strongernow
06-25-2004, 10:49 AM
Confession offers comfort, pain in woman's killing
By Tim Sturrock
Telegraph Staff Writer
Hosea Griffin carried a secret for exactly 13 years, said Washington County Sheriff Thomas Smith.
Authorities say it started on his 28th birthday, when he killed Glenda Tarver, and ended on his 41st, when he confessed.
"It was a guilty conscience, and that made him think about the murder every day and especially on his birthday, and (Griffin) was tired of living the way he was living," Smith said of the confession.
On his 41st birthday, April 19, Griffin called a Washington County deputy. He confessed to the killing, Smith said, and told him that Tarver's remains were next to a graveyard and across from a church in a part of Sandersville called Sandy Bottom. He has been charged with murder.
The day after he was charged with Tarver's murder, Griffin was arrested for stealing a wallet. According to an Orange County, Fla., sheriff's report, Griffin told officers he was wanted for murder and tired of running from the police.
Griffin hasn't been extradited from Florida, where authorities said he is being held on a probation violation. Orange County jail lists Griffin as a transient.
If convicted of murder, Griffin could face life in prison.
Smith said he doesn't yet know Griffin's motive. The GBI will not discuss its interviews with Griffin.
Griffin grew up in Sandersville and, since he was 18, has been in and out of jails for property crimes, including car theft, forgery and shoplifting, according to Florida and Georgia records. He has had at least six stays in Georgia state prisons, totaling more than five years, as well as two and a half years in Florida state prisons, most of that for a concealed weapon charge.
All of Griffin's Florida crimes happened after Tarver's death.
Smith said that people have told him in the past two months that Griffin left town after Tarver's disappearance. But the dual disappearances didn't spark any suspicion at the time.
Griffin's confession shocked the sheriff's office, Smith said, but it also shocked members of Tarver's family, who could only guess her fate.
Tarver was on her way to a birthday party for Griffin the last time she saw her sister, Joann Key. The next morning Tarver didn't show up at home where she and Key lived with their mother.
"I figured she just stayed at a girlfriend's house," Key said.
But after three days, she began to worry and filed a missing persons report.
Tarver's habit of leaving town for days at a time and her free spirit made some people suspect that she just left for good.
Others said she wouldn't have left her two children unless something had happened to her.
But after weeks of calling the sheriff's office, Key said, nothing had turned up. After seven years, she went to a probate judge to have her sister declared legally dead.
The judge "told me to have hope, she could come back," Key said.
Later, Tarver's absence from her parents' funeral convinced more people that something had gone wrong.
"After she didn't appear that day, I really started thinking it was foul play or something like that," said Donald Tarver, Glenda's brother.
He and others considered the possibility that his sister was running from a bad relationship, or had abandoned her children and left for Florida. Another theory, he said, was that his sister was running from the law. And another was that she had run off with someone.
But he thinks all the speculation about her disappearance was just avoiding the grim possibility that she was dead.
"You know that's not something that you want to believe happened to someone you loved," he said.
But now he said the truth has lifted a weight off the family.
"The truth is the only thing that will hurt and heal at the same time," he said.
As the 13 years passed since her sister was last reported seen alive at Griffin's birthday party, Gloria Walker said it was too difficult to believe Tarver was dead.
"I thought she didn't know who she was or didn't know where she was from. That's what I held on to," she said.
During the years, their hazel eyes and similar appearance made people think she was Tarver, Walker said. Since they were adolescents, the two would visit parks together and eat peanuts and ice cream, she said.
"Me and her used to sit around and talk, she used to fill me in about the world. We're only nine months apart so there wasn't much she could tell me," she said.
Glenda enjoyed parties, making jokes, and had gone to school to be a nurse's aide.
Walker said she dreamed about what she would do if her sister ever returned. "I was going to kiss and hug her and say 'Thank God.' "
She said she's still shocked that Tarver was so close to home after all these years, and wonders why Griffin waited so long to let people know what had happened to her.
She said that she plans to talk to Griffin when he is brought to town, and hasn't forgiven his sister's killer - but she will.
"You have to forgive to get to heaven," she said.
By Tim Sturrock
Telegraph Staff Writer
Hosea Griffin carried a secret for exactly 13 years, said Washington County Sheriff Thomas Smith.
Authorities say it started on his 28th birthday, when he killed Glenda Tarver, and ended on his 41st, when he confessed.
"It was a guilty conscience, and that made him think about the murder every day and especially on his birthday, and (Griffin) was tired of living the way he was living," Smith said of the confession.
On his 41st birthday, April 19, Griffin called a Washington County deputy. He confessed to the killing, Smith said, and told him that Tarver's remains were next to a graveyard and across from a church in a part of Sandersville called Sandy Bottom. He has been charged with murder.
The day after he was charged with Tarver's murder, Griffin was arrested for stealing a wallet. According to an Orange County, Fla., sheriff's report, Griffin told officers he was wanted for murder and tired of running from the police.
Griffin hasn't been extradited from Florida, where authorities said he is being held on a probation violation. Orange County jail lists Griffin as a transient.
If convicted of murder, Griffin could face life in prison.
Smith said he doesn't yet know Griffin's motive. The GBI will not discuss its interviews with Griffin.
Griffin grew up in Sandersville and, since he was 18, has been in and out of jails for property crimes, including car theft, forgery and shoplifting, according to Florida and Georgia records. He has had at least six stays in Georgia state prisons, totaling more than five years, as well as two and a half years in Florida state prisons, most of that for a concealed weapon charge.
All of Griffin's Florida crimes happened after Tarver's death.
Smith said that people have told him in the past two months that Griffin left town after Tarver's disappearance. But the dual disappearances didn't spark any suspicion at the time.
Griffin's confession shocked the sheriff's office, Smith said, but it also shocked members of Tarver's family, who could only guess her fate.
Tarver was on her way to a birthday party for Griffin the last time she saw her sister, Joann Key. The next morning Tarver didn't show up at home where she and Key lived with their mother.
"I figured she just stayed at a girlfriend's house," Key said.
But after three days, she began to worry and filed a missing persons report.
Tarver's habit of leaving town for days at a time and her free spirit made some people suspect that she just left for good.
Others said she wouldn't have left her two children unless something had happened to her.
But after weeks of calling the sheriff's office, Key said, nothing had turned up. After seven years, she went to a probate judge to have her sister declared legally dead.
The judge "told me to have hope, she could come back," Key said.
Later, Tarver's absence from her parents' funeral convinced more people that something had gone wrong.
"After she didn't appear that day, I really started thinking it was foul play or something like that," said Donald Tarver, Glenda's brother.
He and others considered the possibility that his sister was running from a bad relationship, or had abandoned her children and left for Florida. Another theory, he said, was that his sister was running from the law. And another was that she had run off with someone.
But he thinks all the speculation about her disappearance was just avoiding the grim possibility that she was dead.
"You know that's not something that you want to believe happened to someone you loved," he said.
But now he said the truth has lifted a weight off the family.
"The truth is the only thing that will hurt and heal at the same time," he said.
As the 13 years passed since her sister was last reported seen alive at Griffin's birthday party, Gloria Walker said it was too difficult to believe Tarver was dead.
"I thought she didn't know who she was or didn't know where she was from. That's what I held on to," she said.
During the years, their hazel eyes and similar appearance made people think she was Tarver, Walker said. Since they were adolescents, the two would visit parks together and eat peanuts and ice cream, she said.
"Me and her used to sit around and talk, she used to fill me in about the world. We're only nine months apart so there wasn't much she could tell me," she said.
Glenda enjoyed parties, making jokes, and had gone to school to be a nurse's aide.
Walker said she dreamed about what she would do if her sister ever returned. "I was going to kiss and hug her and say 'Thank God.' "
She said she's still shocked that Tarver was so close to home after all these years, and wonders why Griffin waited so long to let people know what had happened to her.
She said that she plans to talk to Griffin when he is brought to town, and hasn't forgiven his sister's killer - but she will.
"You have to forgive to get to heaven," she said.