by Seamus McGraw

OCILLA, GA (Crime Library) — Authorities, backed up by the high-tech equipment of the Texas-based search operation EquuSearch are preparing to make one last comprehensive foray through the back woods of Irwin County looking for any trace of missing school teacher and former beauty queen Tara Grinstead.

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Over the past two weeks, members of the team have done an aerial survey of the most remote areas of the county, and after breaking for the Thanksgiving holiday, plan to launch a massive search effort, comparable and perhaps larger than the intense volunteer driven effort that concluded last month, said Irwin County Deputy Sheriff Allen Morgan.

Tara Grinstead

"We want to find some areas of interest, areas that we want to search again," Morgan said. "We're going to have a major search...we just want to make sure the areas are being covered thoroughly. "We want to be able to tell the family that once we're through this county again that it's clear, that she's not here."

The search is scheduled for Dec. 10 and 11, Morgan said.

The EquuSearch team, which has garnered national headlines for, among other things, its recent work in Aruba searching for missing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway, has targeted specific areas of the county to canvass during the two-day hunt for Grinstead. Specifically, they have been looking at rugged backlands and deeply wooded areas, Morgan said, and that is where the volunteers will be deployed.

We're going to check these thick wooded areas, places maybe you couldn't check good riding a four-wheeler or on horseback. We're going to walk them," Morgan said.

The fact that authorities are holding off their search for nearly two weeks may be an indication that they hold out little hope of finding the 30-year-old high school teacher, at least not alive.

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Return to full Tara Grinstead coverage

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