Tara Leigh Calico was 19 years old when she disappeared. And being that so much time has gone by, I didn't think it was practical that she was still alive." "We would discuss it frequently, and I would tell her my reasons that if she (Tara) was able to, she would have contacted us. "Patty knew that I felt that way, but she continued to hope to hear from her," he said. He said if Tara could have come home, she would have. While Patty never gave up hope that her daughter was alive, John said he's felt for years that Tara didn't survive whatever happened to her. "Whoever knows something about this, I hope that they come forward because, as hard as it's been on them to live with that information, they have no idea how hard it's been for our family," she said. And if Tara isn't alive, her sister just prays that she didn't suffer long. Michele's hope is that if Tara is still alive, that she's not suffering. Statistically, the odds are against her, and if she's not alive, we still need to know where she is." It's hard just not having closure and not knowing what happened. "If I'm driving down the street and I see someone who possibly resembles her, I find myself watching them - staring. "It's gotten harder because we still don't know," said Tara's younger sister, Michele Doel. Even after 20 years, Tara's family still thinks about her every day. Patty and John Doel moved to Florida five years ago, leaving behind the community that had stood by their sides since the day Tara disappeared. "She was still concerned, and she still expected Tara to walk in at any time." "We passed notes back and forth for about eight months, but after that it was more difficult to communicate," Doel said in a telephone interview. Her husband John, Tara's stepfather, said Patty had severe dementia and wasn't able to speak for the last year of her life. Patty Doel died in Port Charles, Fla., at the age of 64 in May 2006 from complications from a series of strokes she had suffered. The University of New Mexico-Valencia Campus student never returned home, leaving her family and an entire community to wonder and wait for any word about her fate. John searched for the white van, it was never found.Twenty years ago today, Tara Calico disappeared into thin airĬlara Garcia News-Bulletin Staff Writer Patty Doel died two years ago, she still had hopes that her daughter, Tara Calico, was alive and would be found.Īfter 20 years of searching and praying, Tara's family still has no answer to the mystery of what happened to their bright beautiful daughter who vanished in broad daylight on her daily bicycle ride on N.M. She insisted that the girl in the photo had a scar on her leg just like one Tara had. Tara's mother Patty believed it was Tara. The book in the picture next to the girl is by V.C. The chilling photograph shows a girl who bears an eerie resemblance to Tara Calico, along with a young boy, both bound and gagged and staring into the camera. John, Florida, in the parking lot of a convenience store, a woman found a Polaroid that fell out of a white van. Nine months after the fateful bike ride, nearly 1,500 miles away from Tara's home, a terrifying potential clue was found. Tara was happy she had a boyfriend, and she was doing well in school. Police had found various witnesses from September 20th who had seen Tara on her bike ride and several more who had reported a white pickup truck with a camper on the back that might or might not have been involved with her disappearance.īut the police felt it was possible that Tara was merely a runaway, a theory her family vehemently denied as impossible. This was over an hour's drive from Tara's home on Brugg Drive back in Belen.įrom the time of her disappearance in September of 1988 until June of 1989, there were no major breaks in the case of Tara Calico. Police immediately suspected foul play.įour days after Tara's disappearance, more pieces of Tara's broken Walkman and Boston tape were found near the remote John F. The spot was about three miles from Tara's home. The next day, Patty went out again, searching for her daughter and she found something terrifying: broken pieces of Tara's Walkman and Boston tape on the side of the road. Patty then called the Valencia County Sheriff’s Department. When she didn't come back, Tara's concerned mother went looking for her but found nothing. Her daily ride typically took no more than two hours. Tara's bike had a flat tire, which is why she borrowed her mother's Huffy. Her mother had encouraged her to carry Mace, but she laughed it off. Patty was too disturbed by the incident to keep riding, but Tara loved her daily rides. Tara and her mother, Patty Doel, normally rode together but on previous rides, Tara and Patty had been nearly run off the road and followed by a suspicious vehicle.
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