Tara Leigh Calico was born on February 28, 1969. She is an American woman. On September 20, 1988, she disappeared from near her home in Belen, New Mexico. David Calico is her father, and Patty Doel is her mother.
At the time of her disappearance, she was 19. According to reports, she was kidnapped. The kidnapping of her has been going on for 32 years now. For decades the case of the disappearance of Tara Calico is a mystery.
Disappearance:
It was September 20, 1988, when Tara Calico left her home in the morning at 9 30. She was going to ride her bike to New Mexico State Road 47.
Her mother, Patty Doel, accompanied her to the route almost every day. Nevertheless, Doel stopped riding with Calico when she felt that a motorist was stalking her. She recommended to Calico that she consider carrying mace, but Calico declined the suggestion.
Calico had told Doel her plans for playing tennis with her boyfriend at 12:30 was to end at noon, and if she were not home by then, he should come and get her.
As soon as Calico failed to return home, Doel searched for her along Calico’s usual bike route but couldn’t discover her; she called the police. Later, bits of Calico’s Sony Walkman and a cassette tape were discovered along the highway.
It was thought that her attempt at marking her trail might have led her to drop the items. The bicycle has never been found that she was riding. Several people witnessed her hanging it.
Polaroid Picture:
A Polaroid photograph of a young girl and boy, gagged and seemingly bound, was broadcast to the public in July 1989 after the picture was found in the parking lot of a convenience store in Port St. Joe, Florida. A lot were thinking that the case of the disappearance of Tara Calico will be solved now.
Upon discovering the photo, family friends thought it looked like Calico and called her mother, who later met with investigators and examined it.
It appeared to be her daughter after noting that the woman’s scar on her leg was almost precisely the same as Calico’s. “Time, growth, and lack of makeup” all played a part in why Calico thought it was her daughter.
Michelle, Tara’s sister, stated,
They had a striking, uncalming resemblance. As for me, I will not rule them out. But keep in mind our family has had to identify many other photographs, and all but those three were ruled out.
Michelle Stated
After analyzing the photograph, Scotland Yard determined the woman to be Calico. However, at Los Alamos National Laboratory, they disagreed.
Some Later Developments about the case:
According to Rene Rivera, Calico is reported to have been hit by a truck driven by two teenagers. After the accident, they panicked and fled the scene. After she died, Calico’s killers covered up the crime.
Rivera said he knew the victims’ names but that, without a body, he couldn’t pursue the case. No evidence supporting his conclusion was released. John Doel, Calico’s stepfather, said that if the sheriff was not intending to arrest anyone, he should not have said these things. According to him, circumstantial evidence should be enough to convict.
Disappearance of Tara Calico was reinvestigated by a six-person task force in October 2013. At the end of 2017, no arrests had been made and the case remained open.
While living 2,000 miles away from where Tara had disappeared, Patty would see a woman riding by and wonder if she was Tara.
I’d have to try to explain to her that it wasn’t Tara, that is was a person too old or too young,
In 2006, after the death of Patty, John Doel stated:
Patty was looking for Tara right to the end.
Recent Developments and steps:
When Melinda went home to Belen for Christmas 2008, she had dinner with some old friends and broached the subject of Tara’s disappearance. Melinda told a Journal the response surprised her.
They said, ‘Oh Melinda, the whole town knows who did it,
A prominent law enforcement officer’s son and the young boys driving the truck were subject to the attack. As soon as she realized this, Melinda knew she had to act to find Tara.
In addition to working on a documentary, Melinda launched a podcast that has been downloaded over a million times about Tara’s disappearance. Michele and Melinda also launched a Fb page titled Vanished: The Tara Calico Story and a website to seek help from the public about Tara’s case. The Fb page has more than 7k followers.
When there was no development in Tara’s case, in 2019, the FBI finally announced a reward of $20,000 for any kind of precise details regarding Tara’s disappearance case.
Final Words
The case of the disappearance of Tara Calico is still unsolved, and the investigation has not reached a conclusion even after decades. There is no way to explain away the disappearance of an intelligent college student outside her home. It is a very mysterious incident in itself, something that cannot be explained. Some people believe she is still alive globally, but many seem to think she has passed away.
