The murder of Tara Munsey

The murder of Tara Munsey.

Tara Rose Munsey was born on February 2, 1983 in Radford, Virginia to parents Billy Munsey and Katherine Irwin. She was described as being a loyal, unique, and outgoing girl who had many friends. She got good grades in school and had a boyfriend named Nick who she planned to marry after she graduated. To earn some extra money, 16 year old Tara worked at a Taco Bell.

On the afternoon of January 25, 2000, Tara went with some friends went to the apartment of a man they knew named James Moede and smoked marijuana before Tara went to work. Tara had plans to watch a basketball game with her father and brother that night after her shift was over. She left Taco Bell at 7:30 that night but didn’t show up at the basketball game like she was supposed to, and Tara’s father found her car in the Taco Bell parking lot. The door was unlocked, Tara’s keys and purse were gone but her hat and some food was there. Nobody had heard from Tara, and she was reported missing.

Police didn’t take the case seriously at first, they thought Tara had run away to see Nick; who was stationed in Illinois at the time. But when police spoke with Nick, he told them he hadn’t seen or heard from her so that theory was ruled out. One of Tara’s coworkers reported that she had gotten into an argument with two men the night she disappeared, but there were no surveillance cameras at the Taco Bell to possibly identify who those men were and the lead went nowhere.

On February 10, 2000, some hikers found a body at the bottom of a 70 foot ravine in Parrott, Virginia. An ID was found in the back pocket, it was Tara Munsey. She was found naked from the waist up. An autopsy was performed, Tara had been shot at close range three times in the head and once in the chest, and was pushed down the ravine after she was already dead. There was blood under her nails, meaning she had fought her killer and a .22 caliber shell casing was found near Tara’s body.

Tara’s friends that were with her on the day she disappeared told police when they went to smoke after school, there was an older man named Jeff Thomas who provided the teenagers with weed. Jeff knew Tara personally since she sometimes babysat his young daughter, and he also had a criminal record. Jeff was also dating Nick’s mother at the time, and was the prime suspect in Tara’s murder. Investigators questioned him, but he had an alibi and claimed to have spent the night of January 25, 2000 at a friend’s house. Jeff’s friend was interviewed and said Jeff hadn’t spent the night, but he told investigators he owned a .22 caliber Marlin rifle which Jeff had since December 6, 1999. Shell casings under the porch matched the ones found at the crime scene. A woman later told police that Jeff had stayed at her house that night and told her that he murdered Tara after refusing his advances. The woman knew details that hadn’t been released to the public, and after that Jeff Thomas was arrested and charged with Tara’s murder.

In March 2001, Jeff Thomas was found guilty and was sentenced to death. But that was overturned in June 2002, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Had Tara lived, she would be 41 today. Continue reading

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