Ten days after she was reported missing, reserves and deputies from the sheriff's department swarmed the vast Stony Creek metro park looking for any signs of Tara Grant, the 34-year-old wife and mother who'd supposedly walked out on her family.

Sheriff Mark Hackel: Just a hunch... we just didn't want to sit back.

For six hours, more than 150 searchers with sniffer dogs on the ground and a helicopter above, scoured a three-mile grid of the park.

Why? Simply because in his non-stop interviews in the media, Stephen Grant, the missing woman's husband, talked about Stony Creek a lot, maybe too much.

"The main reason we bought the house is because that park was there."

"I moutain bike out there, I run out in stony creek all the time."

"We love that park."

But at the end of the long day, the searchers came up empty. The sheriff asked the community to keep its eyes open.

(Sheriff press conference)

What we'd like people to do is take a look in some of the wooded areas and if they happen to see something call us immediately.

Watch the broadcast 'Valentine's Day Mystery' videos   Part 1: Wife goes missing   2: Detectives are thinking foul play   3: Police make gruesome discovery   4: The manhunt was on   5: Grant: 'And I choked her'   6: DA: 'It was about sex'

The missing woman's sister, Alicia, had gotten a heads up the night before that the sheriff's office was going to be looking for Tara’s body. At that moment, reality set in.

Alicia Standerfer: I remember getting off the phone and going downstairs to where my children were and just sobbing, with my little son across the room from me standing there as startled as he could ever be. And I said, “Bud, mom needs a hug” and that little boy came running to me as fast as he could and jumped up in my lap.

It was four days later, on the Wednesday after the weekend search, when that dental hygienist, Sheila Werner, decided to go for a tromp thru the woods less than a mile from her house, a section of the same park the sheriff's office had searched.

Sheila Werner: I had no intention of finding anything.

But as she came up the rise back toward the dirt road, she saw it -- a one-gallon Ziploc bag.

Sheila Werner: I had a mitten on and I went over and I picked up the bag, and you could see blood just pooling to the bottom of the bag … I knew about the disappearance of Tara Grant but I had no idea what it could be.

So she brought it home, placed it on top of her freezer in the garage and called the sheriff's office.

Sheriff Hackel: So when a deputy got out there he found the Ziploc bag with some gloves in it, some metal shavings and stuff that was concerning.

Metal shavings? Grant worked in a machine shop. That and the determination that it was human blood in the baggie were the findings they'd needed to get a search warrant.

Dennis Murphy: So that gave you probable cause to go to Grant's house?

Sheriff: Yes

Dennis Murphy: And do a proper search?

Sheriff: Yes.

Two days later, at 5:00pm on Friday, March 2, detectives and crime scene techs from the sheriff's department arrive to process the Grant home, but with modest expectations. After all, Tara has been missing for three weeks already.

But now, events tumble quickly and we can see it in almost documentary real-time because reporting crews from the NBC station, WDIV-TV, are also on the scene.

(Reporter)

"He's getting out of the car ..."

A camera rolls as Grant is taken from his vehicle and patted down.

"They're patting him down ..."

But, significantly, he has not been placed under arrest.

Det. Brian Kozlowski: At that point we didn't have probable cause to arrest Mr. Grant.

The other crew, meanwhile, is getting ready to set up for an interview. Stephen Grant has asked reporter Hank Winchester to come out to the house.

Hank Winchester: And he wanted me to interview him in the garage of the house. And I asked him, "Why the garage?" He said, "Well, the garage will give you a look into what I saw that day, because I was looking out one of the windows when I saw Tara leave in the town car. But the interview never happened.

Never happened ... and certainly not in the garage, because as technicians inside are methodically searching the house, outside, Stephen Grant simply walks away, getting out of dodge, looking back as though he couldn't believe no one was stopping him.

What they found in the house 90 minutes later is detective Kozlowski's stomach-churning story.

By then, he and five other detectives had retreated to the garage to get out from underfoot of the CSI-types working in the house.

Det. Kozlowski eye-balled the usual garage clutter to see if anything had changed since his first and only visit back on Feb. 14.

Det. Brian Kozlowski: And I saw a green container that I, you know, was confident had not been there on the 14th. It looked out of place to me immediately. And there was a black bag, a black garbage bag in it and I opened up the bag and there was another bag in it. So I went through each bag ripping them apart with my hands and I stuck my bare hand in there and it was moist. and I saw what I thought was blood in plastic. And then  I could see, you know, what was a bra.

The detectives backed away to let a crime scene tech confirm what no one could quite believe.

Kozlowski: One of the evidence techs opened up the lid, cut the bag further and spread apart the bag and there was a female human torso.

Dennis Murphy: Your words in court were I think, “What the f---!'

Kozlowski: Exactly.

A plastic bin in the garage, containing a female torso, no head, no limbs.

Dennis Murphy: Did it all click together for you at the moment? It's Tara. She's murdered, he dismembered her and left her in the garage.

Kozlowski: Once I looked at lieutenant Darga and she said, “That's her.” I actually just left the scene.

That's when the detective got his second shock of the night: he discovered Stephen Grant had fled and had an hour and a half lead on him.

Dennis Murphy: How angry are you?

Brian Kozlowski: Oh, I’m very --  I’m going to get him.

Dennis Murphy: This guy's taking a walk on you?

Brian Kozlowski: Yes. I’m going to go find him.

Stephen Grant was on the run.

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