

on September 20, 1988, 19-year-old Tara Calico announced she was going to ride her pink Huffy mountain bike along a 17-mile course before returning home and getting ready for a noon tennis date with her boyfriend. The photo was found 1,600 miles away from where Tara was last seen and some nine months later but there were a few significant parallels. Joe, Florida in 1989 Valencia County Sheriff's Department BELEN, NM At 9:30 A.M. In the state of New Mexico in September of 1988, Tara Calico, a successful young college student was out on her daily bike ride when she disappeared and was never seen again. That Tara Calico might be the young woman in a Polaroid photo seemed a long shot at best. The Disappearance of Tara Calico: Two Strangers and a Polaroid True Crime. Tune in to learn of the twists and turns in this case such as the disturbing polaroid picture found in Florida of a seemingly kidnapped girl who looked a lot. “He said he could help turn me into a proper investigator so I could actually make data sets that were viable to authorities with all the information I was collecting.In this week's episode, Shawna fills the crew in on the sad tale of the disappearance of Tara Calico. The Valencia County Sheriffs Office and Tara Leigh Calico family is asking. “Several years back in 2017 an investigator reached out to me after listening to my podcast,” she said. Melinda started her investigative work by looking into the Sheriff at the time of Tara’s death and carried out hundreds of interviews with local people in the community. “It was at that moment that I knew I had to do something.” “They proceeded to tell me a bunch of stories that were pretty shocking to me,” she said. In July 1989, 10 months after his teenage stepdaughter Tara Calico vanished near their home in New Mexico, a friend called John Doel with word of something strange: A photograph had surfaced in.

Melinda went home to New Mexico and met a group of old school pals, who told her: “Oh Melinda, the whole town knows who did it!” “I couldn’t believe I had forgotten what had happened all those years ago.” Tara, from Belen, New Mexico, took the same route nearly every morning, sometimes accompanied by her mother, Patty Doel, and sometimes alone. There was nothing at all unusual about this plan. When I read it I started crying and the wounds just ripped right open. On the morning of 20 September 1998, 19-year-old Tara Leigh Calico headed out on a pink Huffy bike for a ride along New Mexico State Road 47. “I had blocked it out until my mother had cut out the article and mailed it to me in California. She said: “Back in 1988 this entire event was very traumatising to the community. However, the photographs were never definitively linked to Tara Calico.
#Tara calico polaroid series#
Tara’s case received national attention in the 1990s when a series of Polaroid photographs surfaced that appeared to show her bound and gagged in the back of a van. The mysterious photo showed two people, one of them a young girl of about 20 years old and a boy of about 13 years old. On September 20, 1988, 19-year-old Tara Leigh Calico disappeared while riding her bike near her home in Belen, New Mexico. Melinda became interested in the case after a news article came out on the 20th anniversary of her death – 13 years ago. The Emergence of The Polaroid Photo On June 15, 1989, 9 months after Tara Calico’s disappearance, a Polaroid picture appeared in an adjacent parking space in Port St. “The details are gruesome of what happened and then what happened in the aftermath.” ‘TRAUMATISING’ “I think her body is buried within 20 miles of where she was hit. She took off running and they followed her, grabbed her, assaulted and then murdered her. Joe, Florida on June 15, 1989, nine months.

“The boys hit her bike and it knocked her off. Rumors have persisted for years that Calico was the unidentified female in a Polaroid photo discovered in Port St. “Regardless, I believe they knew her route, she was stalked and followed. “This would mean it was premeditated and thought out. “I have information that it was a possibility that this boy and his friends were going to grab her four days before the day she was actually taken on September 16, 1988,” she said. I have no idea if anyone will ever make any arrests in this case.”įrom her years of detective work, she thinks the group of local boys knocked Tara off her bike before snatching her and killing her.Īnd Melinda thinks Tara is buried just 20 miles away from where she was brutally murdered. “Therefore, I have to leave that up to them. Tara The case nearly went cold until June. 4 The case is still open and detectives have been investigating for more than 30 years Credit: FBI Several witnesses who did spot Tara riding her bike that day recall seeing a light-colored pickup truck with a camper shell following closely behind her.
