Blaine Alexander

As the years passed, the relationship between the Athens-Clarke County PD and the Baker family deteriorated.

One of the most egregious things we did was miscommunicate with the Baker family.

Early on, there were some investigators that told them things about the case file that were just not true.

David Griffith, a civilian crime analyst with the Athens PD, began looking into Tara's case four years after she was murdered.

I'll never forget meeting Meredith Baker for the first time, introducing myself, and she's dismissive.

And she tells me to my face, you're just another face in this long, drawn-out investigation.

And next year, you probably won't be here.

Wow.

They felt burned.

They felt burned.

Yeah.

Griffith resolved to turn the situation around.

What was different about the way David Griffith handled this?

Well, for the first thing, he was patient enough to listen to me yell at him.

That's saying a lot.

It does, and he kept his cool.

By the time he got his hands on the Tara Baker case file, it was thousands of pages thick.

Griffith hit reset.

He started in a familiar place.

In my mind, initially, it lent itself more to a domestic violence type scenario.