Key facts
- Name: Tara Leigh Calico
- Born: February 28, 1969, Belen, New Mexico
- Age at disappearance: 19
- Last seen: September 20, 1988, ~9:30 a.m.
- Location: New Mexico State Road 47, near Belen, New Mexico
- Height / build: 5’7″, ~120 lbs, brown hair, brown eyes
- Status: Still missing — active investigation; FBI $20,000 reward (2019)
- Case numbers: FBI ViCAP; NCIC M-110484275
- Investigating agency: Valencia County Sheriff’s Office / New Mexico State Police / FBI
The bike ride
On the morning of Tuesday, September 20, 1988, Tara Calico told her mother: come get me if I’m not home by noon.
She had plans. Tennis with her boyfriend at 12:30. It was a routine she’d ridden a hundred times — out of her house on Brugg Street in Belen, New Mexico, onto State Road 47, a 36-mile round trip through the high desert. That morning she rode her mother’s bike; her own was damaged. A neon pink Huffy. She left at 9:30.
Patty Doel used to ride with her. She’d stopped, because she’d felt stalked by a motorist on that same road. She’d told Tara to think about carrying mace. Tara said no.
Noon came. Tara didn’t. Patty drove the route, looking. Then she called the police.
Along the road, searchers found pieces of Tara’s Sony Walkman and a shattered cassette tape. Patty believed her daughter had dropped them on purpose — a trail of breadcrumbs. Several witnesses remembered seeing Tara riding that morning. Several also remembered a light-colored pickup truck, possibly a 1953 Ford, with a camper shell, following close behind her.
No one saw her taken. Her bicycle was never found. Neither was she.
Who Tara was
Tara Leigh Calico was 19, a 1987 graduate of Belen High School, a student who loved to ride. She was athletic, close to her family, the kind of young woman who played tennis at 12:30 on a Tuesday because that’s what Tuesdays were for. Her mother and stepfather, John Doel, would spend the rest of their lives looking for her. David Calico, her father, died in 2002. Patty died in 2006, after a series of strokes. She never stopped believing her daughter might come home.
The Polaroid
Nine months later, 1,500 miles away, a woman walked into a convenience store parking lot in Port St. Joe, Florida, and found a Polaroid on the ground.
It showed a young woman and a boy, both gagged with black duct tape, both seemingly bound, lying in the back of what looked like a van. The woman who found it said the photo had been in a parking space where a white windowless Toyota cargo van had been sitting. The van’s driver, she said, was a mustached man in his 30s. Police set up roadblocks. He was never identified.
Polaroid’s own officials confirmed the film stock hadn’t existed before May 1989 — the photo was recent.
When the image aired on A Current Affair in July 1989, Patty Doel was contacted by friends who’d seen the broadcast. She examined the photo and said she was “convinced” it was Tara. A scar on the woman’s leg matched one Tara had gotten in a car accident. Next to the woman lay a paperback copy of V.C. Andrews’ My Sweet Audrina — one of Tara’s favorite books.
The parents of another missing New Mexico child, 9-year-old Michael Henley — gone since April 1988 — believed the boy was their son. Henley’s mother said she was “almost certain.”
Then the experts disagreed, completely. Scotland Yard analyzed the photo and concluded the woman was Tara Calico. The Los Alamos National Laboratory ran its own analysis and disagreed; one of its forensic scientists said the woman was “definitely not Tara.” The FBI’s analysis was inconclusive.
The boy was never identified either. Two years later, in June 1990, Michael Henley’s remains were found in the Zuñi Mountains, about seven miles from his family’s campsite. Police believe he wandered off and died of exposure. He was not the boy in the photo — or if he was, no one could ever prove it.
Two more Polaroids surfaced over the years. One, found near a construction site in Montecito, California, in July 1989, showed a girl’s face with tape over her mouth. Patty believed it was Tara. The second showed a woman loosely bound in gauze on an Amtrak train; Patty thought that one might be a hoax. In 2009, someone mailed the Port St. Joe police chief photos of a boy with a black band drawn over his mouth in marker — postmarked Albuquerque, no return address. The FBI took them. Nothing came of it.
The Polaroid remains what it has always been: the most haunting maybe in American missing-persons history. Maybe Tara. Maybe not. No one has ever proven it either way.
The investigation
The case has never gone quiet for long. In 1993, a woman told the family she’d heard digging the day after Tara vanished, at a site seven miles south of Belen. Backhoes went in. Nothing.
In 1998, a judge declared Tara officially dead and ruled her death a homicide. It changed nothing on the ground — no body, no charges, no answers.
In 2008, then–Valencia County Sheriff Rene Rivera said publicly that he’d received information that two teenagers had accidentally hit Tara with a truck, panicked, and killed her. He said he knew their names but couldn’t make a case without a body. Tara’s stepfather, John Doel, answered with barely contained fury: the sheriff shouldn’t have said it if he wasn’t willing to make an arrest.
In October 2013, a six-person task force was formed to reinvestigate. In October 2019, the FBI put up $20,000 for information leading to Tara’s location or to the arrest and conviction of whoever took her.
Then, in September 2021, the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office and New Mexico State Police announced a new lead and a sealed search warrant for a private residence in Valencia County. And on June 13, 2023, Sheriff Denise Vigil stood at a press conference and said the words the family had waited 35 years to hear:
“At this time, law enforcement believes there is sufficient evidence to submit this investigation to the district attorney’s office for review of potential charges.”
The identities of the persons of interest are sealed by court order. No charges have been announced. The case is open, active, and — by the sheriff’s own account — closer than it has ever been.
Theories: what might have happened
Abduction by a stranger. The pickup truck witnesses described, the Walkman pieces dropped like a trail, the bike that vanished with her — this is the theory her family and most investigators have held from the start. It fits the evidence. It has never produced a suspect.
The 2008 “accident” account. Sheriff Rivera’s claim — two local teenagers, a truck, panic, a cover-up — has never been substantiated with an arrest, and Rivera never released the evidence behind it. It remains an assertion, not a finding. The 2023 referral to the district attorney may or may not be connected to it; the sealed records mean no one outside the investigation knows.
The Polaroid connection. If the woman in the 1989 photo is Tara, she was alive at least nine months after she vanished — and held with a child, possibly trafficked. If it isn’t her, it’s a coincidence so cruel it defies belief. Three separate forensic analyses could not agree. This theory lives and dies on a photograph no one can authenticate.
Voluntary disappearance. Nothing supports it. Tara left no note, took nothing, missed a tennis date she’d made herself, and her bike — her transportation home — was never found.
Have information?
Contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or tips.fbi.gov — a reward of up to $20,000 is offered. You can also contact the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office. In an emergency, dial 911.
Timeline
- February 28, 1969 — Tara Leigh Calico is born in Belen, New Mexico.
- 1987 — Graduates from Belen High School.
- September 20, 1988, 9:30 a.m. — Leaves home on her mother’s pink Huffy for a bike ride along NM 47.
- September 20, 1988, noon — Fails to return; her mother searches the route, then calls police.
- September 1988 — Walkman pieces and a cassette tape found along the road; witnesses report a pickup truck following her.
- June 15, 1989 — The Polaroid is found in a Port St. Joe, Florida, parking lot.
- July 1989 — The photo airs on A Current Affair; Patty Doel says she is “convinced” it is Tara.
- June 1990 — Michael Henley’s remains found in the Zuñi Mountains; he died of exposure.
- 1993 — Excavation south of Belen after a tip about digging; nothing found.
- 1998 — Tara is declared legally dead; a judge rules her death a homicide.
- 2002 — Her father, David Calico, dies.
- 2006 — Her mother, Patty Doel, dies after a series of strokes.
- 2008 — Sheriff Rene Rivera claims two teenagers hit Tara with a truck; no charges result.
- October 2013 — A six-person task force reinvestigates the case.
- October 2019 — FBI announces a reward of up to $20,000.
- September 2021 — New lead; sealed search warrant for a Valencia County residence.
- June 13, 2023 — Sheriff Denise Vigil announces sufficient evidence to submit the case to the district attorney for review of potential charges.
- September 20, 2026 — The 38th anniversary of her disappearance.
- Today — Still missing.
FAQ
Is Tara Calico still missing?
Yes. As of October 2026, Tara Calico has been missing for 38 years. The Valencia County Sheriff’s Office considers the case active — in June 2023, investigators said they had sufficient evidence to submit it to the district attorney for review of potential charges.
Was Tara Calico ever found?
No. Neither Tara nor her bicycle has ever been found. In 1998 she was declared legally dead and a judge ruled her death a homicide, but no body has been recovered and no one has been charged.
Is the woman in the Polaroid really Tara Calico?
Nobody knows. Her mother was convinced it was her, and Scotland Yard agreed — but Los Alamos National Laboratory concluded it was “definitely not” her, and the FBI called its own analysis inconclusive. The identities of the woman and the boy in the 1989 photo have never been established.
What was the reward in the Tara Calico case?
In October 2019, the FBI offered a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading to Tara’s location or to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for her disappearance.
Who was the boy in the Polaroid with Tara?
The parents of Michael Henley, a 9-year-old who vanished from New Mexico in April 1988, believed the boy was their son. But Henley’s remains were found in the Zuñi Mountains in June 1990; police believe he died of exposure. The boy in the photo has never been conclusively identified.
How can I help?
Share this case file. If you have any information, contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office. Please rely on verified sources — decades of speculation have produced far more noise than answers.
Sources
- Official / law enforcement: FBI — reward announcement for Tara Leigh Calico (Oct 1, 2019); Valencia County Sheriff’s Office press conference (June 13, 2023, via East Idaho News/Courtroom Insider); New Mexico State Police.
- News: Albuquerque Journal (Toby Smith, Nov 1996; Clara Garcia, Sept 2013); Valencia County News-Bulletin (Clara Garcia, Sept 2008; Sept 2003); The Albuquerque Tribune (Joline Gutierrez Krueger, Sept 2003); The New York Times (AP, Aug 1989); Fox News/AP (Aug 2009).
- Reference: Wikipedia, “Disappearance of Tara Calico” (retrieved Oct 2026).
- Media: A Current Affair (1989); Unsolved Mysteries; America’s Most Wanted; The Oprah Winfrey Show; 48 Hours; The Road Back (True Crime Maps, 2026).
Found an error? Tell us via the About page and we will fix it promptly and note the change here. Last verified October 2026.