Disappearance of Tara Calico

Tara Leigh Calico, born February 28, 1969, disappeared on the morning of September 20, 1988, after leaving her home in Belen, New Mexico, at about 9:30 a.m. for her regular bicycle ride along New Mexico State Road 47. She had told her mother, Patty Doel, to come looking for her if she was not home by noon, since she had plans to play tennis with her boyfriend at 12:30. When Calico did not return, Doel searched the route herself before contacting police. Pieces of Calico's Sony Walkman and a cassette tape were later found along the road, which Doel believed her daughter may have dropped to mark her trail. Several people saw Calico riding that morning, but no one witnessed an abduction. Witnesses did report a light-colored pickup truck, possibly a 1953 Ford with a camper shell, following closely behind her. Her bicycle has never been recovered.

In July 1989, national television coverage broadcast a Polaroid photo found on June 15, 1989, in a convenience store parking lot in Port St. Joe, Florida, showing a gagged, apparently bound young woman and boy. A witness said the photo had been left in a space where a white, windowless Toyota cargo van, driven by a mustached man in his 30s, had been parked; the driver was never identified. Family friends who saw the broadcast contacted Doel, believing the woman resembled Tara. Doel examined the photo and said she was convinced it was her daughter, citing a scar on the woman's leg matching one Calico had from a car accident, along with a paperback of V.C. Andrews' "My Sweet Audrina," reportedly one of Calico's favorite books, visible in the image. Scotland Yard's analysis concluded the woman was Calico, but a Los Alamos National Laboratory analysis disagreed, with a forensic scientist there stating the woman was "definitely not Tara." An FBI analysis was inconclusive. Relatives of Michael Henley, a New Mexico boy who disappeared in April 1988, believed he was the boy in the photo, but this is considered unlikely since Henley's remains were found in June 1990 roughly seven miles from his family's campsite, well separated from Calico's disappearance site, with authorities believing he died of exposure.

Two additional Polaroid photographs possibly depicting Calico surfaced in Montecito, California (July 1989) and on an Amtrak train (film dated to 1990); family members offered mixed assessments of these images. In 2009, anonymous letters containing photos of a boy with a drawn-on gag were sent to Florida police and a local newspaper, prompting further FBI review, though no identification resulted.

In 1998, a judge declared Calico legally dead and ruled her death a homicide. In 2008, a county sheriff said he had information that two teenagers accidentally struck Calico with a truck and covered up her subsequent death, but stated he lacked a body to build a case. A task force was formed in 2013 to reinvestigate, and in 2019 the FBI offered a $20,000 reward for information. In September 2021, authorities cited a new lead and a sealed warrant for a Valencia County residence. In June 2023, the Valencia County Sheriff's Office stated there was "sufficient evidence" to submit the case for review of potential charges, though the identities of persons of interest remained sealed by court order.