Mich. case a perfect recipe for media frenzy

updated 10:25 a.m. ET March 1, 2007

DETROIT - A 34-year-old attractive suburban wife and mother of two whose management job regularly sends her to Puerto Rico disappears after her husband said she got into a waiting sedan in their driveway.

Local interest and media attention builds as more details emerge: The husband alleges his wife has been unfaithful in e-mails to an ex-girlfriend and says he is tracking her communications on a home computer. He maintains his innocence — but says police have told him he's the focus of the case, a claim the sheriff denies. While he grants frequent interviews with reporters, he communicates only by fax with authorities since retaining a lawyer.

The case of Tara Grant — missing from her suburban Detroit home for nearly three weeks — is a daily fixture on local TV newscasts and in Detroit's newspapers. And it's beginning to conjure comparisons to media-saturated missing-women cases such as Laci Peterson and Natalee Holloway.

The headlines and sound bites make Grant's story ripe for cable TV shows and other national and international media outlets. But one 40-year-old Detroit-area woman with a full-time job and two kids of her own said her fascination with the story has more to do with a personal connection than prurient details.

"Tara could be any woman — your sister, your friends, yourself," says Lisa Watson, who has written several entries about Grant on her blog, "The Lisa Life: My Life in a Suburban Town."

"She seems like a fairly normal (person). ... It always comes back to, 'Could that be me?'"

Husband waited to report her missing
Grant, of Macomb County's Washington Township, has been missing since Feb. 9. Stephen Grant, 37, reported her missing five days later. He has said he waited to tell police because she might have been "blowing off steam" before returning home.

Police say the day she went missing, the Grants argued over her frequent business trips abroad. Her cell phone and credit cards haven't been used since that evening, when she returned home from a business trip to Puerto Rico.

A 4 1/2-hour search over the weekend through wooded areas near the couple's home turned up no clues.

Tara Grant and her husband have two children, ages 4 and 6. She works as an operations manager for Boise, Idaho-based Washington Group International, an engineering and construction firm with an office in the Detroit suburb of Troy.

The company said in a statement it's concerned over her disappearance and hopes for a safe return. Washington Group spokesman Jerry Holloway, who spent five days in the Troy office to help respond to the media calls, said managers and security staff have provided requested materials and information to the county sheriff's department.

After an initial two-hour interview with authorities, Stephen Grant has communicated only by fax with the sheriff's office — which his attorney, David Griem, says keeps the case objective.

Grant says authorities have told him he's the focus of the investigation.

Sheriff Mark Hackel denies Grant is a suspect but questions why some details that could be critical to the investigation were not provided.

Police have examined a series of e-mails turned over by a woman who identified herself as Stephen Grant's ex-girlfriend. The e-mails indicate that Grant suspected his wife was having an affair and installed a device on their home computer to track her communications.

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