Stay-at-home dad kills business exec wife, scatters body parts

a successful executive goes off the grid and her distraught husband is at a loss [Music] the family's beautiful teen nanny in the middle the venom just began spewing out of her mouth then the most gruesome discovery of all Tara grant was a beautiful and smart small-town girl with big-city dreams in the corporate world she kept moving up the ladder she was a perfectionist but according to some that perfectionist married her opposite odd an awkward Stephen grant he was the guy that you thought would grow up and rob a liquor store and leave his name tag on and you'd see him on the stupidest criminals Steve wasn't the most popular kid in the world he wasn't the best-looking and so I guess when I saw his wife I was like wow good job Steve I never thought you would get get someone like Tara snagging Tara was a real coup for Stephen Tara success allowed them to have a very successful life they lived in a really nice neighborhood they drove new cars their children attended a private school but with those successes came some sacrifices Tara was working in San Juan and working Monday through Friday and then she would jump on a jet Friday afternoon and go back to Detroit and spend the weekend and then BOOM back on the plane on Monday to her work life while Tara was excelling at her job in sun-soaked San Juan Puerto Rico Steven who had dreamed of working in politics was holding down the fort at home as a soccer coach and self-proclaimed mr. mom to their two small children Steven grant loved taking care of his children he was extremely present in their day-to-day lives they seemed to be making it work but were they really their public face of the kundus couple seemed a lot more normal than what might have been simmering inside those doors what was simmering was heading toward a rap boil and it was Stephens growing resentment that was Fanning the flames I think that on some level her ascension and his flatline and being you know left there with the kids I think in the back of his mind he sort of certainly felt maybe a little bit emasculated by that so they fought and Stephen sought the attention of another Steve had a girlfriend before he met Tara and they had reconnected he was looking for someone to make him feel wanted maybe several someone's it seemed like he was also taking a fancy to the family's beautiful eighteen-year-old nanny Verena the grants had employed a German au-pair who lived in their home to take care of their children Stephen began to talk to her because she was the only person in the home with him you know while Tara was working and then their conversations turned sexual he told her bluntly that um he would like to sleep with her was it just flirting or did things become physical reportedly a very jealous Stephen suspected Tara had someone on the side herself he found some things on her computer about a previous relationship and it looked like that this relationship had been rekindled and he believed an affair with her boss was making Tara's weekly Island getaways less work more pleasure regardless of their actual or perceived dalliance 'as at least for the time being they were staying together until one night when it all went to hell it is a freezing Friday evening in February when Tara arrives home from Puerto Rico and informed Stephen she's going back on Sunday one day early they immediately began to argue he had told her this has to stop you're gone all the time reportedly an angry Tara packs her bags and walks out the front door she went down the driveway and gun and chew up like a car service a black car service and left so Tara leaves hours later Stephen tries calling her over the next few days Stephen calls Tara several times but gets no answer he also calls her boss in Puerto Rico and her family but they aren't worried yet saying she's probably just cooling her jets and she's just staying away from you because she's angry and you'll hear from her soon enough but after five days of desperately trying to find her on Valentine's Day Stephen reports Tara missing he came in one of our deputies took a report from him and it was immediately turned over to our detective bureau because it just really wasn't adding up the intense search is on it was a big deal because frankly I'm attractive well-educated executives didn't go missing in the Detroit suburbs high-powered globe-trotting executive and mother of two Tara grant is gone where they lived people did not just poof go away her husband Stephen grant says after they argued one night she left their suburban Detroit home and flew back early to her job in Puerto Rico and he's been trying hard to find her for five days become County sheriff's detective Sergeant Pam McLean and her partner detective Brian Kozlowski almost immediately believes something's amiss well we first got to the house Stephens very nervous he was very fidgety he was trying to be overly cooperative and the more questions we started asking him the more nervous he became but being nervous doesn't make someone guilty and Tara is just missing so detectives also look at others wondering if another lover is connected to her disappearance or what about the nanny the couple had been getting close in the days leading up to Tara's vanishing their relationship had began approximately four to six weeks prior to Tara's disappearance and it was escalating quickly the children were home sleeping the night their mother disappeared but Verena was out as the investigation continues detectives are watching Stephen we set up surveillance on him we knew that something wasn't right and we believe that he had something to do with it in the meantime Stephen is busy playing the distraught husband I hope their walks and head don't know right they're becoming a regular on the evening news tell me are people buying it please call me come in that's called South one you see it wasn't oscar-worthy performance this is a guy who is now the star of the Stephen Grant show for me detectives are watching and closing in chipping away at Stephens implausible story and we found out that she wasn't back in Puerto Rico we had checked all the airlines we knew her passport had not been used we knew her credit card had not been used and the cellphone records showed when her last call was made then investigators catch a break when a woman walking through a local park sees a baggie tucked into a tree filled with some questionable items gloves the metal shavings and blood that we later learned that it was in fact arrows blood a bombshell police arranged to have the rest of the park searched at the same time staying on Stephen it's at this point in time Stephen had become somewhat uncooperative with us all of our questions we had or anything he had to go directly through an attorney he had refused to take a polygraph for us we had later learned that he had taken a private polygraph and that it came back as inconclusive three weeks after Tara went missing detectives get a search warrant for the grant house a knock at the door brings a team of investigators he was there in the beginning of the search when we got there then Stephen asks if he can take the dog for a walk he was unfree to leave he was not being detained by us at that time as Stephen walks out of the house and into the cold winter night the case takes a gruesome turn we're all standing in the garage and my partner noticed this been in it looked a little out of place and he opened it up and he could see that there was a lot of plastic in there and he kind of poked at it and he could feel a little gift and he's like that doesn't I feel right detectives cut open the plastic what they find will sicken the most seasoned of investigators inside the bag where the clove remains of Tara grant at least part of her her torso from the neck to the top of her thighs face up she had on her bra panties and part of the slacks that she had been wearing Tara grant was dead and part of her was in her own garage my first thought her feeling wasn't we got him but did Stephen act alone Stephen grant is on the run his wife Tara grant had been missing for the last three weeks but that all changed when a search of the family home yields the most gruesome of discoveries her torso it was from her neck to her waist found in a bin right next to a tub of her kids toys he knew we were going to find it and that's when he went on the run the manhunt for Stephen grant is on the FBI is swarming the state setting up a dragnet a full-on search for him a suicidal Stephen borrows a car from a friend and heads north into the frigid Michigan night he makes this meandering trip all over the state of Michigan and he remembers that he and Tara used to camp at the Wilderness State Park as he makes his way there Stephen arms himself with alcohol pills razor blades and something else he has purchased a toy gun thinking that if he had a gun in his hand and he aimed it at police they would shoot him after driving for hours a desperate Steven make some final calls and writes his two young children goodbye letters he knew he wasn't gonna win he was right his vehicle is located up at the park and he was found outline underneath the tree he had extreme hypothermia semi-conscious he was seeing people and talking to trees and he he was in pretty bad shape he was on airlifted I've been taken to the local hospital once Macomb County Sheriff's detectives McLean and Kozlovsky arrive they play Stephen grant under arrest but he wants to talk only their audio is recorded 7:45 p.m. northern Michigan Hospital interview of Stephen grant little do detectives know the extent of the savage secrets Stephens been hiding a February night Friday Stephen says it all started in their bedroom when Tara was unpacking from her work trip and he was naked getting ready for bed a fight about terra's busy work and travel schedule ensues the argument quickly escalates Tara slaps him across the face then Stephen hits her she fell oh she's banging back her head on the floor and then she said something like okay I'm a big kid enraged Stephen does the unthinkable she finally grabbed my hand at one point it was too late Stephen continues to strangle Tara she was looking to his eyes and he she was fighting with him and he grabs a piece of clothing and put it over her face so that he didn't have to see her why he was killing her after more than four minutes of callously choking the life out of his wife Tara grant is dead then with their small children sleeping just two feet away I wrap some belt around her neck I think it was my brown leather belt I know I couldn't carry her so I wrapped that around her neck and I used it to hold her down the stairs Stephen still naked drags Tara's body into the freezing cold garage where he struggles getting her into the back of her own truck I dropped her disgusting noise it just sounded like dropping the watermelon on cement I knew then that I had killed Stephen eventually gets her into the SUV he put it in the back of her SUV and shut the door and went back into his house moments later the family's nanny Verena with whom he had had a flirtation walks in the door Stephen quickly dresses then tells her the story he's concocted that he and Tara fought and she walked out on him he wanted the nanny to feel sorry for him at this point he was playing that oh my wife has left me card then Stephen begins a plan to cover his tracks he began to do things like call his wife's cell phone and leave messages knowing of course that her body was in the family garage the next day Stephen scheme takes a grisly turn after saying goodbye to his kids he drives Tara's car with her body in the back to his father's machine shop he lays out a bunch of tarps on the floor and he removes her body and places her on top of it and he begins to dismember her tears hands up to the next joint and the next joint and same with her legs and so nice - what again a shockingly barbaric act I just told myself look if you don't do this you're going to prison to rest your life and when Steven finishes he wraps the body parts in plastic and fills a large plastic bin to the brim with Tara I put everything I think it's a newspaper in there please at one point there was some blood but it's real particularly like syrup so you had Tara's entire body one in one Rubbermaid container early the next morning Stephan grabs his kids sled and heads out into snowy Stoney Creek Park while standing on a hill Steven puts the bin on top of the sled but before he knows it you know I'm chasing after this sled it has kind of body in it down the hill and I finally got it stopped when it fell over broke those pieces down but roll quick Steven eventually gathers Tara's mutilated body parts and buries them around the park Steven brought Tara's body and her remains into this area here and he was hoping that that wildlife and within the park would eat the remains and therefore juh sleep bones which would then make it a little easier to avoid detection not that that would be her final resting place he moved her multiple times to multiple locations I've done a very very bad job of hiding anything it's right there in the elephant the way he was giving us his confession It was as if he was just telling a story he would he would laugh he would joke he showed no remorse it was just Tom's story detectives also learned from Stephen what led to their big break finding Tara's torso in the family garage it turns out when Steven heard there was going to be a large-scale search of the park he panicked afraid the poorly hidden torso would be easily found he first removed it from the park then took it to his father's business and he put it on top of the office area up there it remained there for approximately a day at which time he moved it because he was afraid it was gonna start smelling and then that's when he took it to his garage but it was also when detectives showed up with that search warrant our timing was just right fortunately for us he had just moved her torso back there night before investigators would eventually locate most of Tara's remains but not all I believe there were 14 parts but they only recovered 11 and they'd also find some of the saw blades Stephen used we recovered some with some tears flesh still on them detectives now know Stephen Grant did this despicable act all by himself the nanny had nothing to do with it nine months after Grant is arrested for the brutal slaying of his wife the case goes to trial and after three weeks of testimony Stephen grant is found guilty of second-degree murder and mutilation of a corpse he's sentenced to 50 to 80 years she certainly didn't deserve to die like that Andrea Billups has co-written a book about Tara's murder called a slaying in the suburbs and she says while justice has technically been served no amount of punishment can replace what's been lost I think the great sadness of this case obviously was for these children who were born six at the time this murder occurred so now they'd lost their mother and their father was going to prison for what certainly will amount to the rest of his life it's just an enormous tragedy [Music]

Channel: True Crime Daily

Views: 5,237,122

Rating: 4.7781105 out of 5

Keywords: Tara Grant, Stephen Grant, True Crime Daily, Crime Watch Daily, Macomb County Michigan

Id: 4U-sZpbYCrg

Length: 19min 39sec (1179 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 27 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/H-4350]

That was pretty gruesome story.