On September 20, 1988, Tara was abducted while riding her bike along Highway 47, a route she frequented. Despite the efforts of her parents, Patty and John Doel, and the authorities, Tara was never found. Nine months later, a disturbing Polaroid photograph was discovered, adding to the mystery of her disappearance. Who abducted Tara Calico? And most importantly, what happened to her?

Tara’s Background

From a young age, Tara was known as “Teeny Tara,” a small girl with a big personality. She took care of her siblings, displaying her independence and sense of responsibility. Tara grew up in a mixed household when her mother, Patty, married John Doel. It was a happy life, and Tara mastered juggling work, school, family, and friends with ease. However, amid Tara’s dreamlike home life, evil reared its ugly head.

The Fateful Day – Tara’s Abduction

It was a typical morning on September 20, 1988. Tara prepared for her daily bike ride, hopping onto Patty’s neon Huffy mountain bike to pedal from Brugg Drive to New Mexico Route 47. Patty would usually accompany her on their long rides on this same route; however, she previously felt the presence of a stalker, making her hesitant. Tara was unfazed by this and planned to continue her daily ride alone. Concerned for her daughter’s safety, Patty suggested that Tara should bring a mace with her.

However, the independent teen rejected the idea and instead told her mother to come get her if she was not home by noon. After all, she had plans to play tennis with her boyfriend, Jack Cole, at 12:30 PM. Tara set off at 9:30 AM, carrying her Walkman and wearing her headphones to listen to some music while on the bike ride. She pedaled southward down New Mexico Route 47. However, as the wind picked up, Tara suddenly vanished.

Worried that her daughter hadn’t come home yet, Patty searched for Tara along their usual bike route, but to no avail. Eventually, panic set in, prompting Patty to call the Valencia County Sheriff’s Department to report Tara as missing.

Investigation

Police interviewed witnesses who saw Tara Heading north on Highway 47 at 11:45 AM. Ishmael De La Rosa, one of the last people to see Tara, provided a critical piece of Information regarding the young girl’s disappearance. According to Ishmael, a light-colored gray ford camper truck was driving slowly behind Tara while she rode her bicycle. Disturbingly, there was a person running alongside the truck, crouched over next to it.

According to Ishmael, Tara was wearing her headphones, completely oblivious to the danger behind her. Ishmael was able to identify the driver as a middle-aged man with red hair, bloodshot eyes, a puffy face, and a scar from his left eye to the temple. He also noticed freshly pressed khaki shirts in the back of the truck, resembling that of law enforcement.

Upon hearing about the missing girl, Ishmael called Officer Ray Flores to report what he saw. However, Flores was strangely hesitant to take his statement. Nevertheless, the police took Ishmael’s report and even placed him under hypnosis, hoping he could recall more details. With this, Ishmael identified a suspect from a photo lineup, leading to a meeting with Flores the next day. Strangely, the policeman never showed up and did not respond to follow-up calls from Ishmael.

Patty continued searching the nearby area and found a discarded Boston tape cassette in the mud, two sets of bike tracks, and a few pieces of Tara’s Walkman. She believed this was Tara’s way of leaving breadcrumbs in her location. However, this was all the information anyone had at the time, and the case would remain cold for a while.

Polaroid Photographs

On June 15, 1989, there was an unsettling development in the Tara Calico case. It was a Polaroid photograph found in a convenience store parking lot in Port St. Joe, Florida, Approximately 1,200 miles away from where Tara had disappeared. It contained the image of a young woman and a little boy, their mouths covered with duct tape and their hands bound behind their backs. Apparently, the woman who found it entered the store and saw a white van in the parking lot driven by a man in his late 30s.

When she exited the store, the van was gone. All that was left was the Polaroid photograph face down on the pavement. Alarmed by her discovery, the woman handed it over to the authorities, who, after some analysis, indicated that it was shot not too long ago. When Patty and John saw the photo, they were convinced it was Tara. Patty pointed out that there was a scar on the girl’s leg, matching exactly the one Tara received as a result of a car accident. Additionally, there was a copy of “My Sweet Audrina” beside the girl in the image. The book was one of Tara’s favourites, written by her favourite author. However, when the photograph was analysed by three investigative agencies, they all came up with conflicting conclusions. Scotland Yard confirmed it was Tara, while Los Alamos National Laboratory claimed otherwise. The FBI was inconclusive.

Disturbingly, two more Polaroid photographs emerged, with the first one showing a woman With tape over her mouth against a blue and white striped background, similar to the first Polaroid.

The second photograph displayed a man and a woman on an Amtrak train, with the woman bound in gauze and wearing large black-framed eyeglasses, her eyes covered in gauze.

Sadly, neither of the two Polaroid photographs found was ever officially confirmed as a picture of Tara. Nonetheless, all three photographs are forever associated with her disappearance. After years of trying to find their daughter, Patty, and John finally moved out of New Mexico, Settling in Port Charlotte in November 2003. Tragically, Patty passed away on May 11, 2006, leaving behind a lifetime of unanswered questions about her daughter’s disappearance.

Another Breakthrough

In 2008, Rene Rivera, an officer who worked in the case since 1996, had now become a Sheriff and had a bold claim: He knew exactly what had happened to Tara. According to Rivera, two local teenagers who knew Tara accidentally hit her bike and panicked. They drove off with her, violated and killed her, then tossed her bike in a junkyard. Afterward, two other men were involved in disposing of her body by throwing it in a pond. According to Rivera, those involved were unfortunately too well-connected and could not be arrested at the time. Despite his bold claim, Rivera had no intention of pursuing the case unless Tara’s body or bike was found, much to the frustration of John. With no new leads, the case went cold again.

Revelations

Tara’s case remained inactive until October 2013, when a cold case Task Force reopened it because of a statement from Frank Methola, a former Deputy from the Valencia County Sheriff’s department. According to Methola, a man named Henry Brown was on his deathbed and made a confession to him – something he wanted to get off his chest. Brown stated that his neighbour and Tara’s classmate, Lawrence Romero Jr., had shown him a basement beneath his mobile home. While in the basement, Brown claimed to have seen a shallow grave wrapped in a blue tarp.

This information provided a potentially significant breakthrough in the case of Tara’s disappearance. Eventually, Romero Jr. revealed his secrets to Brown. Brown recalled that Romero Jr. and several of his friends were openly discussing killing Tara at the time she went missing. Romero Jr. and his friends knew Tara, as she had recently just broken up with another one of their friends named Jeff Abeyta.

Brown stated a few names, all of which were Tara's classmates: Romero Jr., Dave Silva, Leroy Chavez, and a redheaded man. In his deathbed confession, Brown stated that these four men were responsible for Tara’s death. While she was riding her bike on the day of her disappearance, the four were in a pickup truck and hit her – whether it was planned or not was unclear.

The four men then abducted Tara and violated her. Fearing that she would inform the authorities, Romero Jr. stabbed her to death while the other men restrained her. Afterward, they disposed of her body in a nearby pond and abandoned her bike in a junkyard. This was what Brown said on his deathbed, According to Deputy Methola.

However, the plot becomes more complicated. Romero Jr. felt he had said too much to Brown, so he poured concrete over the basement and even went as far as threatening to kill Brown if he alerted the authorities. Additionally, Romero Jr. was well-connected at the time, as his father was the Valencia county Sheriff and had played a role in covering up the crime. This was the reason why Romero Jr. waited so long to tell Methola about this information.

However, it doesn’t stop there. Melinda Esquibel, one of Tara’s classmates, grieved her disappearance. Eventually, she became a filmmaker and used her skills to create an investigative podcast called “Vanished: The Tara Calico Investigation.” In one of her episodes, Esquibel read a transcript of a 2006 incident report taken by Methola. This was very different from what Methola stated in 2013.

Report

In the 2006 incident report, Methola mentioned that Brown’s neighbour was someone with the initials “AJ.” Brown never actually mentioned Romero Jr. or even the other men in this particular report. The incident report was taken by Methola because Brown complained to the police about a swarm of bees on his property, believing it was caused by his neighbor, AJ. The police told Brown they couldn’t do anything about the problem. However, Brown had something more important to tell them – something that had been bothering him for 20 years.

Brown confessed that in November 1988, AJ showed him a makeshift basement under his home with what looked like a shallow grave. According to Brown, AJ was drunk and began discussing Tara’s disappearance, remarking on how pretty she was. Years later, Brown noticed AJ had covered the basement with a slab of concrete. Fearing that Brown might say something to the authorities, AJ threatened to kill him if he ever mentioned to anyone what they talked about on that night in November 1988. o ensure Brown’s silence, AJ sent an armed gunman to Brown’s home in 2001 in an attempt to kill him. Although it was unsuccessful, Brown was scared and waited until he was 83 to tell the police about this.

After reading the incident report, Esquibel was left with more questions than answers. No arrests have been made despite these new developments. Unfortunately, Brown has long died since this information surfaced, and the mysterious AJ. He mentioned was never identified or arrested. Consequently, Esquibel stopped considering Methola as a credible source of information due to the changing statements he claimed.

On October 1, 2019, the FBI made a public announcement offering a reward of up to $20,000 for any specific information that could lead to the identification or whereabouts of Tara, As well as information that could lead to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for her disappearance.

In September 2021, the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office and the New Mexico State Police announced a new lead in Tara’s case. A sealed warrant for an unknown private residence in Valencia County has been issued, but no further details were given. After all these developments, not one person was arrested for Tara’s disappearance. The search continues.

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