Post by maverick1862 on Sept 27, 2007 16:03:31 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]TARA LEIGH CALICO[/glow]
Missing Since: September 20, 1988 from Belen, New Mexico
Classification: Endangered Missing
Date Of Birth: February 28, 1969
Age: 19 years old
Height and Weight: 5'7, 120 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Brown hair, green eyes. Calico has a large scar on the back of her right shoulder and a scar on her calf. She has a dime-sized brown birthmark on the back of one of her legs. She has a lazy eye. Tara Leigh has a cowlick on her right temple.
Details of Disappearance
Tara Leigh left her house on Brugg Street in Belen, New Mexico to go on a bike ride at 9:30 on the morning of September 20, 1988. She took her mother's bike because her own was damaged. She was last seen riding her mother's neon pink Huffy mountain bicycle with yellow control cables and sidewalls on Highway 47 in Valencia County, at approximately 11:45 a.m. This location is approximately two miles from her home. She has never been seen again. Tara Leigh biked the route daily during her routine 36-mile ride. Witnesses saw a dirty white or light gray-colored 1953 Ford pickup truck with a white handmade shell following Tara Leigh during her ride. It is not known if the truck is connected to her presumed abduction. Tara Leigh was apparently unaware of the truck's presence. Her mother's bicycle has never been located. Foul play is suspected in Tara Leigh's disappearance.
Tara Leigh is described as an efficient, independent person who liked to make lists scheduling out her days. She enjoys running. On the day she vanished, she was concerned about staying on schedule and asked her mother, Pat Doel, to come get her if she was not home by 12:00 p.m. Tara Leigh had plans to play tennis with her boyfriend at 12:30 p.m., and a class at 4:00 p.m. that day. She was enrolled as a sophomore at University of New Mexico at the time of her disappearance. She had a high grade point average and planned to become a psychiatrist. When Tara Leigh vanished she left behind her tennis clothes and equipment, school books, and purse.
Doel went to look for her at 12:05 p.m. the day she was last seen. When she could not find her along her usual bike route, she contacted police. The next day, Doel found a Boston cassette tape belonging to Tara Leigh by the side of the road. It was three miles from her home, and on opposite side of the highway, as if she had dropped it while riding away from her residence. Later, part of Tara Leigh's Sony Walkman was recovered nineteen miles east of Highway 47 near the remote John F. Kennedy campground. Doel believes her daughter deliberately left those items to mark her trail. Near where the cassette tape was found were some bike tracks and marks resembling a scuffle or skids.
Rumors have persisted for years that Tara Leigh was the unidentified female in a Polaroid photo discovered in Port St. Joe, Florida on June 15, 1989, nine months following her disappearance. A white Toyota cargo van had been parked in the spot prior to the discovery of the picture. The photo was located on the ground in a convenience store's parking lot in St. Joe. It depicted a long-legged young woman and a smaller boy lying on some sheets and a blue striped pillow. Their mouths were covered with duct tape and their hands tied behind their backs. The photograph was taken in the back of a white Toyota cargo van with no windows, manufactured in the late 1980s. Polaroid officials say the picture had to have been taken after May 1989; the film it was made of was not available until then.
A copy of the V. C. Andrews novel My Sweet Audrina, a plastic cup, and a squirt gun are also visible in the photo. V. C. Andrews also happens to be Tara Leigh's favorite author. There is apparently a phone number written on the spine of the book, but some of the digits are unreadable. Experts say it could be 300 possible numbers, 57 of which are valid.
Authorities believe that the girl in the photo was seen walking along the beach in Port St. Joe shortly before the Polaroid was located. Witnesses said that the girl was accompanied by several unidentified adult Caucasian males who appeared to be giving her verbal orders. An unidentified boy was also pictured in the photo; both he and the girl were bound and gagged. The girl's photo and a computer-generated image of the boy are posted below this case summary.
Some people believed that the boy in the picture was a child who vanished in April 1988 from the same area of New Mexico as Tara Leigh. His name was Michael Henley and he was nine years old when he disappeared. His mother identified the boy in the photograph as her son. Henley's remains were found in the Zuni Mountains in 1990. The Federal Bureau Of Investigation (FBI) examined the photo and cannot determine whether the girl is Tara Leigh or the boy Henley, but experts at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Arizona believes the girl is Tara Leigh. The girl has a similar hairline and ear to Tara Leigh's, and a mark on her calf similar to a scar Tara Leigh got from an injury in a car accident. It is not known whether the Polaroid was staged or whether the boy and girl were being held against their will.
Two other similar photographs have surfaced over the years. One Polaroid, made on film that was unavailable until June 1989, was found near a residential construction site in Montecito, California and depicted a girl's face with her mouth covered by duct tape. The image is blurry, but Doel says she thinks the girl in the photo is her daughter. She has a cowlick on her right temple like Tara Leigh, and also a lazy eye like Tara Leigh has. The blue-striped fabric the girl is lying on is similar to the pillow in the first photo. The third Polaroid photograph was shot on film not available until February of 1990 shows a woman who is loosely bound in gauze and has her eyes covered with gauze and large black-framed glasses. There is a man sitting next to her on the passenger seat of an Amtrak train. Doel is not sure whether the girl is her daughter; she believes this photograph may be a cruel joke.
Tara Leigh's mother and stepfather continued to live in the house she had lived in for fifteen years after her disappearance; in September 2003 they moved to Port Charlotte, Florida. Doel said she moved because she did not want to be reminded of her daughter's disappearance. Tara Leigh's biological father died of a heart attack in 2002. Tara Leigh's case remains unsolved.
unknown girl (possibly Tara Leigh Calico)
unknown boy
Missing Since: September 20, 1988 from Belen, New Mexico
Classification: Endangered Missing
Date Of Birth: February 28, 1969
Age: 19 years old
Height and Weight: 5'7, 120 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Brown hair, green eyes. Calico has a large scar on the back of her right shoulder and a scar on her calf. She has a dime-sized brown birthmark on the back of one of her legs. She has a lazy eye. Tara Leigh has a cowlick on her right temple.
Details of Disappearance
Tara Leigh left her house on Brugg Street in Belen, New Mexico to go on a bike ride at 9:30 on the morning of September 20, 1988. She took her mother's bike because her own was damaged. She was last seen riding her mother's neon pink Huffy mountain bicycle with yellow control cables and sidewalls on Highway 47 in Valencia County, at approximately 11:45 a.m. This location is approximately two miles from her home. She has never been seen again. Tara Leigh biked the route daily during her routine 36-mile ride. Witnesses saw a dirty white or light gray-colored 1953 Ford pickup truck with a white handmade shell following Tara Leigh during her ride. It is not known if the truck is connected to her presumed abduction. Tara Leigh was apparently unaware of the truck's presence. Her mother's bicycle has never been located. Foul play is suspected in Tara Leigh's disappearance.
Tara Leigh is described as an efficient, independent person who liked to make lists scheduling out her days. She enjoys running. On the day she vanished, she was concerned about staying on schedule and asked her mother, Pat Doel, to come get her if she was not home by 12:00 p.m. Tara Leigh had plans to play tennis with her boyfriend at 12:30 p.m., and a class at 4:00 p.m. that day. She was enrolled as a sophomore at University of New Mexico at the time of her disappearance. She had a high grade point average and planned to become a psychiatrist. When Tara Leigh vanished she left behind her tennis clothes and equipment, school books, and purse.
Doel went to look for her at 12:05 p.m. the day she was last seen. When she could not find her along her usual bike route, she contacted police. The next day, Doel found a Boston cassette tape belonging to Tara Leigh by the side of the road. It was three miles from her home, and on opposite side of the highway, as if she had dropped it while riding away from her residence. Later, part of Tara Leigh's Sony Walkman was recovered nineteen miles east of Highway 47 near the remote John F. Kennedy campground. Doel believes her daughter deliberately left those items to mark her trail. Near where the cassette tape was found were some bike tracks and marks resembling a scuffle or skids.
Rumors have persisted for years that Tara Leigh was the unidentified female in a Polaroid photo discovered in Port St. Joe, Florida on June 15, 1989, nine months following her disappearance. A white Toyota cargo van had been parked in the spot prior to the discovery of the picture. The photo was located on the ground in a convenience store's parking lot in St. Joe. It depicted a long-legged young woman and a smaller boy lying on some sheets and a blue striped pillow. Their mouths were covered with duct tape and their hands tied behind their backs. The photograph was taken in the back of a white Toyota cargo van with no windows, manufactured in the late 1980s. Polaroid officials say the picture had to have been taken after May 1989; the film it was made of was not available until then.
A copy of the V. C. Andrews novel My Sweet Audrina, a plastic cup, and a squirt gun are also visible in the photo. V. C. Andrews also happens to be Tara Leigh's favorite author. There is apparently a phone number written on the spine of the book, but some of the digits are unreadable. Experts say it could be 300 possible numbers, 57 of which are valid.
Authorities believe that the girl in the photo was seen walking along the beach in Port St. Joe shortly before the Polaroid was located. Witnesses said that the girl was accompanied by several unidentified adult Caucasian males who appeared to be giving her verbal orders. An unidentified boy was also pictured in the photo; both he and the girl were bound and gagged. The girl's photo and a computer-generated image of the boy are posted below this case summary.
Some people believed that the boy in the picture was a child who vanished in April 1988 from the same area of New Mexico as Tara Leigh. His name was Michael Henley and he was nine years old when he disappeared. His mother identified the boy in the photograph as her son. Henley's remains were found in the Zuni Mountains in 1990. The Federal Bureau Of Investigation (FBI) examined the photo and cannot determine whether the girl is Tara Leigh or the boy Henley, but experts at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Arizona believes the girl is Tara Leigh. The girl has a similar hairline and ear to Tara Leigh's, and a mark on her calf similar to a scar Tara Leigh got from an injury in a car accident. It is not known whether the Polaroid was staged or whether the boy and girl were being held against their will.
Two other similar photographs have surfaced over the years. One Polaroid, made on film that was unavailable until June 1989, was found near a residential construction site in Montecito, California and depicted a girl's face with her mouth covered by duct tape. The image is blurry, but Doel says she thinks the girl in the photo is her daughter. She has a cowlick on her right temple like Tara Leigh, and also a lazy eye like Tara Leigh has. The blue-striped fabric the girl is lying on is similar to the pillow in the first photo. The third Polaroid photograph was shot on film not available until February of 1990 shows a woman who is loosely bound in gauze and has her eyes covered with gauze and large black-framed glasses. There is a man sitting next to her on the passenger seat of an Amtrak train. Doel is not sure whether the girl is her daughter; she believes this photograph may be a cruel joke.
Tara Leigh's mother and stepfather continued to live in the house she had lived in for fifteen years after her disappearance; in September 2003 they moved to Port Charlotte, Florida. Doel said she moved because she did not want to be reminded of her daughter's disappearance. Tara Leigh's biological father died of a heart attack in 2002. Tara Leigh's case remains unsolved.
unknown girl (possibly Tara Leigh Calico)
unknown boy