by Seamus McGraw

(Continued)

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Fletcher and Harper searched for Bennie Merritt

Shortly after 2:45 a.m., Fletcher was summoned to a house on West 4^th Street where a local man, Bennie Merritt, known for his erratic behavior, had allegedly walked inside and had refused to leave. Harper joined Fletcher on that call, as did two other police officers from the Irwin County Sheriff's Department. By the time they arrived, Merritt, who had already been the subject of a prior minor police call earlier that night, was gone. But according to Fletcher and the records investigators have reviewed, while there, Harper chatted with the residents.

A few minutes later, Fletcher and Harper left the residence and searched for Merritt, a neighbor of Tara's, who had allegedly frightened the couple on West 4^th Street. Authorities reported that the man appeared intoxicated and was later apprehended by a sheriff's deputy, but not before he had allegedly frightened the night clerk at a local gas and convenience store about a mile outside of Ocilla.

According to records reviewed by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, both Fletcher and Harper responded to the call at the all-night service station and market, and by the time they were done, it was 4:28 a.m.

A few minutes later, Harper headed home.

Marcus Harper

In the days following Tara's disappearance, investigators reviewed the details of Harper and Fletcher's activities, activities for which the pair were able to identify some nine witnesses, two of them police officers, one of them a dispatcher, and the rest citizens, including Merritt who had been the focus of so much of their attention that morning.

They also took a close look at Merritt, as well, authorities have said.

But so far, the investigators have turned up no evidence to suggest that any of them were involved in Tara's disappearance, which remains, now seven months, as she vanished, a missing person's case. Harper, along with several other men questioned during the probe, has denied involvement in the teacher's disappearance, and law enforcement officials have repeatedly said that they have no suspects in the case.

But that has done little to dampen suspicion in some quarters. Nor has the detailed and apparently well-documented account of Harper and Fletcher's travels that night.

Godwin, who has said that neither he nor the GBI have ruled Harper in or out as a potential person of interest in the case, put this way in an email exchange Wednesday with Crime Library:  "Marcus's alibi is too perfect."

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