By Seamus McGraw

Beth Holloway-Twitty

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OCILLA, GA (Crime Library)  — Beth Twitty, the grieving mother of missing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway, will join the search this weekend for Tara Grinstead, the 30-year-old school teacher and former beauty queen who vanished more than a month and a half ago after a local pageant.

Tim Miller, founder and executive director of Equuasearch, the Texas-based search and rescue operation said Twitty approached him and asked if she could participate in the massive search which is expected to draw some 500 volunteers to comb the brush and backwoods in a fifteen mile radius around Ocilla beginning Saturday. Miller's operation spent several weeks in Aruba earlier this year in what has so far been a futile search for Holloway, who vanished while on a trip to Aruba in May.

Twitty, who has become an icon to some and a bane to others for her dogged search for her own daughter, told Miller that she felt an obligation to participate in the search for Tara because of the support she has received.

"She said she wanted to be helpful for a couple of reasons," Miller told Crime Library. "She said, 'so many people have helped me in Natalee's case, I want to be able to start helping other people'."

Holloway also told Miller that she felt a special affinity to Grinstead, a high school history teacher who is, by all accounts, held in high esteem by her students.

"She said, 'you know what? I am a school teacher and I have been a school teacher my whole life and this is a school teacher over there that's missing, so please let me help'."

Twitty, who has drawn both praise and criticism, including allegations in a blistering article in the January issue of Vanity Fair that she and her family may have actually impeded the search for Natalee, was adamant about pitching in on the search for Tara, Miller said.

"I said, you know what, Beth? If you're ready to help emotionally — because this has been very rough on you, I need you there. We need your help...so what you're going through right now with some of the bad publicity that you're getting, for you to now start helping other families because you know what they're going through...you can certainly be a valuable resource because there will me many more families that will need you."

In all likelihood, Twitty will help man the command center while the volunteers — 300 have signed up so far and another 200 are expected to join the search — fan out to scour a series of targeted locations arrayed in concentric rings beginning about two miles from Tara's home and extending out about 15 miles.

The search is expected to take two days.

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