Grady and his partner in crime, Mort, stole an unmarked sheriff’s vehicle last summer in the Upstate. They took bullet proof vests and shotguns from the trunk then burned the car.

From the burned remains of the car, crime scene technicians found a fingerprint on the driver’s side window. The print was faxed to the FBI who ran the print in their AFIS computer.

AFIS is a highly sophisticated computer containing many millions of fingerprints of known criminals. Grady has the dubious distinction of being the 100th suspect matched this year by AFIS.

The sheriff sent out a news release announcing the fingerprint identification and also gave details of the case to CrimeStoppers, asking for the public’s help in finding Grady and Mort.

Within a few days an anonymous tip was telephoned in to CrimeStoppers. Information on that tip was immediately turned over to sheriff’s detectives who arrested Grady and Mort.

There was more than enough evidence to make the case, but the two men stonewalled investigators, refusing to admit they knew anything at all about the case of the stolen sheriff’s car.

Several days later, as Grady and Mort stepped off the back of a sheriff’s jail van at the rear of the courthouse, a television reporter yelled out to Grady asking if he and Mort were the people who stole the sheriff’s car.

"Yes, ma’am, that was us all right. We’re the ones that done it!" Grady smiled all the way up the courthouse steps. He was a legend in his own mind.

Too tough to confess to detectives, the suspect could not refuse the magic of television. Grady’s confession became the lead story that night on the six o’clock news. A tape of that newscast was also stored in the sheriff’s evidence locker.