Atlanta Monster · iHeartPodcasts and Tenderfoot TV

Live from CrimeCon [bonus]

June 15, 2018·52 min·4 clips

In a town of 3,000 people, 15 million podcast listeners created a pressure cooker that forced the killer's accomplice into the discussion board.

The episode does not start with the case. It opens with a run of iHeart promos for other shows, court allegations, and paranormal stories before the stage material finally comes in. Once it does, the live segment starts over. An emcee welcomes Dr. Marie Scott, points the room toward Up and Vanish, and plays a clip built from news audio, memory, and case updates. The clip centers on Tara Grinstead. She comes through as loving, open, and caring, a teacher who had been missing for nearly 11 years after she was last seen in October 2005. The tone is steady and procedural. News voices walk through the disappearance, Payne Lindsey's investigation, rumors that began to matter, and the feeling that the story was about to shift. Then it does. The excerpt mentions GBI agents at an orchard in Ben Hill County and former students under arrest in connection with Tara Grinstead. This is not soft-focus nostalgia. The stage setup lets the room hear the old broadcasts, then sit in the gap between disappearance, rumor, and public accusation. Payne is asked to look back after the montage, with the question framed around his reaction roughly a year and a half or almost two years later. The excerpt cuts off before much of the answer gets going. Because of that, this slice plays more like a live setup and evidence reel than a full interview exchange. The archival material carries it. Hearing the case rebuilt through broadcast fragments gives the segment its weight, especially because the host framing stays spare. The ads take up real space. Anyone pulling a clip from this should screen carefully around the unrelated promotions, since the useful story material starts only after a long promotional run.

As heard by us

A CrimeCon bonus detours into Up and Vanish, with Payne Lindsey still visibly shaken by the Tara Grinstead case years later.

This CrimeCon bonus only briefly feels like Atlanta Monster before it turns into a live-stage look back at Up and Vanish and the Tara Grinstead case.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Want Tara Grinstead's case through Payne Lindsey's own reaction?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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