i believe it was marcus, her ex-boyfriend.
my head spins with theories but i keep coming back to what's obvious.
marcus was a marine. he was very intelligent, clearly quite strong and capable. i think he totally could have carried out thje covert, intricate operation of killing and disposing of tara. tara's sister brings up... in a subtle but clear way, that she felt he was capable of a lot of things. i feel like.... there was a real darkness to their relationship that was never really discussed with anyone. tara was involved in pageants, a world of show, appearances and make believe. perhaps this extended to her own life as well. i get the sense that tara was really insecure and derived some self esteem from pageants. her low self esteem could have attracted her to someone as cold as marcus.
marcus is a scary character to me. and what's this about tara filing a complaint about his cop buddy he was supposedly riding around with the night tara went missing? when i look at him in photos there is something... removed about him. utterly detached. he looks odd in photos with tara... she seems so anxious yet poised and it's like he's in a separate photo. why do i get the feeling that he could go from totally vacant to full of rage in under 2 seconds?
i believe he might have planted the glove.... he could have gotten someone he knew... perhaps a fellow marine or a friend in town to wear it, to throw off the investigation (someone who wouldn't have gotten fingerprinted). he knew that it could possibly be what would clear him in the eyes of LE. i'm wondering how many of his friends, whether his father submitted DNA? all i'm thinking is that he undoubtedly was a crafty, resourceful person and could have pulled off this kind of tightrope act. when i think of the glove, all i can think of is GENIUS. would a criminal really have left the glove there under any circumstances unless it was deliberately planted? i don't think so. this was pure strategy.
it seemed like marcus was set up ina new life... but maybe he wasn't convinced that tara would leave him alone. maybe he was annoyed by her and burdened with the fact that she would be there, in the back of his mind, wanting him + maybe even stalking him in the future. he saw getting rid of her as a mission. he didn't want to have to deal with her ever again. he wanted ultimate control over her and her threatening suicide was freaking him out. if she were going to die, it would be on his terms.
i don't know how long he was planning to stay in ocilla for, but it's possible it was a power thing of being like... this is my town and i refuse to see you around. i refuse to have to deal with you in my life.
perhaps he went to her house... she was shocked but let him in. he said 'let's go for a walk by the lake' or something. 'let's talk.' he could have led her to believe there could have been some kind of reconciliation.
something else that struck me was how one of LE said that marcus' alibi was 'almost too good.' and i feel that it was. he made it airtight... he hit all the right spots for every second he needed to be accounted for. like a good marine.
of course, there's always the chance that heath had something to do w her disappearance. obviously he would have had the biggest motive in the world. and the fact that he called her SOOO many times could have suggested that he missed her OR it could have been overcompensation... trying to really make it seem like he just really really missed her. maybe suggests he was a bit unhinged. obviously his wife would have had incentive to play along. and, being a cop, he would have known how to really cover his tracks and make things seem like something else entirely. it seems clear that tara;s body was moved a couple of times.... a cop or a marine are the kinds of people who would have understood how to carry it out.
i mean, we're dealing with two people here who know the system... who are used to thinking strategically. i think either of them could have pulled this off. tara was taken by someone she knew... otherwise she would have made a scene. with both of these men she would have gone quietly. i know they both had alibi but nothing is for certain. tara grinstead had this crazy complicated love life---i think it's far more likely it had to do with that than some rando who was obsessed with her. i mean, marcus was in town and they recently had a confrontation. ***** was getting stirred up. i have a hard time believing one of these two most important men in her life wasn't involved somehow. why do i get the sense that there was an abusive vibe to her relationship with marcus and she was too down on herself to share with anyone?