'Don't forget to take my truck in on Monday' (for repairs)," he said. "That really took the wind out of my sails. She was telling me that's all I was; it was like, 'You be the valet,' and take my car in."
Grant maintained his innocence but acknowledged that he understood why some people might think he had something to do with his wife's disappearance.
"That's what I would think when I watched cases like this," he said. "When Laci Peterson came up missing (in 2002), I was sure her husband (Scott) did it. But now I'm on the other side of it. I know people think I had something to do with why Tara is missing, but I didn't do it."
