Mich. case a perfect recipe for media frenzy

Hackel says investigators want access to the computer but they don't have Stephen Grant's approval. He provided police with two laptops used by his wife.

Griem said he and his client did not release the home computer because it includes privileged information between Griem and Stephen Grant as well as Grant's personal and business documents, and was rarely if ever used by Tara Grant.

Griem said the computer and e-mail issues are examples of the sheriff's department using the media to try to "make an innocent man look guilty." As for Stephen Grant's numerous local TV appearances, Griem said they are a response to when his client has been "bashed" by the police.

Media attention a mixed blessing
Hackel said his department is asking questions because it's trying to get information and needs full cooperation from everybody involved.

The growing frenzy is a mixed blessing for the sheriff and the lawyer.

For Hackel, more exposure means more tips, including psychics who believe she is in a wooded area, and others who say they saw her in a Florida restaurant and on "Wheel of Fortune."

"We want attention drawn to the fact that Tara is missing," Hackel says. "The media is the one that gets it out — I can't knock on every door in my county, state or country.

"The downside ... is you get a lot of people calling with information that leads you nowhere, but you don't discount it. That's why it's so intense."

Griem, who said he received more than 40 media calls one day last week and has heard from "every national news show you can think of," said more coverage increases the odds she will come home or the case will be solved.

Still, he's surprised by the attention, when "poor women disappear from our cities and are many times never heard from."

Tens of thousands of missing persons
The FBI's National Crime Information Center, a database reported by local and state law enforcement officials, had 24,037 missing women on its active list as of Jan. 1. Including girls, the list grows to 58,776, though an FBI spokesman said the numbers might be slightly lower because some solved cases haven't been cleared.

Matthew Felling, media director for The Center for Media and Public Affairs, a Washington-based nonprofit research and educational group, said he has done extensive research on missing white women and the Grant case "has filled out the checklist for media frenzy."

Felling said the skin-color distinction is important. For instance, the world learned everything there was to know about Laci Peterson, while few have heard of Evelyn Hernandez, a Salvadoran immigrant whose disappearance and death had many similarities to Peterson's case.

"The most compelling — and compelling is a code word for marketable — missing white women stories share a lot of elements with the Lifetime Movie Network," he said.

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