tara calico was last seen riding her bike along highway 47 just south of berlin near mile marker
15. it was a bike ride that she did almost every single day and on the morning of her
disappearance she told her mom if i'm not back by noon come look for me it's been 30 years
and she hasn't been seen since good afternoon and welcome to true crime mysteries
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today we are discussing the mysterious disappearance of tara calico let's get into it
tara calico story is one that you've likely heard in some form her disappearance drew a wave
of media attention and speculation and became a cautionary tale for young women everywhere
she has now been missing for 33 years and her cold case continues to haunt law enforcement
there's evidence to suggest her disappearance holds many secrets and more than one person
knows what happened to tara calico the beginning tara lee calico was born on february 28 1969 in
new mexico to parents david and patty calico tara had five siblings and her parents separated when
she was little her mother remarried and she moved with patti and her new husband john dole to bellin
a nearby suburb of new mexico where the family settled taro was described as organized fiercely
independent and outgoing tara had always been a high-energy athletic child that had followed
her into adulthood with tara being extremely outdoorsy and adventurous and was always down
for a hike or bike ride she had excelled in high school and always had an easy time making friends
after high school tara enrolled at the university of new mexico and decided to study psychology
where in her first year she maintained a 3.9 gpa she had always been fascinated with psychology and
loved learning about people tara had been dating a former high school classmate jack cole and the
two had a relaxed and enjoyable relationship filled with adventures jack kept up with tara's
active lifestyle and the two got along well between school her friends exercise and her job
tara had always made sure she had a good balance and was able to keep up on all the
things she needed in life her disappearance in the early morning hours on september 20th 1988
the 19 year old got her things ready for the day tara was only a few weeks into her second year
at unm and was getting ready for her daily bike ride tara still lived at home and she often did
a 36 mile bike ride along highway 47 to the train tracks and back with her mother however paddy
didn't go with tara on this morning tara left her home at 9 30 am and set out tara had been riding
her mother's bike a neon pink huffy mountain bike as her own bike had gotten a flat tire a few days
previous tara had asked paddy to come get her in the car if she wasn't home by noon as she
had a tennis date with her boyfriend jack and then she had to go to class at 3 30. tara rode with a
walkman plane with headphones before she left she had asked her mom to rewind two tapes for her one
was a band called boston side note who remembers the tediousness of rewinding cassettes so you
could listen to them again or fast forwarding through songs in an album to get to the good ones
or even worse your walkman shredding your favorite tape paddy waited and when tara didn't return
she set out to go grab her as she and tara had already planned the route they biked was pretty
much a straight shot and patty grew increasingly concerned when she got to the train tracks and
didn't see any sign of tara patty called around to local hospitals to see if maybe she'd had
an accident and had possibly been admitted when it was determined that tara was at the hospital
paddy rounded up a few family friends to help her search for the missing woman when the group could
find no trace of tara patty called the police a police search began but nothing was found that day
the search was halted for the night and resumed in the morning but during the break a heavy rain came
through and may have washed away critical evidence the search resumed at daylight and police noticed
a set of tire tracks that appeared to look like a bike had veered off the road suddenly about a
hundred yards off the highway witnesses said they saw tara riding northbound on the highway towards
her home at around 11 30. the day she went missing only two miles away from home another witness said
that she saw a 1953 ford pickup truck that was dirty white or light gray in color with a white
homemade shell in the back following closely behind her driving on the shoulder they noted
that they could see tara had headphones on and seemed oblivious to the truck behind her
a third witness said that they'd driven past tara remembering seeing her biking and they also saw a
white truck and they were able to see that the truck held multiple occupants in the vehicle
officers searched the area around the bike tire tracks and noted that they saw several footprints
in the soft earth officers followed the footprints and made a discovery tara's tape from her walkman
and broken pieces of plastic that had likely come from a walkman along with several empty beer cans
they found the rest of tara's walkman at the john f kennedy campground 19 miles away from
the highway the campground sits at the base of the manzano mountains a remote and unpopulated area
with this new evidence it was clear this wasn't an accident and it was looking more and more
that tara had been abducted after the discovery of the tape and pieces of tara's walkman
police efforts doubled but patty claimed that the efforts of local law enforcement were mixed
she said that one particular officer would call her often with new gruesome possible angles
including being a sacrifice as part of a satanic cult ritual according to patty this was both
widely inappropriate and traumatizing for the mother that same officer also told a reporter that
tara was likely a runaway shortly after making the statement the detective in question was terminated
and belen pd office called the behavior uncalled and was not part of their protocol
officers collected a bunch of evidence found on the side of the highway which included a water
bottle a patch of disturbed dirt and investigated three men that had been seen drinking beer on the
back of a pickup truck near the campground and were able to eliminate all of them from the case
the disappearance shocked the area how did a woman go missing in broad daylight with
several witnesses having seen her and no one was able to find such a unique vehicle
that also contained multiple people based on witnesses testimony detectives released
two police sketches of the man in the white truck the driver was described as older in
his late 30s to mid 40s caucasian with red hair and someone also stated that they saw
him with a lot of wrinkles around his temple the witnesses said that the other man was described
as younger caucasian and male they couldn't really see him because he was shielded from view
despite an extensive search on land and by helicopter the search ended on september 27th
detectives continued the investigation but without any further leads the case eventually went cold
the polaroid over a year later on june 15 1989 1700 miles away in port saint joe florida a woman
found a polaroid picture in an empty parking space in a parking lot at a convenience store
the photograph showed an unidentified boy and girl bound with black tape over their mouths in
the back of a van prior to the woman finding the picture witnesses said that a white toyota van had
been parked there for some time the woman called local law enforcement who passed the photo off
to the fbi the fbi decided to put the photograph in the media in the area and relatives of patti
called her saying the young woman in the polaroid looked like tara patty flew down to florida to
look at the picture in person and concluded that the woman bore a striking resemblance to her
daughter what solidified her belief was a scar on the woman's leg tar had gotten into a car accident
as a child and had a scar on her leg where there was also a mark on the young woman's leg in the
picture also visible in the photo was a copy of my sweet adrena by v c andrews which was one of
tara's favorite books and author the photograph was examined by multiple agencies but none of them
definitively concluded the woman was tara there was a partial phone number seen on
the spine of the novel but some of the numbers were unreadable and it didn't lead to any leads
the los alamos national laboratory didn't believe it was her where scotland yard
determined it was her after this patty lost hope in the fbi and law enforcement in general patty
expressed disappointment and a lack of trust with various law enforcement agencies responsible for
investigating tara's disappearance patty passed in 2006 never knowing what happened to her daughter
two more photos were found and examined but it was determined that they likely also weren't connected
to tara the first photo was found in montecito california at a construction site it was a blurry
photo of a woman's face with a taped mouth and a similar hairline to tara according to patti
the woman had a cow look at the right temple and also had a lazy pupil in one eye like tara
there was also a light blue striped fabric behind the woman similar to the fabric of the pillow seen
in the van from the first photo paddy believed it was tara however the polaroid film it was taken on
was not available until 1989. the second photo was a woman on an amtrak train with
a man sitting next to her with more gauze wrapped around her mouth and wearing black framed glasses
this polaroid film was not available until february 1990. patty is not sure if this
one could be tara but the man's face is included with the suspect's composites even decades later
none of the women or the boy from the photo have been identified the alleged cover-up a freedom
of information request was put in for the police records pertaining to tara calico at the valencia
sheriff's department office when they received the documents they were in a state of chaos files were
disorganized not catalogued properly some files seem to be missing documents and witness audio
recordings that were logged were no longer in there on september 20th 2008 an article published
by the valencia county news bulletin stated that the sheriff of valencia county rene rivera
knew what happened to tara including the identity of the people who committed the kidnapping
the article alleged that rivera had received information and that the teens had panicked and
murdered tara and their parents helped cover it up rivero has never released any evidence
to support this claim and he has stated that until a body is found he cannot make an arrest
in october 2013 a six-person task force was put together to re-examine the case
but no new evidence was uncovered during that investigation in 2019 the fbi announced a twenty
thousand dollar reward for precise details that would lead to the recovery of tara or her remains
several witnesses believe that the red-headed man they saw in the old white truck was not an
older man but for a striking resemblance to local man lawrence romero jr his father lawrence romero
senior had been the sheriff responsible for the investigation into the disappearance of tara
caligo one of the witnesses had said that she had been flipping through a newspaper and saw
an obituary announcement and had recognized the man in the photo she said that the exact photo
that had been used for the obituary was the same photo that she had picked out of the photo lineup
as the closest match according to local sources the sheriff's department was known to be corrupt
and it is believed that tara's death was one of many cover-ups one source alleged that they
were friends with lawrence jr scott cunningham and charlie hooton he said that the group were
heavy users of drugs and alcohol and described the group as pretty wild and were known to get
into trouble he also said that he had walked in on the men discussing what to do about tara's
body lawrence romero senior died in 2011 and his son had died a few years previous to him in 2013
a man called into the sheriff's department wanting to make a deathbed confession henry brown was sick
and he knew he didn't have much time left on this earth and wanted to get something off of his chest
he had said that he went to the trailer home of lawrence romero jr and said that they had dug out
a makeshift basement underneath the trailer which was used to smoke pot and drink in he said that
shortly after tara's disappearance he went into the basement and saw the body of a young woman
wrapped in a blue tarp he said that romero along with two other men had discussed plans of burying
her in that basement he went on to say that romero told him that they had been waiting for tara and
romero had laughed and said that the men had been harassing her from their truck they said that they
purposely hit her off her bike and grabbed her and the bike before taking her out to the woods
he said that the men sexually assaulted her and then murdered her initially they had left her
body near where she had been murdered but when the investigation got bigger they went back and took
her body back to romero junior's trailer they said that they dumped the bike and no one ever spoke
of it again sheriff deputy frank mathola took the statement but it is not among the other documents
in the file another man donald dutch came forward with an eerily similar story but again no records
of the confession or subsequent investigation are available though these are suspicious claims it
is important to remember that this didn't come from official documentation these are alleged
statements that the authorities do not find credible though it does call into question some of
the odd tactics used by local law enforcement the harassment that patty described from a particular
officer as well as the state that the police files had been in in addition to the missing records
the fbi made a statement in 2019 saying tara had her entire future ahead of her when she vanished
law enforcement has never given up the search for this young lady checking out numerous tips and
conducting countless interviews over the course of more than 30 years but it's time for someone to
come forward and help us bring tara home michelle dole continues to keep her sister's cold case in
the media continuing to give interviews check back in with law enforcement and stay updated on any
new leads if anyone knows anything about tara's disappearance they are encouraged to contact
any local fbi office well that's going to be it for this video as always please give this video
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