Hope and heartache of sinister snap showing missing teen bound and gagged

The case of Tara Leigh Calico, who vanished one morning while out on her daily bike ride remains unsolved.

The then 19-year-old took her usual 36-mile route around her home town in Valencia County, New Mexico. Often cycling the route with her mum Patty – who had skipped the ride after an incident with a car shortly before.

Tara continued to ride as usual, but carried self-defence spray. On the morning of her disappearance, the teen allegedly joked her mum better come looking for her if she wasn’t home by noon.

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Tara was set to play tennis at 12.30pm with her boyfriend that day but never arrived. When she didn’t come home, Patty drove up and down the bike route searching for any sign of her daughter.

They then contacted the police who launched a search for her and her bike. But for 10 months there were no updates on Tara’s case or any information about her whereabouts.

Several people recalled seeing her on the road, others recalled seeing a light pickup truck near her. Police also found pieces of Tara’s broken Walkman – thought to be deliberately dropped and broken.

With no compelling evidence she had been abducted, police suspected Tara may have run away – despite her family adamantly denying it.

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10 months later (June 1989) Tara vanished into thin air a Polaroid picture was left in a parking lot in Flordia – nearly 1,500 miles from where she vanished. The picture is believed to be Tara.

The eerie image showed a teenage girl and a young boy bound and gagged, lying on sheets and a pillow. Both had duct tape over their mouths.

The woman who found the image contacted police and told them about the white Toyota van that had been parked beside her. Police attempted to trace the vehicle but failed.

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Patty is certain that the image is of her daughter. Claiming that Tara has the same discoloured streak on her thigh – a scar she had got through a car accident when she was a child.

Adding that the book laying beside the girl, by author V.C. Andres was one of Tara’s favourites. But not all police could agree.

Experts at the Los Alamos National Laboratory doubted it was her, and the FBI was unable to offer conclusive evidence either way. Scotland Yard in the UK however concluded the girl was indeed Tara Calico.

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Two other Polaroid photographs that could have been of Tara Calico have surfaced over the years. One was a blurry photo of a girl’s face with tape covering her mouth, found near a residential construction site in Montecito, California. Forensic evidence suggests it was taken sometime after May of 1989.

The second was of a woman loosely bound with her eyes covered, sitting next to a man on an Amtrak train, dated roughly to February of 1990. Tara’s parents believe the first may be their daughter, but not the latter.

The case remains active, and the FBI are offering money to anyone with precise details leading to the identification or location of Tara Leigh Calico, and information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for her disappearance.

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