Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Craig Melvin. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges. Their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows?
You might just come away with your own glass half full.
Search Glass Half Full with Craig Melvin from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. What they did to your family, you're lucky to make it out alive. Streaming on Peacock. These men are going to come after me. Taking them out is my only chance. Put a bullet in her head. From the co-creator of Ozark. Looks like a family was running drugs. Execution style killing is rare for the Keys.
And it leads on who they might have been running for. The cartel killed my family. I'm going to kill them. All of them. M.I.A. Streaming May 7th, only on Peacock.
Well, hello, everybody. I'm Keith Morrison, and we are Talking Dateline. Today, I'm joined by Blaine Alexander to talk about her episode, Window of Time. Interesting title for this one. If you haven't seen it, you can watch the episode on Peacock or listen to it in the Dateline podcast feed and then come right back here.
And later, Blaine will share a clip from Chris Melton's first ever television interview titled, what he had to share with Blaine about moving on after Tara's brutal murder. And we'll answer viewer and listener questions from social media, which could be interesting. Okay, let's talk Dateline. Let's do it. Blaine, this was a really interesting one.
And, you know, we have done a lot of cold cases over the years at Dateline, but this one just seemed to be more, I don't know, more full of angst as it went along and just attracted a lot of attention.
It really did. I mean, I think that, for one, the setting had a lot to do with it. I mean, you're talking about a young lady who was in her first year of law school there in UGA. And if you've been to Georgia, you know that UGA, Athens, it is certainly a focal point. I think that's putting it lightly here in the state of Georgia.
You can't walk 20 feet without finding somebody who has some sort of tie to UGA, whether they're a dog themselves, whether their kids went there, their parents, they went to UGA law, whatever it is.
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Chapter 2: What happened to Tara Baker and why is her case significant?
And so the knife was from the knife block in her kitchen. The cord around her neck was her own printer cord. They were all taken from there in the house.
That would have probably at the time they discovered that had made them think, okay, this is somebody who knows her, who was probably in her house visiting her. And then things got out of hand.
That's what one would think, right? And that's why I think so many times it came back to Chris Milton, the boyfriend, right? Because a lot of people, investigators would look and say, okay, this is what makes sense. And I mean, you know this from our Dateline stories, that's always who police look at first, the romantic interest, the partner, whoever it is.
That's always going to be the first focus.
Tell me, you went to the actual house, didn't you, in the shooting of this story?
We did. We did. And that's not something – I've got to say in my time at Dateline, that's not something that I think I've done to actually be able to go inside the crime scene where something happened. I mean oftentimes we can go up to the street or shoot outside of it or get video outside or something like that.
But to actually go inside the house, especially when you're talking about a crime where fire was involved – But no, we were able to go inside the actual home. I have to give a tremendous thanks to the family who lived there, including their little baby and their dog, because they went outside.
They let us actually come inside and take a significant amount of time in their home, which was just very kind of them that we were able to actually go inside and do that. So we were able to walk inside. I mean, the home, it's been refurbished inside, obviously, but it's in the exact same floor plan. So
I think it added a lot to the story to be able to go inside with the original firefighter who was there on the scene and kind of feel what he felt that day. To walk through this living room, have him describe how it was dark, it was smoky, except for this odd red glow. And then to kind of go around this corner and see the four eyes of the stove that were on.
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Chapter 3: How did advanced DNA analysis lead to solving Tara's murder case?
No, no, no. Please keep the bird. We love the bird.
When we get back, Blaine is going to share an extra clip from her interview with Chris Melton, Tara's boyfriend, about the life he has built in the years following Tara's murder.
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Hey guys, Willie Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit-Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with red-hot stand-up comedian Nikki Glaser to talk about the long career grind that has brought her to this starring moment, hosting the Golden Globes, killing at the Tom Brady roast, and now with another hit special on Hulu.
You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts.
Would this case have been solved, do you think, Blaine, had DNA evidence not advanced as much as it has in recent years? And I ask you that because wasn't the amount of evidence that could be tested shrinking and shrinking and shrinking and shrinking as the years went by?
Had it not been for the advance in DNA technology, no, I don't think that this case would have been solved because that's what made all the difference, right? I think that this is one of those stories where so many different things came together to allow this case to be solved. I mean, it was, yes, the podcast that kept this case at the front of people's minds. It was the pushing for this law.
It was the fact that the law passed and then it went to this cold case unit that was newly created within the GBI. Right. I mean, all of these different things came together to get them to the place where they could use this new technology and ultimately solve this case.
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Chapter 4: What insights did Blayne Alexander gain from visiting the crime scene?
It was Jenny.
And you took that as a sign.
I took that as a sign. And now here we are. Twenty-one years later, two children, two beautiful children. I was given a gift, and that's how I got to move on, and she saved my life. And it is difficult, but I love her dearly. And there always would be a piece of me, a piece of my heart that's with Tara that will always be there. And she has such a big heart. She understands that.
She accepts that. And there's always been moments through our relationship that maybe even mentally that I'm distant because I reflect on things. And this not knowing who had taken Tara's life is a big part of this. It's a struggle. And this new future that I see, I know now. I know this man is behind bars. I want to have that part closed and settled. And I want to give that.
all of that to my family and to my wife. She deserves it. I'll always have a love for Tara, but I would love to just give more. And that's what I see as my future.
And so that was really a moving part of the interview. I have to say, Keith, that his wife was actually there in the interview. And so I am glad that we spoke about that because, again, I mean, it takes a special person to want to, right, to marry and understand that that's always going to be part of your spouse's life as well.
Yeah. Did you get a chance to get a sense of how she was dealing with that?
I did. I did a bit. They met at the gym because that was what Chris was using to kind of work through his pain and his trauma. And that was how they connected. And so she always knew that this was – she knew that this was a part of him. And it was something that became essentially part of their story together.
And the guy who eventually was – fingered for the crime and put on trial. Edric Fost, who happened to live not very far away at all, was he on the investigator's radar at all during the course of the investigation?
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