Blaine Alexander

Now they needed to figure out if Faust and Tara knew each other.

You want to establish if there's any sort of known relationship, any known connection, any chance meeting between the two.

You're kind of cross-referencing their daily routines to see where they might have overlapped, where they might have intersected naturally.

Meaning no reasonable explanation why his DNA would have been present.

Absolutely.

No reasonable explanation whatsoever.

And if Faust was Tara's rapist, they believed he was also her killer.

At that point, we felt comfortable arresting him.

So in May of 2024, more than two decades after her murder, officers arrested Edric Faust in a Walmart parking lot.

They took him to the Athens-Clarke County PD, where agents Bigum and Howell sat down to talk to him.

Good, how are you?

Good, how are you, Ms.

Are you sure?

Having dispatched with the Pleasantries, Bigum turned up the heat, and Faust's demeanor changed.

We've got these wards.

They are for...

A myriad of charges that range from arson to murder.

Mm-hmm.

The agents held off on telling Faust about the DNA evidence.

And so you wanted to see what he would say?