Crime Weekly - S2 Ep93: Tara Calico: The Polaroid and the Cover-up (Part 2)

Episode Date: September 30, 2022

At around 9:30 on the morning of September 20th, 1988, 19-year-old Tara Calico left her New Mexico home and set out for her daily 17-mile bike ride along highway 47. Before leaving, she playfully asked her mother, Patty Doel, to come and get her if she wasn’t back by noon, because Tara had a lot of other things to do that day, and she needed to be kept on schedule. Tara did not return by noon, in fact, Tara Calico would never come home again, leaving behind multiple eyewitnesses who had seen her that morning, and very few clues as to what had happened to her, including pieces of her walkman and suspicious-looking bike tracks. Tara’s disappearance is considered to be an enduring mystery, but reportedly for those who live in Tara’s hometown of Belen New Mexico, it’s not a mystery at all. In fact, according to Melinda Esquibel, a former classmate of Tara’s and podcast host, “What makes the town charming is the same thing that makes it kind of scary. That you will go to great lengths to protect your own." Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod Episode Ads: STAMPS.COM Get ahead of the holiday chaos this year. Get started with Stamps dot com today. Sign up with promo code CRIMEWEEKLY for a special offer that includes a 4-week trial, plus free postage and a free digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps dot com, click the microphone at the top of the page, and enter code CRIMEWEEKLY. HELIX Helix is offering up to 200 dollars off all mattress orders AND two free pillows for our listeners! Go to Helix Sleep dot com slash crimeweekly. With Helix, better sleep starts now.

This podcast is sponsored by IQ Bar. I've got good news and bad news. Here's the bad news. Most protein bars are packed with sugar and unpronounceable ingredients. The good news? There's a better option. I'm Will, and I created IQ Bar Plant Protein Bars to empower doers like you with clean, delicious, low-sugar brain and body fuel.

IQ Bars are packed with 12 grams of protein, brain nutrients like magnesium and lion's mane, and zero weird stuff. And right now, you can get 20% off all IQ Bar products, plus free shipping. Try our delicious IQ Bar sampler pack with 7 plant protein bars, 4 hydration mixes, and 4 enhanced coffee sticks. Clean ingredients, amazing taste, and you'll love how you feel. Refuel smarter, hydrate harder, caffeinate larger with IQ Bar. Go to eatiqbar.com and enter code BAR20 to get 20% off all IQ Bar products, plus free shipping. Again, go to eatiqbar Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur.

So today we are jumping into part two of Tara Calico. But before we get started, I know there's something quickly you wanted to talk about. Yeah, we had mentioned it last episode. Criminal Coffee is doing extremely well, and we couldn't be doing it without you guys. And one of the big reasons we started Criminal Coffee was this Criminal Coffee Fund, where we wanted to donate to families, organizations, anybody fighting crime or trying to stop crime or solve crime. And so I had set a

goal a couple of weeks ago. I was like, I really hope we can get to $3,000. We hit that. I think we're slightly over 3,000 right now, but Stephanie and I were talking about it. We're really passionate about this project so far. And to be completely transparent, we personally haven't taken a single dollar from Criminal Coffee other than to pay for the expenses to run the company. So with that being said, we want to kind of continue that trend and we want to make a bigger splash for our first donation. So Stephanie and I are going to raise it to $5,000. We're going to be donating 2000 of our own money, throwing it in there. So the first donation to wherever we choose will be in the amount of $5,000. It's a lot of money. A lot can be done

with that. It can be extremely helpful to especially organizations that do lab work things like that because they can use it for different tests they usually run a couple hundred dollars we've gotten numerous suggestions and recommendations from you guys keep them coming we have already started to research a few of them we think we're starting to narrow it down i've made some calls to certain organizations but when we have it specifically when we know exactly where the money is going we will let you know um all i'll say is thank you thank you for making criminal coffee success thank you for contributing to our mission and we're just getting started 5000 is great let's hope the next one's even bigger so thank you again for that i don't know, Stephanie, what's anything else I missed? Anything else we should be adding? No, I think that's good. And I think that what we were thinking of kind of

leaning in the way of donating to a lab that does, you know, DNA testing. We've talked about how there's a huge backlog of these, these rape kits and they don't get tested because for whatever reason, but mostly resources things like that it's all over the country so we definitely want to do that I was actually looking into it today they said it's between like $75 and $150 to run one of these tests every state has thousands still you know that are that are in backlogs even though they've been working on it and working, trying to catch up in the past decade. So I think $5,000 could go a long way to hopefully finding someone justice and maybe even getting people off the streets who are dangerous.

Couldn't agree more. So we couldn't do it without you guys. A lot of money raised to get to $3,000. And we just wanted to contribute ourselves ourselves and we're going to continue to promote criminal coffee. And also when we start to donate money to these organizations, yeah, we're going to donate our money, but we're also going to raise awareness to what they're doing. So there's, there's multiple benefits to being involved with these organizations because as we donate to them, we're going to put them on in the podcast. We're going to promote them on YouTube and hopefully other people who may just be watching on YouTube who don't like coffee, they can donate directly to those organizations as well.

So really good news. Couldn't be more happy about it. And I consider our first quarter of our new venture a huge success. Yeah, the first quarter was a real success. So excited about it. Well, like I said, we'll have an update as to where it's going. You guys will be in the know for sure. And if you want to follow along on our criminal coffee co website, that's the best place. Cause we have a tab for it. We'll have photos and information about where the money's going. So if you're not already aware of that website, sign up for it, sign up for the

newsletter. And as soon as we make those announcements you'll probably hear about them there first before you hear about them here alright so quick recap before we dive into this week's case people seem to like that when we do it last week we started our new case Tara Calico and if you really want to know the details because we can't get into them all right now you have to go watch episode 1 if you haven't watched or listened to that strongly recommend you do, or a lot of the stuff tonight may not make sense to you. But just a quick recap. Looks like it was around 1988 when this happened. September, what was the date? 20th. 20th. Tara Calico leaves in the morning on her bike to go for her normal

bike ride. It's about 17 miles. She's seen by multiple witnesses driving on the highway, both directions. There is some vehicles involved. There's a light colored vehicle with multiple gentlemen that the family comes in contact with. Later during the investigation, during the search, they find items that belonged or they believe belonged to Tara, including parts of her Walkman, which she was wearing while she was riding the bike. Further eyewitness testimony comes forward that puts that light colored truck that might be the same truck that the parents encountered earlier in the day following her right before her disappearance. There's evidence that she may have been pushed off the road or veered off the road because of a vehicle. There was one particular witness. His first name was Ishmael, who saw a vehicle, multiple individuals possibly. Looks

like they were setting up for something where they might have grabbed Tara. We don't know. And where we left the episode off with kind of a teaser from Stephanie was, yeah, the search was extensive. The investigation was extensive, but there might be more to the story as to why certain things weren't covered and the way they should have been covered. And it may be due to a relationship between law enforcement officials working the case and maybe a potential suspect. I don't know the details, haven't read the script for this week. So I'm going to be going into it with you guys, not really knowing where we're going, but I think from what I heard last week, it's probably going to aggravate me. How's that for a recap, Stephanie? Pretty good. Pretty good.

I'm proud. This is also Stephanie's way of making sure that I'm paying attention. It's like a little pop quiz. Yeah. I'm like nervous and sweating. Like, better not mess this up. But no, that's the little short recap. But again, that doesn't do the case justice. We talked for it for about two hours.

So if you really want to know all the minute details that took place in episode one, you got to go watch it. You got to go listen to it. Then you can get into tonight's episode. So we're going to dive right in then. And I'm actually going to start a little over a year, I believe. Well, it's a little less than a year. It's about 10 months after Tara goes missing. June 12th, 1989, a woman in Port St. Joe, Florida, found a Polaroid picture in the parking lot of a convenience store. This woman claimed that she had found the picture in an empty parking spot, but prior to that parking spot being vacated, it had been occupied by a white, windowless Toyota cargo van driven by a white male in his 30s with a mustache.

Now, the Polaroid, once again, we kind of touched on this last episode. It's a very infamous sort of Polaroid. You don't have to know the name Tara Calico. You don't really have to know any specific case that it's been connected to. But if you see that photograph, you know you've seen it before because it's very mysterious. And still to this day, even though it was found in 1989, nobody knows who the two people in this picture are. Terrible photo too, by the way, even if you don't know the cases, because it's been connected to a few different missing children. Just the fact that we don't know if it's fake

or not. And if it's not fake, you're basically seeing two young children being gagged and bound. You never want to see that, whether it's fake or real. So it's a really tough photo to look at, considering that we could be looking at something that was genuinely taken while two children were being held against their will. Yeah, and this Polaroid actually shows two people, like I said, who remain unidentified to this day. So there's a long-legged young woman who appears to be in her late teens or early 20s. And next to her, there's a young boy white striped pillow in the background and they appear to be in the back of a cargo van. They both have duct tape over their mouths and they both appear to have their hands bound behind their backs, even though you can't really completely tell. It's just their hands are behind their backs, so you assume they're bound. I have to pull the picture up just to make sure because I know for sure you can't

see the girl's hands to know that they're bound, but you might be able to see the boy's hands and know that they're bound. But you kind of just assume, right, that their hands are tied behind their back in some way or else why would they be back there? Yeah, no, I agree. And it's one of those things where people have spent years looking at that photo, trying to figure out who they are and if it's even real. And the reality is who knows, it sounds crazy. There could be something where someone's playing a really bad joke. There's also a scenario where I can speak to it myself as a child, never doing this, but like we played like cops and robbers or done like things where one's arrested, one's the cop.

So could this photo have been taken while they were make-believe playing cops and robbers or I caught you, you're captured? I don't know. And this was a photo where they pretended like they were upset. It sounds crazy, but completely realistic. That could be the case here. But I would think if that were the situation with all the media attention that this photo has gotten, the kids would have came forward and said, oh my God, so sorry. We were playing around. My brother took the photo. It wasn. Because I think if this was something that was a joke, we would know by now the people would have came forward and said, hey, listen, we don't want

someone out there looking for us. It's us. That's my brother. That's my sister. And we were just playing around. We're sorry if it affected anybody in a negative way. And also, if you were to do a photo like that for fun, why are you printing it out? Why are you carrying it around in a vehicle? Because it got in the parking lot somehow. And to this day, we haven't had anyone come forward saying, hey, that's us. So that makes me believe that these children may not be capable of doing that. So again, I'm 60-40 as far as it's real. But like I said, if I had to choose, that's what I think.

I won't even get into whether i think it's tara or not let me ask you do you think the photo's real um it's so hard because i i see what you're saying like they were playing around but if they intended to do this to like screw with people you know if they intended to do this to like scare people if it was like some sort of sick prank and i mean it doesn't even have to be like a sicko just some stupid kids messing around like oh we're gonna get everyone into a tizzy it's gonna be hilarious they wouldn't come forward because that was their intention to begin with and then once everything got out of hand what are they gonna say like we wanted to cause a stir and we did and now we're sorry no they're gonna try to stay quiet right but like yeah like you were

saying you you said last episode somebody you think would know them and recognize them and say oh actually that's my cousin Sheila and her brother Ron They're there. What are they doing in that picture, but no one has so I'm not so 40. I'm 50 50, but either way. I don't like it. Yeah cheater I know cheater taking you. And also the boy is very young and I would think he could be the outlier, but I would think little kids, they want someone to know what they've done, what they've accomplished. And they would slip up, tell one of their friends, their friends would tell their parents. And then all of a sudden they'd be exposed in seconds. But maybe if you're right, if this is something they did as some type of cruel joke, maybe they were the rarity where they actually kept their mouth shut and didn't say anything to anyone.

It's possible. So, yeah, that's where we're at on it. The photo itself is very, if you haven't seen it yet, you can just Google Tara Calico photo and it'll pop right up there, even though the photo has been connected to other women and little boys as well. Yeah. And I mean, it's been over 30 years at this point. So who's going to come forward now and be like, that was us actually. Nobody. I still think someone would, like maybe if they're like years later, like guilty conscience, but I guess it's possible. I wouldn't do it in the first place. So it's hard to put yourself in

the mind of these people because the first question you'd ask them is like, that's what you got with your free time. That's what you you're doing clearly you got some things that you need to work out yeah i feel like you'd have some explaining to do i think i think you would so maybe they just didn't want to have that awkward conversation but i hope it's not real um you know there's other objects seen in the picture there's a plastic cup there's a squirt gun. And then there is a tattered copy of My Sweet Audrina, which was a novel by V.C. Andrews. So obviously the pictures found is shocked a lot of people. And it was first featured on local news in Florida. And then it was featured on national news and then even on an episode of the television show A Current Affair. And at that point, a friend of john dole who was

terrace's stepfather he happened to be watching that episode he called john and patty and he told them that he felt the girl in the polaroid looked a lot like tara who had gone missing 10 months prior but over 1 000 miles away because remember she goes missing from new mexico this picture is found in florida one more thing before you, and we don't have to keep going with the photo, but I thought it was important when I was looking at the photo itself. It was allegedly a van that was parked in that spot before the photo was found. And if you look at that photo, some photos kind of crop it, some images, but there is like a fuller picture of it. And to me, it's clear that these two children are

inside of the back of a van. Yeah, absolutely. I know a picture you're talking about. There's a daily star picture that shows the whole. Yeah, it's a van. No doubt about it. It's the back of a van. So if this was a photo that was taken in that van, yeah, it could be just kids that were horsing around playing in there, or it could be because that was the van that the kids were being held in and the photo was left behind. That's also a reasonable explanation. So the fact that the photo appears to have been taken in the back of a vehicle that was just there, that's not a good sign. Yeah, I agree. I agree. So on July 28th, 1989, John Dole contacted the Valencia Sheriff's Department to bring the Polaroid to their attention. Around that same time, another New Mexico family came forward to say that the boy in the picture resembled their 9-year-old son, Michael Henley, who'd gone missing in April of 1988 while camping with his father in Cibola National Forest. Michael's mother was encouraged by the Polaroid,

saying, quote, he looks scared, real scared, but he looks healthy and I'm grateful for that, end quote. Sadly, less than two years later, Michael's remains were found about six miles away from where he had disappeared, and it was determined that he had died from exposure. But John and Patty Dole still believed that the woman in the Polaroid was their daughter, Tara. Now, there's a couple of reasons why they thought that. They think that this girl looks like Tara and V.C. Andrews was Tara's favorite author. And there was actually a phone number

written on the spine of that book, but all the numbers were not decipherable. And the ones that were decipherable, Patti Dole actually said there was more than 300 possible listings. And after calling all of those options, she discovered only 57 of them were valid numbers, and none of those led to any information about Tara. But I would really like to know, because it sounds like she called all of these numbers, I would like to know what kind because it sounds like she called all of these numbers, I would like to know what kind of questions were asked when she talked to these people on the phone,

because I'm sure she didn't just say, hey, do you know Tara Calico, or did you kidnap my daughter? You know, there would have to be follow-up questions like, have you ever owned a copy of My Sweet Audrina by V.C. Andrews. Okay, you did own a copy of that book. Well, did you bring it to a bookstore? Did you donate it to the library? You know, did you write a number? Was that your number that you wrote on there? Did somebody else write your number? I would be asking questions to see if I could find out

where that book ended up and who may have purchased it or, you know, checked it out from there. So I would hope that follow-up questions were asked. Because if this book with this number on it is in the van with these two kids who were allegedly abducted, it has to be connected somehow. And we can track it down through a library or a bookseller. Yeah. And I know for a fact, just from information I've heard about the Polaroid that FBI local authorities they've done research as well so in addition to the questions that Patti was

asking I can promise you the investigators had reached out to a lot of these and probably used different methodologies to try to find out what the actual number on the book was they have technologies that can enhance photos things like that so although Patti made some calls and may have not asked the best questions or maybe she did she's not the only one who's looked in this photo and were they really in trouble. Like you said, it's a story in and of itself. You could do a podcast just on this photo. People have done a podcast just on this photo. Well, there you go. There you go. It's almost like we know what we're doing here.

And that's why I would love to talk about this photo forever, but there's way too much to even talk about. I will say, do I think the girl in the picture resembles Tara Calico? Not really. They resemble each other to the point where, you know, they're both women. They're both white women. They seem to be about the same size and build, you know, athletic. They both have brown hair. I think the eyebrows are completely different. You know, you can see in Tara. I mean, and that could be like makeup and stuff. So once again, we've maybe only seen Tara Calico in pictures with makeup and maybe she's changed the shape of her eyebrows and her natural eyebrows are more straight. But in pictures of Tara, her eyebrows are definitely more arched and more rounded. And this girl's eyebrows go kind

of straight across. The bridge of the nose is a little different there's just a few different things that that stand out to me and say this is not tara calico but patty and john doyle claim that there's a mark on this girl's leg that tara also had on her leg that was a scar from that car accident she'd been in during high school and you know so they really kind of clutched onto that and the company pol Polaroid, they were contacted, they examined the picture, and they concluded that it had to have been taken after May of 1989, because that particular film used was not in production before then. So this actually encouraged Patty because she said, well, okay, then, you know, if that if it

was taken in May of 1989, and Tara went missing in September of 1988, that means whoever has her has kept her alive. Yeah, I'll tell you what. I've only seen the photos that are available online with Tara. You guys will have to look at it as well. If you're on audio, strongly recommend you Google it

or come over to the podcast. I can see the resemblance. I've even seen some photos where they've done some digital enhancement to remove the tape and fill in that spot with Tara's features to see if it would line up. And it does appear to possibly be her. This is where I lie on it. And I won't even do it to you because it's not my daughter.

I'll use my daughter. If that were Tenley or Peyton, I would know if it was them or not. I would know. I just feel like I would know. I would not misconstrue or misidentify another girl with my child. I don't think I would. Yeah, but we know that Matthew Henley's mother said it was him in the picture, and then the body of her son was found just two years after because he had gotten lost in the forest that's right but but technically he was he was lost did they confirm that he 100 was lost in the forest or was he dumped there the picture was found in florida he went camping with his father in new mexico and then his body was found seven miles away from where he was like where they were hiking and he died from exposure in new mexico so. Yeah. I will say with the little boy though, to me anyways, the boy, more of his face is covered

with the tape. I still think I'd be able to identify him, but you make a valid point. She thought it was her son. It wasn't. Based on what you're saying, more than likely she was wrong. I feel like you're really only missing the lower cheekbone, the lips, and whatever this area here is under your nose. That's really what you're missing. Do I think it could be her? Absolutely. I think it could be her. There's no way I can say just from looking at photos. There's

one specific photo I'm looking at right now where it's more of like a face on. She has a pretty prominent chin from the angle that I'm looking at. This young girl appears to have a prominent chin as well. I can see the eyebrows. There was also an analysis I saw that kind of brought up what you're bringing up as far as her eyebrows having more of a curve to them and kind of going around her eye as opposed to straight across. This girl definitely has more of a straight flat eyebrow. And could that be because she's doing something with her face because she's uncomfortable that changes the angle of her eyebrows i mean you're doing it right now as you're talking your eyebrows

are kind of changing so that that is possible um so the eyebrows i'm not looking at it going oh her eyebrows are straight in this photo can't be her and because i don't know was patty very convinced it was her was she kind of thinking it could be? Or was she like, no, that's my daughter? Patty seemed to be very convinced. But I think that hope is a cruel thing and you will hang on to it like a life preserver sometimes. You'd rather think that your child was out there and there's a possibility you can bring her back to you than to think that she's gone and there's no hope. So you hold on to that hope. Yeah, you could be right. Even her hair. I'm looking at a more like done up photo

of Tara at one point when she's like, it's like a professional photo. The 80s kind of hairstyle. Yeah. And it looks similar there. It's possible. I mean, who am I to rule it out? I get what you're saying. But man, I'll tell you what, there's a lot of features there, a lot of resemblance. Then you talk about the scar and coincidentally, her favorite author, the book of her favorite author slaying right next to her. I mean, damn, if it's not her, that's a lot of coincidences. And to think that someone who did this may have done it for Tara, is that what we're thinking? If it's not her, could have been a girl that this is the cruel joke where they put the book there was like the book,

public information, the fact that she loved that author. D.C. Andrews was a very popular author at that time, though. I mean, it's like saying R.L. Stein back in the day. You know, R.L. Stein was my favorite author back in the day. Every girl and boy my age had, you know, at least three R.L. Stine books. We all had the Goosebumps books. So is it a coincidence or is it just that's a popular author and several people had the book? The only thing going against it, the only thing I'll say that's a big thing too, is the fact that it does appear that more than likely this was someone local to

the area of New Mexico. And to find this photo in Florida, what appears to be the vehicle in Florida appears to be the vehicle that dropped it, right? They're in the van. So it's not like this photo made its way there and was found in a vehicle, but completely different. The van that was in Florida that dropped the photo more than likely is the van in this picture. So that does throw a little bit of a monkey wrench in it, because I don't think the person who conducted this act was just passing through New Mexico. But who am I to say? We've had Asha degree with the truck drivers and stuff. Anything's possible. You can't rule it all 100%. Would I be surprised to find out a month from now that that is Tara? Nope. Well, listen, Patty had the picture analyzed by Scotland Yard, and they claimed the

woman in the picture was Tara Calico. But then a separate analysis done at the Los Alamos National Lab concluded that it wasn't. The FBI also looked at the picture and they said their final decision was that it was inconclusive. But it seems like the Valencia County Sheriff's Office, they never believed that the picture was Tara Calico. And they told Patty Dole that they didn't believe it was a true kidnapping photo because the girl's legs were shaved. And also there was no redness around the mouths of either person in the picture. So like if somebody had tape on their mouths for a long time, you would see a redness, I guess. So that was how people argue that this maybe is a staged photo. I don't know. But I guess

they just put... That's stupid. That's a stupid analysis. Sorry, Valencia. And by the way, if Scotland Yard and the FBI can't scotland yard and the fbi can't figure it out valencia police department isn't going to do it i'm sorry they may have some geniuses there but i i i feel very confident saying you think the valencia county sheriff's department has some geniuses yeah i'm being nice by the way i'm being nice uh what i'm saying is i would be willing to bet a large amount of money that the quality of investigators at Scotland Yard and the FBI are probably a little higher quality than Valencia Police Department. So I'm not going with their assessment. The red thing is stupid. That

tape could have just been put on there for the photo. They might not have had the tape on at all before that. The fact that her legs are shaven is another dumb assessment. If she's in captivity for a long time, they might have provided her with some grooming products. Come on. I mean, it's dumb. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but those are dumb explanations as to why it's not her. I mean, there's a lot of experts, like law enforcement experts, FBI people, not representing the FBI, but who are working for the FBI and they've looked at the picture and they've come forward and they said, we don't think this is like a legit kidnapping picture. But I mean, that could just be because they haven't been able to solve it. So. Right. That's fine. And it's very well may not be her, but

the reasons behind, and maybe there's more, that wouldn't sway me. You have to find a way to, number one, identify these people. But again, it's been so long now. Will we ever identify the children in the photo? Probably not, because they clearly don't look like that anymore if they're still around. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. This podcast is sponsored by IQ Bar. I've got good news and bad news.

Here's the bad news. Most protein bars are packed with sugar and unpronounceable ingredients. The good news? There's a better option. I'm Will, and I created IQ Bar Plant Protein Bars to empower doers like you with clean, delicious, low-sugar brain and body fuel. IQ Bars are packed with 12 grams of protein, brain nutrients like magnesium and lion's mane, and zero weird stuff. And right now, you can get 20% off all IQ Bar products, plus free shipping.

Try our delicious IQ Bar sampler pack with 7 plant protein bars, 4 hydration mixes, and four enhanced coffee sticks. Clean ingredients, amazing taste, and you'll love how you feel. Refuel smarter, hydrate harder, caffeinate larger with IQ Bar. Go to eatiqbar.com and enter code BAR20 to get 20% off all IQ Bar products plus free shipping. Again, go to eatiqbar.com and enter code BAR20. In 2009, the Port St. Joe Police received two envelopes postmarked June and August 9th, 2009. The envelopes both contained pictures. One envelope was a picture of a young boy printed on copy paper and someone had drawn

a black band over the boy's mouth as if recreating that parking lot Polaroid picture. The second letter held the original photo of the boy with no alterations and both envelopes had been sent from Albuquerque, New Mexico. And then on August 12th, a newspaper in Port St. Joe, Florida called The Star received letter, once again postmarked from Albuquerque, with an image of the same boy with black marker scribbled in the shape of a gag. Since being notified of that first Polaroid, Patty and John Dole obtained two more pictures that showed a young girl that they believed may have been Tara. Initially, they didn't say where or how they had gotten these photos because they said they were following the advice of Chris Hatcher, a University of California professor and an expert on stranger-to-stranger kidnapping. Apparently, this professor, Hatcher, he had claimed that publicizing these new photos could possibly

bring harm to Tara at the hands of her captors. Hatcher claimed that he felt publicity can cause kidnappers to feel cornered and lash out at their victims. Patty Dole said, quote, he told us that Tara probably received some abuse or mistreatment because of the intense publicity surrounding the first photo that was found in Florida. Publicizing the photos might help find her and make people realize she's still alive, but you're walking a tightrope. As a parent, you can't do anything consciously that will bring harm to your kid." Years later, however, they did make the photos public and disclose where they had found them, at least one of them. One photo was found near a construction site in Montecito, California. It was taken on

Polaroid film that was not made until June of 1989. Now, this picture is a blurry image of a woman's face. Her mouth is covered in tape, and there's a blue and white striped pillow in the background that looks the same as the pillow from the Florida Polaroid. Another Polaroid, which was taken on film that wasn't available until February of 1990, shows a young woman sitting next to a man on what looks to be an Amtrak train. She's loosely bound with gauze, her eyes are covered with gauze, and someone So once again, Tara's mother really thought that at least the close-up picture of the girl with the pillow in the back that looked the same as the Florida Polaroid, that this was Tara and maybe, you know, the person who had taken her was sort of leaving like breadcrumb trails. But I don't know why somebody would do that unless they were taunting the parents or unless they were trying to get publicity. You know, it seems like maybe somebody found out about that first Polaroid and then did like a copycat Polaroid and left it somewhere where it would be found hoping to like get in the news. That's more of what it seems like to me. Yeah, you could be right. I mean, the pillow, the fact that it's similar in stripes, that wouldn't say anything. It does look very

similar to the pillow in the photo. And yet I'm sure it's a very common pattern. Obviously, it's just a horizontal striped pillow and the photo is so blurry you know is it really as accurate you know is it really as identical as the the pillow in the photo who knows this woman appears to have darker hair as well to me i feel like tara's hair was a little had a little bit more of a brown to it and i want to make people sensitive here about hair we start getting into hair colors you guys don't impress me too much when it comes to hair color. So we won't go that road. But her hair does appear to be somewhat darker in this picture. But you never know.

You just never know. And unfortunately, you still have to follow it up. So when law enforcement gets this, regardless of whether they think it's real or not, they have to follow the breadcrumbs because there's really only one way to find out and that's to treat it as if it's real. So in 1993, the Valencia County Sheriff's Department, lacking resources, turned the case over to the district attorney's office and it was assigned to investigator Jay Eschenberg. After reviewing every piece of evidence and re-interviewing hundreds of people, Jay concluded that Tara had been abducted, raped, and killed. He said, quote, it's the only thing that makes sense to me. I know that Mrs. Dole believes Tara could be alive, but it's just not probable. Tara isn't riding around the country held captive by some crazy group. This was a violent crime, a crime of opportunity. There's no premeditation about it." Eschenberg believes that he had identified the three people who were responsible, saying, quote,

For a long time, these three have felt safe. They are operating on the theory that if no one says anything, they'll never be caught. That's wrong. These three believe that if a body is never found, no one will be prosecuted. That's wrong, too. End quote. Now, he said this in 1993, but evidently the people responsible who had been identified and shouldn't have been feeling safe, it turns out they were pretty safe because nothing happened. So he's like, you shouldn't feel safe. We're going to get you. Nothing happened. And in 2008, Valencia County Sheriff Rene Rivera told the media that he also knows detective in 1996 and elected to sheriff in 2006. So Rivera boldly said, quote, the individuals who did the harm to Tara knew who she was. They knew who she was and they're all local individuals. And I believe the parents of the

attackers were some of the people that helped the individuals with hiding the truth or hiding the body or trying to escape prosecution. End quote. Sheriff Rivera claimed that Tara's attackers were boys she'd gone to high school with, but they were younger than Tara. However, they thought she was really pretty and they wanted to talk to her, so they tried to approach her while she was riding her bike that morning and they accidentally hit her with their truck. Rivera went on to say that they had enough evidence to get arrest warrants for two of the culprits, who in 1988 were teenagers, but in 2008 they were men. These were people he had identified as the killers, while two others had been identified as accomplices. Rivera made it seem like it was all in the bag, but then he went on to say that it would be hard to make a case without a body, and so he needed people to

come forward with information that would lead to Tara's body so that he could do his job and arrest the men responsible for her death. He said, quote, some people have this information and they've had it for so long that they've gotten sick by hiding the information they have. And now they're coming forward to try to relieve themselves. Some of these people that were witnesses to the crime have been scared to come forward. They think that being that they were there, that they're going to get prosecuted for the death. At this point, what I want to let people know is that if they were witnesses there, I'm willing to work with them. I need to have their information. I need to be able to recover this body, end quote. What do you think

about these two statements from Jay Eschenberg in 1993 and then from Sheriff Rivera in 2008? And keep in mind, Sheriff Rivera was not sheriff at the time that Tara went missing. He wasn't even with the police department. Sheriff Lawrence Romero Sr. was the sheriff of Valencia County at the time Tara went missing, but Renee Rivera took over a couple years later. However, Sheriff Lawrence Romero Sr. would not be sheriff for long after Tara went missing. Yeah. I mean, they're both in some way saying the same thing that she was abducted, raped, and then killed. Sheriff Rivera is just going in more detail. And I always am very cautious about saying, yeah, no, she's dead, because there may be family members, friends that listen to this, watch this and i'm in no position to say definitively that tara is no longer with us even though the probability is not high i don't think it's wrong to say that i think that the probability is that she's no longer with us but it's not impossible so i'll clear the deck

by saying that but with that being said what sheriff rivera is saying is very compelling it appears that there are witnesses who have come forward that may have had pieces of information that are not publicly known to this day, although this was in 2009, correct? 2008 when he said that, and they are publicly known now. We'll get there. Okay, good. I'm looking forward to hearing that. And so now we're in 2022, I can promise you that at some point that information, especially the information now that it's public, was brought to the district attorney, the attorney general, whoever it is in that county. And they ultimately didn't feel it was enough to convene a grand jury because if they did, they would have done that. And maybe there has been a grand jury. Are you going to tell me

there has been before I go down that path too far? No. Do you think it's compelling that he would make a public statement that bold to say like, we know who did this and we know what happened? Some may see. I mean, I think everyone's tactics a little different. I don't mind it. I like it. I think it puts people on notice. I think the fact he's reaching out to the public saying, listen, we know there are people out there who feel that if they come forward, they're going to be held accountable for it as well. I'm willing to work with you, but now's the time. What I'm asking you is like, he's saying that, so he really believes that. He has reason to believe that, right? Oh yeah. And this is 20 years later. So I always, you and I talk about this extensively where, oh, the police aren't giving enough information.

They're holding it all close to the chest. And then my argument has always been, well, if the case is only four or five years old, I think they should. But when you start getting, I have the same problem with Michelle Norris. We're still, as a police department, keeping a lot of this stuff in house 30 years later. What's the point? You get into the situation now where the person who killed Michelle is going to die. So what did we really do? What did we really do? And this is a similar situation where it's been 20 years. Rivera's had enough and he's swinging for the fence. They gave it 20 years to try to solve it covertly and not put it all out there. It didn't work. So now he's taking a different approach. And I like it. Clearly it wasn't successful because we're still covering it as an unsolved case. But I think his assessment is based on knowledge he received and there's probably some evidence to support it. And I

think just from the evidence you've covered with us so far, the broken Walkman and things like that would represent a sign of struggle or maybe her being struck by a vehicle. So I don't think it's out of left field. And I definitely believe that the person who decided to grab her in broad daylight was familiar with the area and had a place to go that was in close proximity. This isn't someone traveling through that area, even though it is a highway. So I think a lot of what he's saying makes sense. And I don't mind it. I wish it would have led somewhere. Yeah. Don't give him a pat on the back too soon. Well, I'm not giving him too much of a pat on the back. And to be fair, you hinted last episode about law enforcement and how they may have actually hindered this

case as well for their own personal reasons. So I'm making that statement, knowing that you're coming in with a curve ball in a couple of minutes, but just on the surface, if you're asking me to evaluate those comments, I don't mind them. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. So I thought that this statement was very bold. To me, it was like, okay, you're saying you pretty much know who these people are, that they were high school students with Tara, that they knew her. But he does say like, oh, they were following her and trying to talk to her. And then they accidentally hit her with their truck. And to me, that's like, come on, how do you accidentally hit somebody with your truck,

right? So that's right there, something that stands out to me. And this statement from the sheriff of Valencia County, it caught the attention of a lot of people one of them was melinda escobel who was a filmmaker living in los angeles but she was originally from new mexico she'd actually attended bellin high school with tara now melinda went home for christmas that year after she read this article and she actually brought up the topic of tara calico while she was having dinner with some friends. The response I got from people at the table who were my own classmates said, oh, Melinda, the whole town knows who did it. And I said, what? I gasped and I said, what do you mean the whole town knows who did it? There are people in the world looking for her.

So Melinda teamed up with Tara's sister, Michelle Dole, and they began trying to uncover the mystery. And so began the mission, justice for Tara Calico. Melinda, a filmmaker, decided to create a documentary. But when she saw the case file at the sheriff's office, they were in shambles, Kim, in shambles. There were files with people's names on it and there was nothing in there. And these are the suspects or persons of interest. THE MISSION TOOK A NEW TURN. I was like, okay, now what? What do we do now? And so we started investigating.

IT'S TAKEN THEM TO PLACES THEY DIDN'T EXPECT. People did not want to talk about it. My life has been threatened, my family's lives have been threatened. BUT WITH TIME HAS COME PROGRESS. There's different areas that we're searching that they were overlooked before. There are too many people involved, that, you know, powerful forces that do not want this case solved. SECRETS HIDDEN FOR YEARS, FINALLY BEING TOLD. THE CASE. I THINK IT'S A GREAT EXPERIENCE TO SEE THE POWERFUL FORCES THAT DO NOT WANT THIS CASE

SOLVED. SECRETS HIDDEN FOR YEARS, FINALLY BEING TOLD. PEOPLE HAVE PASSED THAT HAD STRONG TIES TO THE COMMUNITY THAT MAY HAVE DEFLECTED PEOPLE FROM

COMING FORWARD AND TALKING AND GETTING INVOLVED IN IT. AND I THINK THAT HAS MADE A DIFFERENCE. MICHELLE AND MELINDA HAVE SHARED ALL THE INFORMATION THEY'VE

GATHERED WITH INVESTIGATORS AT THE VALENCIA COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT, WHICH REMAINS THE LEAD AGENCY ON THE CASE. THEY'RE ALSO RELEASING SOME OF WHAT THEY'RE information they've gathered with investigators at the Valencia County Sheriff's Department, which remains the lead agency on the case. They're also releasing some of what they're learning on a podcast. So we are going to take our last break of the episode and we'll be right back. This podcast is sponsored by IQ Bar. I've got good news and bad news. Here's the bad news. Most protein bars are packed with sugar and unpronounceable ingredients.

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Refuel smarter, hydrate harder, caffeinate larger with IQ Bar. Go to eatiqbar.com and enter code BAR20 to get 20% off all IQ Bar products plus free shipping. Again, go to eatiqbar.com and enter code BAR20. So when Melinda and Michelle were going through the police files in the fall of 2010, they found an email from a man named Baron Freeman. And this email was sent to the sheriff's department with a statement of what he had seen on the morning of September 20th, 1988. So this email was printed out and put in the file. And then there was a handwritten note with a synopsis of what Baron had basically said in the email, and that was attached in the file. And then there was a handwritten note with a synopsis of what Barron had basically said in the email, and that was attached to the email. But there was no indication

that Barron had been contacted by the police or that he'd been brought in for a formal interview. Now, there was a number on this email that eventually got them in touch with Barron himself, and he told Melinda and Michelle that he'd tried to contact the police multiple times, but they continually brushed him off, and they'd never brought him in to give a formal statement. When Baron Freeman read that 2008 article in the Albuquerque Journal where Sheriff Rivera claimed he knew what had happened to Tara and that she had been accidentally hit by a truck, Baron was livid because he claimed he knew that this was not true. This had been no accident tara had been stalked and attacked baron freeman was so annoyed that he actually contacted the journalist who had written the article and he told her that he felt there was some kind of cover-up

happening because he told the police his story more than once so why was this sheriff claiming this had been an accident the journalist actually put bar Barron in touch with Sheriff Rene Rivera at the Valencia Sheriff's Department. And 20 years and three days after Tara Calico's disappearance, Barron Freeman's official plea statement was finally taken. So Barron Freeman said he was catching a flight from Albuquerque to Denver on the afternoon of September 20th, 1988, and he'd left for the airport a few hours early because he wanted to see a property that he and his wife had recently purchased in Tome, New Mexico. Now, Barron was not super familiar with the area. He kept getting lost and turned around. He was driving on Highway 47. He said the sky was gray and the landscape was all brown. So as he drove over a small hill, he immediately noticed a young girl riding a bright pink bike. Barron said he was driving south on Highway 47 and Tara was driving north or riding her bike north.

And about half a mile or three quarters of a mile behind her, there was a truck with a camper following her, driving very slowly at probably less than 20 miles per hour. Barron couldn't remember much about the man driving the truck, but he did remember the very intense and intent way the driver was staring at Tara with a sort of creepy smile on his face. Barron said the whole thing didn't feel right, but like Ishmael De La Rosa, Barron thought that maybe this man could be related to Tara in some way, and he didn't want to alarm Tara or her potential male relative. Baron was driving in the wrong direction anyways, and he had to make a U-turn, but he also didn't want to make a U-turn right behind the truck, because once again, he's kind of an overthinker. I heard an interview with him, and he goes back

and forth a lot, and he was like, well, I didn't want to scare the guy in the truck, because what in the truck because what if the guy in the truck was related to her and the guy in the truck thought I was making a U-turn and posing some threat to her. And so, you know, what if he pulls out a gun or what if we get in a fight? And like, I just don't want to alarm anyone. So he drove a little way down the road and then he made his U-turn. And then Baron drove by the truck with the camper and he tried to get a look at the guy's face. But he said the guy was so busy watching Tara that he didn't even look up. So Baron made the decision to drive a little further up to where Tara was and ask her if she needed help. But once again, he was worried about doing this because he didn't want to scare her or make her think that he had nefarious intentions.

So Baron decided to drive by Tara very, very slowly and sort of like stare at her because that's not creepy at all, Baron. But he figured that this would give her the opportunity to let him know if she needed help. You know, if somebody was following her and she didn't feel safe, she could alert him in some way. But he said as he passed, Tara didn't even look up. So Barron kept driving because he had a plane to catch. He claimed that he was driving about seven or eight minutes down the road. The sky opened up and it started pouring. And he considered going back and asking the girl if she needed a ride. But then once again, he's an overthinker. So he said he was

worried, like, where would he put her bike? And what if she lived too far away and he wouldn't get to the airport in time to get his plane? So he just kept driving. And he didn't think about this incident again until a year later when he read a magazine article about a 19-year-old girl named Tara Calico who'd been riding her bike on Highway 47 near Belen, New Mexico, when she disappeared, believed to have been taken by someone in a truck following her. So Barron picked up the phone to call the Valencia County Sheriff's Office, but he once again second-guessed himself. He hung up the phone. He was like, listen, I'm not even from this area. Like, I don't even remember exactly where on Highway 47 I was. I don't really even know what

the guy in the truck looked like. I do have a description of the truck, but I don't really even know what the guy in the truck looked like. I do have a like a description of the truck, but I don't remember a lot of details. You know, what am I going to tell these people? So he hung up. Ten years later, Barron's wife came home and told Barron that she was going to the same gym as one of Tara's cousins. So this is the impression I get because they never really like clarified, but it looked like Barron and his wife lived in Denver, Colorado, and they had purchased some property in New Mexico Tome, which is, you know, down Highway 47 from Bellin. And they lived in, what did I say, Colorado? Yeah, they lived in Colorado for a little bit. And then eventually they relocated at some point in that next decade to New Mexico. And then Barron's wife started going to the same gym as tara

calico's cousin and through tara calico's cousin baron was able to get patty dole's number because the thing was baron was feeling very very guilty over the past decade that he hadn't stopped and asked tara if she was okay so baron and patty they met at a local coffee shop and he told her what happened. He told her what he saw. He said he was sorry. And he was like, you know, I understand if you're furious. I understand if you're angry with me. I understand if you hate me. And Patty Dole gave Barron Freeman a gift that day. She relieved him of his guilt. She told him he shouldn't feel bad because she knew her daughter. Tara was independent and strong-willed, and it was more than likely that if Barron had pulled over and offered help, Tara would have been suspicious of him and declined

his help anyways. And, you know, like we had talked about in the first episode, that one day that Tara's bike had gotten a flat tire, she had walked her bike home seven miles, and several people had stopped and said, hey, you know, your bike has a flat tire. Let me give you a ride home. And she said no. So she doesn't seem like the type of person who would have accepted help or would have accepted a ride. But if she had thought she was being followed, she may have reached out. I don't know. Yeah, it's unfortunate because you have a young woman who just wants to ride her bike, get her exercise in for the day. And unfortunately, this is probably not the first time that she's been followed or approached by a

man in a vehicle. So it's something I don't want to say she's become desensitized to, but it's one of those things where she's developed a plan of action when she's approached, where she just basically doesn't acknowledge the person and they usually drive off. So there's no doubt in my mind, she more than likely saw him on the side of her, but yet she wasn't even going to give him an opportunity to flirt with her, to come on to her. And in the past, as long as she didn't acknowledge them, they just kept going. So it's unfortunate that she felt that way. It's unfair. You had mentioned this in episode one. It's not right. But unfortunately for her, the offender or

offenders in this particular situation weren't going to take no for an answer. And clearly, and that's why I said episode one, I feel like the headphones were on, but I also feel like she's a smart girl. She could probably see that there was someone following her, stalking her a little bit. And she probably operated under the same assumption that as long as she didn't acknowledge them, they would eventually drive past her and be on their way. But unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Yeah. And I do think, you know, probably the headphones were part of this sort of plan of action,

you know, ignore them, put the headphones on sort of plan of action, you know, ignore them, put the headphones on when they talk to you, act like you can't hear them and just keep looking straight ahead very much in the same way she did with Baron. And I have a hard time believing that she couldn't tell from out of the corner of her eye that he was slowed down and like staring at her. But she was probably like, yo, this freaking creep is staring at me. And maybe at that point, she didn't even know that someone was following her. i agree i agree and it just sucks that she had to conduct herself that way because unfortunately there's a lot of assholes out there and they just can't just be respectful and just drive to wherever they're going that it's sad to say this

but this probably happened a lot yeah i agree i mean it does happen a lot right it does that's it i mean it was probably happening to her every single time she went on a bike ride and there was some scumbag uh whether it was a young kid or an older man hitting on her trying to get her to come over and talk to him you know it's not right so i was um for youtube i'm doing the eliza fletcher case that's the kindergarten teacher who went out jogging and she was murdered just this month. And a journalist did an op-ed for The Washington Post and I was reading her article and she said, you know, I'm a runner. And she started listing all the sorts of things that happens to her while she's out running. And one example she gave was one time she's running by and this guy pulls out his deck and attempts to ejaculate on her as she runs by. And I was like, well, that's a new one for me. I've been cat called

and had guys follow me. And I've even had one crazy guy run out in front of me when I was on my bike, almost trying to cause me to veer off the road or the path. But I've never had anybody like attempt to ejaculate on me as I rode my bike by. So I can just, I guess, be thankful for that. Yeah, no, I unfortunately don't have to deal with that. It's something that I can't relate to as a man. And all I can do is try to do my best. That's part of the reason you become a cop is to try to go after people like this. And having two daughters, I think about it scares me every single day because unfortunately,

they're going to have to go out there and live their own lives. And they have to plan for things and prepare for things that I don't have to. And that really pisses me off. But all you can do is just, well, we could get into a whole different conversation,

but we talk about the keep you safe kits or things like that. Carry stuff with you. Assume that everyone's got bad intentions until they prove otherwise. And if you do that, you increase your chances of staying safe. That's the, you can't. You treat everyone with a high degree of skepticism. And if they do decide to do something that they shouldn't be doing, hopefully you have something on yourself that you can protect yourself and hurt them severely and instantaneously. And we can all laugh about it later. Yeah. But like you said, it increases your risk of staying. It increases your chances of staying safe, but you could do everything right. And you could take every precaution and still end up being the victim of a violent crime. It's just how it is. And I mean, look at, what was it, Brittany Drexel in Myrtle Beach. I do believe, and I think you agreed with me, she climbed into that dude's car

thinking he was a good Samaritan, thinking he was going to help her and give her a ride. And she trusted somebody who was the wrong person. So Tara's doing this. She's got her eye on the prize. She's driving her bike. She's not paying attention to what's happening behind her. She's not going to give eye contact to the guy who's slowing down and staring at her. She's like, if I just focus and stay in my lane, I'll be okay. And sometimes, like I said, you can do everything right and still end up being in trouble. It sucks, but it's the world we live in. It's the world we live in and I don't like it. But real quick to go back to the case, because I'm starting to get aggravated now. I knew it

was going to happen and now I'm starting to get aggravated. Because we had Ishmael's statement, which was incredible, very detailed, very descriptive. Now we have another individual, Barron, who does not know Ishmael, has no connection to Ishmael, didn't know that Ishmael gave a statement. And yet he's telling you the same goddamn thing. And he's describing the same exact vehicle. And it just so happens, and there's a lot of trucks in the area, Sure. But this makeshift camper that they're describing on the back of the truck, that's not so common. And it just so happens that there was multiple individuals next to a vehicle in that area earlier that day, matching that vehicle

description. And you hit on the fact that one of the witnesses said there was a red Ford emblem on the front of the truck. I don't feel like you did that unintentionally. Are we going to, I may be stealing a little bit of your thunder here, but I cannot wait. Did their truck have a red emblem on it? The one that Baron Freeman saw? The one that, so earlier in the day, John and Tara's boyfriend, what was his name? I apologize. Jack, Jack Cole. Jack. They confronted three individuals that were sitting outside of a light colored truck with a makeshift camper on the back in front of that community area, that campground area there, right? Does that truck in question have a red emblem?

I don't think it was ever mentioned that it did or it didn't. But I will once again say this is like a 1952, 1953 Ford truck with a makeshift camper on it. This is 1988. Right, and that's the point. There's not a lot of- Yeah, you start a 30-year-old truck. There's not a lot of 1950s trucks that would be considered vintage even then. And you didn't say it in your initial thing.

Maybe I was on purpose. Maybe again, I'm stealing your thunder. Sorry, you can be mad at me later. We're not recording. Does one of these individuals that we're eventually going to get to, do they have red hair? Yes. Oh, shocker. So I'm getting pissed off now. I'm getting pissed off now because there seems like there would be enough here to at least do something. And so I will refrain from saying anything else, but now I'm seeing multiple statements, very detailed statements that are highly suggestive that these guys were involved.

And yet I feel like you're going to tell me they're still walking around scot-free, at least for this particular crime. Baron Freeman wrote them an email and he was like, this is what I saw, blah, blah, blah. And they were like, okay, well, we're just not going to contact you and ask you to give an actual statement about what you saw. That's suspicious to me. Shady, definitely shady. And it's wrong. So let me just put that out there. Absolutely wrong. And this isn't even a good justification. This is actually a bad justification. But if they're all in on it, it makes sense. It's a cover up, right? Or it could be something where, again, bad police work. The statement's very similar

to what they already know. So they don't hop because there's nothing new there. He's basically telling them the same thing. But again, let me just say it seven times. It's bad police work. That's not how you do it. And I'm not justifying it. I'm just saying I've seen this done before and I didn't like it then. I don't like it now where, oh, you know, we already know that part. So there's no sense of urgency to get back to them. And then it gets lost in the pile and they never do. But when you want to get a search warrant signed or an arrest warrant signed by a judge, you know what helps the judge sign that warrant?

By seeing the same evidence, the same facts being mentioned by multiple people at different times who have no connection to each other. It substantiates their claims. It gives more credibility to the affidavit itself. It makes it easier for the judge to put their name on it. But when you don't go get that statement, you can't use it later in an affidavit. So that's why it's a problem. So again, not justifying it, just explaining how sometimes bad police work is justified by the police officers themselves. Yeah. And in that YouTube clip we watched earlier with Melinda Escobar, where she was explaining, like going through the police files, you know, she had said these files were a mess. There was stuff all over the place.

There was stuff missing. They would refer to like supplemental reports. The reports wouldn't be there. And there was full ass folders with people's names on them and nothing in them. And then she says something very quickly that somebody might mess if you weren't paying complete attention. She says, and those were the suspects. So she's saying like there's folders in the police files, Tara Calico's police file with the suspect's names on them and there's nothing inside the folders. And that's shady. I don't think that's bad police work. Yeah. Okay. So you definitely think conspiracy and I'm not going to rule it out.

I think it's very possible in this case, with the hints you gave but at minimum we can both agree it's horrible police work at minimum but more than likely there's something more there and i know as you continue to talk about it i'm probably going to agree with you but just right as of right now it's again this is the same police department that i said earlier they don't believe this photo is uh tara this polaroid. They're experts over there. Geniuses. Photo analysis. Geniuses over there.

They literally pulled out the Polaroid and they're like, nope, you guys can't see what I'm doing. Her legs are shaved. Hey, nope. She used a razor. It's out. Kidnapping victims don't shave their legs. Silly rabbit.

They look at him with disgust. How could you think? There's no red marks around her lips. Oh, my God. Amateurs. These are really bad kidnappers letting these people shave their legs and not putting the tape on tight enough. But here's what I will say. So when I first started looking into this case, and I mean, this is like four years ago, right? I was like, OK, I'm not going to be the one who's going to jump on police cover-up every time I see police cover-up because if I did, then I'd be seeing police cover-up in every single freaking case. But, and I went in it not wanting to see a police cover-up because who wants to see that? You know, we've got enough problems out there with the real bad guys and the criminals and now you add police cover-ups and you're like, Jesus,

is anybody safe? Can we get a break? So who wants to see had police coverups and you're like, Jesus, is anybody safe? Can we get a break? So who wants to see a police coverup, right? I mean, some people do, but I'm not one of them. So I went in and I'm like, okay, there has to be some other explanation. I tell you what, at the end of the day, I don't know what it could possibly be.

And hopefully, as we go through this, you'll see what I mean. Yeah, no, I'm already on the, this case seems blatantly obvious to at least, I want to see how much was done with these individuals. So that's why I'll just refrain from saying anything right now. I want to see how far this case was taken as far as these potential suspects, because obviously they were identified.

They're known to the community. I will, I will reserve judgment until I hear what police actually did. Okay. So Baron Freeman finally gives a statement 20 years later, and he gave his statement to a Captain Don Dargis with the Valencia Sheriff's Department. And later, Melinda, she's the podcast girl, she asked Dargis, you know, like, okay, did you put Baron under hypnosis? You know, like the two hunters had been

put under hypnosis so that they could give more details about the suspect in the vehicle. Like, Barron definitely saw the suspect and he saw the vehicle. He can't give a great description, but it's in his head somewhere. Did you put him under hypnosis? And Captain Don Dargis said no, he hadn't. He said he didn't believe that Bar Baron Freeman had actually been on Highway 47 that day. He said that Baron had described the weather as being overcast and rainy, but Dargis had looked up the weather for that day and he found out it was sunny with clear skies. So he was like, this guy must be lying. He wasn't there that day. So he just, you know, kind of moved on. Now, in truth, it had been sunny and clear when Tara had left her house that morning, but during her bike ride, the skies got cloudy and it did rain. Every person interviewed about the day Tara went missing described the weather

as being overcast and gray. News reports and pictures from the search show it was overcast and gray. And I'm actually going to send John some of these pictures because it's literally like exactly as Baron Freeman described it. So Don Dargis, I don't know if he's just not a good cop, like you said, maybe just lazy. At minimum. Right. Or he's like, we don't want to put him under hypnosis because we don't want a better description of the vehicle and the suspect. I don't even know if hypnosis is needed in this case.

I mean, it seems like Barron gave a pretty good description right off the rip. So I mean, yeah, you could put it on the suspect, though. Ishmael, not of the suspect, but of the vehicle for sure. But here's something else that I found. OK, and I've never heard this talked about anywhere because I went through all the newspaper articles. In the early days of the investigation, Sheriff Lawrence Romero Sr., he's the sheriff who was on when Tara went missing, he had told the media that the two hunters had been placed under hypnosis to see if they had more details about the truck and the suspect. And you can see this in the newspaper articles.

He's like, we put them under hypnosis. Like, don't worry, we're going to get more information. And then he told the papers a couple of days later, he was like, all right, we've put them under hypnosis. We got some information and now we're going to sit them down with a police sketch artist so that they can describe what they saw under hypnosis. And we're going to have composite sketches of the vehicles and the suspect to release to the public. So like you guys will be getting that in a couple of days. And then Sheriff Romero reported that the sketches had been completed, but he still needed to iron some more things out before releasing them to the public.

And then no mention of them ever again in any paper to the media ever. He never mentions the hunters or the composite sketches again. They are never released to the media ever he never mentions the hunters or the composite sketches again they are never released to the public additionally any information about what the hunters saw when they were hypnotized or what they described that was also missing from the police files and so this brings me to another witness that the police didn't seem to want any record of oh my god more witnesses so she is called Witness One because she's asked to remain anonymous. Now, Witness One was a young girl who was still in high school when Tara Calico went missing in 1988. On the morning of September 20th, this girl was running late for school and

her mother decided to drive her in. As they turned left onto Highway 47, the girl looked up and saw Tara riding her bike. Now, this girl often saw Tara riding her bike in the morning, so she waved at her and Tara waved back. But Witness 1 and her mother in the car, they'd pulled out in front of another vehicle, a light-colored truck that had been following Tara at a short distance, and there was two men inside the truck and they gave her a dirty look. Later that night, Witness 1 was talking to her boyfriend, who had been one of the volunteers looking for Tara after she was reported missing. Witness 1 told her boyfriend that she had seen Tara earlier that morning, and he suggested that she called the sheriff's office and tell them what she knew. She did call, and she was asked

if she would be able to identify the two men in the truck if they showed her photos. Witness One said that she certainly could because she had felt that the two men were familiar to her, even though she couldn't place from where. Now at the station, Witness One identified the two men she'd seen in the truck following Tara in a photo lineup. The police thanked her and they told her if they needed anything else, they would call her. She never heard from them again, and she just assumed that her information had not been helpful to the investigation. But a few years later, she was reading the paper when she saw an article about the untimely death of Lawrence Romero Jr. It appeared the young man had shot himself, either on purpose or during a game of Russian roulette. And besides the article

was a picture of Lawrence Romero Jr., and she recognized it as the very same picture she had pointed out to the police in 1988. It stood out to her because she remembered that the man in the truck had been a very distinctive redhead, and she'd easily found his picture in the lineup. Now, if that name sounds familiar to you, that's because Lawrence Romero Jr. was the son of Lawrence Romero Sr., who also happened to be the sheriff of Valencia County in 1988, and the man who was the lead investigator on Tara's disappearance for several years. The same man who was so frustrated because he turned over every stone, and he still found no indication of what had happened to young Tara Calico. Unreal. I mean, it's self-explanatory. What do I say? That sounds like a cover-up to me. Sounds like Romero Sr. saw his son was pointed out in a photo pack and decided to make things

disappear, and maybe he had some buddies who were loyal to him, who were willing to help. More importantly, I'd be willing to bet that Lawrence Romero Jr. or one of his buddies, maybe the other one identified, were driving around in a 1950s pickup truck with a camper on the back at a time. They could have did a photo pack on the vehicle as well. I mean, what are we talking about here? You have an identification from a witness and you have a suspect vehicle. You just do a little bit more work. You write that up in a little narrative. We get Detective Payette from the previous case. Detective Payette. Number one, the affiant crushing it out there. Easily write this up and write it so that a dummy can read it and say, okay, three different witnesses so far, minimum three witnesses,

all see the same vehicle right before a disappearance. Identify the man in the truck through a photo array. Identify the vehicle through a photo array as well. I think we have enough here to make an arrest. I think that you bring them in and let them, you know, get a defense attorney and see if they can prove that they weren't in the area at the time. Prosecution will put their case on and defense will put theirs on. Let's see what happens. But nothing like that happened. It definitely seems like there was some malicious things going on here within the police department

because I don't see how after having a positive ID Lawrence Romero jr. At minimum wouldn't have been brought in for questioning and I have a feeling you're gonna tell me that He wasn't him or his friend. Oh, no, he wasn't No, there you go I would even go as far as to say as soon as Lawrence Romero senior the sheriff heard the description of the truck that Everybody was giving he was like oh i know this truck can i ask a question though why so if i know my son did it right as soon as the vehicle description comes out he knows he knows right he definitely knows

that that vehicle's not that common in the area and he knows where his son was that day and he probably asked him okay i'm assuming Romero wasn't the lead investigator on the case because if he was, why would you let them put your son in the photo lineup in the first place, dummy? Well, this may have been something he didn't even know about. Like I said, this was a young girl, right? She called and they were like, yeah, come in. We'll give you a photo lineup. Maybe he's not in.

He's out on the road looking into the case and he comes back and they're like dude she picked your son out man what do you think about this and he's like well what i think about this is we're not gonna talk about this anymore right guys i mean yeah damn yeah because they clearly put his son in the photo pack the six pack or eight pack whatever they did and so there was somebody in there and by the, they more than likely knew it was his son when they put him in the photo array. So why put them in there? If, if you're not trying to get the actual answers, you're putting one of your colleagues sons in the photo pack that ended up itself. If it's not him could, could cause some dissension

amongst the ranks. Right. But they do that. She identifies them. And all of a sudden that disappears. Yeah yeah something shady there i think the person who did the photo pack and romero uh is romero senior still alive by any chance probably not no yeah but we're gonna talk about him more don't worry okay all right well yeah i'm pissed i'm there you got me and listen like there could have been a cop right in the sheriff's department who did want to get to the answers. But if he's outnumbered, what's he going to do? Yeah. I mean, it can be bad, right?

You know, these are the guys that if you're calling for help, if you're in a fight somewhere in a bar getting, you know, teamed up on by multiple patrons and you're calling for help from your fellow colleagues, they can easily go, yeah, we're on our way. Or even set up a fight in a bar that might have you you know incapacitated maybe there's a shootout maybe there's a shootout in the middle of the desert and you happen to get hit with friendly fire there's a shootout at the okay corral and it doesn't end up well so that's that's strange but just just right now and we're not even we still got another quarter of this script and this is only part two are we doing three parts for this one okay so we're just we're just piling it on thick here right okay all right and by the way just to you know we're being we're not trying to be funny here everything you've told me so far

there hasn't been any other potential suspects all these witnesses on the road they're all pointing towards the same thing there hasn't been something else that may create a different opportunity a different option as to what happened everyone who's coming in is saying the same thing so yeah it just it really it really goes to say that this truck is your vehicle this is this is a vehicle you need to track down and the people driving the vehicle that day need to be brought in and on top of that you have witnesses who actually identified the people that were in the truck. Okay. And by the way, that's why they put him in the photo array.

You know that, right? They put him in the photo array because they knew who the truck belonged to. And you should know she's saying red hair. Like, come on. Yeah, that's it. So they know the area. They're local police. They know who drives that type of vehicle.

So they hear the vehicle and they're like, let's throw. Let's throw Larry Jr. in there and see what happens. Right. Because he's one of the few people in the truck like that. And sure let's throw. Let's throw Larry Jr. in there and see what happens. Right. Because he's one of the few people in the truck like that. And sure enough, boom, she goes right to it. So I don't know. I don't know how that doesn't translate into an arrest or or at least that minimum bringing him in for an interrogation. Listen, you're right.

There were no other suspects. Right. There's no other vehicle seen following her. What was that a vehicle that was in the Florida parking lot, like a Dodge panel van, a white Dodge panel van? Ain't nobody talking about seeing a white Dodge panel van on Highway 47 that morning. No, it's the truck with the homemade camper and red dude driving it. And they got khaki shirts hanging up in the back covering the windows of the camper. So maybe no one can see inside. Like, it's just pretty obvious at this point. And let's quickly return to Ishmael De La Rosa. You remember Ishmael, the man who had been driving to the dairy farm in Belen when he'd spotted Tara brought in to talk to Detective Ray Flores. Ishmael had been surprised because he said he felt Flores was kind of cold to him, and he seemed disinterested in what Ishmael had to say. It was like he didn't even want to be taking his statement. Ishmael said that Flores almost made him feel stupid, or like he was getting involved with things that he had no business being involved in. And this kind of hurt Ishmael and it confused him because he really was trying to help. And he thought he had pretty good information and a detailed description of the truck and the suspect.

So Ishmael said that Flores brought him out to the highway so that he could show him the spot where he'd seen Tara. And Ishmael was also placed under hypnosis. Flores told Ishmael, listen, tomorrow I'm gonna show you pictures of trucks so we can get a better idea of like what make and model and year the truck that was following Tara was. They were supposed to meet at a diner the next afternoon, and Ishmael showed up and waited, but Detective Ray Flores never arrived, and even though Ishmael called and left messages for Flores, he never got a call back. A month later, Ishmael De La Rosa was in Albuquerque when he saw the exact

same truck, that Ford truck with the custom red emblem being driven by the exact same person, the redheaded guy. So Ishmael went back to the Valencia County Sheriff's Office and he was like, listen, this is where I saw the truck. This is what was happening. You guys can go there right now and get this dude. And once again, Ishmael was surprised at the way he was treated. Ishmael claims he was brought into a back room with two detectives who acted disinterested and made him feel as if he was overreacting. Even though this upset him, he told them what he knew and what he had seen in the hopes that it would help Tara. Now, a year after standing Ishmael De La Rosa up,

Detective Ray Flores would reach out and ask Ishmael to help him make a composite sketch of the truck and the suspect. And during this meeting, Ishmael told Flores about some local gossip he had heard, specifically from his friend, Jack Aguayo, who had a grandson named J.J. Aguayo. And J.J. Aguayo was acquaintances with Lawrence Romero Jr. And Jack Aguayo believed that he knew what had happened to Tara Calico. Jack even suspected that his grandson had probably been involved. I really, I mean, you set me up here. I mean, what do I say? We're just like laying it on thick here. We're building, you know, to take it seriously, we're building a case. We're building a case. We're identifying the individuals involved. We have a suspect vehicle.

We have possibly a main suspect, the redhead driving the vehicle. We have accomplices. It's all adding up. Now, at this point point a good police department's going to bring those people in they're going to try to identify where they were on the day in question they're going to probably seize the vehicle seize the clothes they were driving they were wearing that day if they're willing to say which clothes they were wearing they're going to swab the whole truck they're going to do forensics on the vehicle the forensics on their home to see if they can find anything that would suggest that tara was in the vehicle or you know in their homes at any point in time that's the next step that's what you're supposed to do here and yet it seems like that was not the case and i'm with you

there's really only one reason why you wouldn't take all this information and put it together and get these guys off the street. And it's not because of bad police work. Yeah. At this point, I think we're past just like laziness and stuff like that. And I will say, you know, remember Ishmael, you know, he felt very guilty and he saw this truck in albuquerque right which isn't far from bellen just down highway 47 and he was so upset about this and so upset that when he told the police it seemed like they didn't take it seriously and he kind of knew like they're not going after this guy they're not going to go find him so ishmael until the day he died drove around trying to locate that truck and the driver again. But do you know what? He never did. Because I think somebody let that driver of that truck know like, hey.

Oh, that truck's gone. That truck was gone. You've been spotted by somebody who saw you that day. So maybe make yourself scarce in Albuquerque. Maybe try to get a new car. Maybe drive a new vehicle. Yeah, that truck is out of here. And Witness One, remember Witness One? She was the girl who was driving to school. She actually also said that she had worked with Sheriff Rivera, who was the new sheriff, the one in 2008,

who said, yeah, we know who did this and blah, blah, blah. She said she had worked with him. And he said, once again, he told her he knew exactly what happened and he knew where the truck was. And it had been like put in a landfill somewhere it was buried somewhere and um they had you know taken like the wheels off and stuff and they had taken it apart according to sheriff rivera so it does feel like everybody's kind of in on it you know and they all know which is what you know melinda's friends told her like yeah we all know what happened but it's like what, you know, Melinda's friends told her, like, yeah, we all know what happened, but it's like, what are you going to do? Which is bullshit. Yeah, no, I mean, if they have an

inclination that it's coming down on Romero's son, they, as police officers, they know what they can do to destroy evidence that could link back to them. And that would be getting rid of the vehicle for the obvious reasons, getting rid of the tires in a different location so they can't be matched up to any potential tire tread marks at the scene of the crime. They could douse the car down with chemicals, harsh chemicals that would ruin any type of evidentiary value to it. Get rid of the clothes you were wearing at the day. I mean, they would know what to do because that's what they do for a living. And it appears that that might be what it is.

Now, do I think the entire, how big was this police department? I have no idea. It can't be that big. I mean, actually, Valencia County was pretty big. That's what I'm saying. It's a big county, but you were telling me there's not, it's a big county, but not as a lot of people, right? Not a lot of people live in the county. Correct. A lot of ground to cover, but I would assume, how many people are in a typical Rhode Island police department? Well, my police department was super small. We were one square mile, but we were one of the most densely populated cities in the entire country. We had over 30,000 people living in 1.2 square miles, all triple-decker homes. So a lot of people in a very small area, but we had from

any given time, anywhere from 40 to 48, 49 police officers. So not a lot when you think about per person living there. So real quick, we just looked up the size of the Valencia County Sheriff's Department right now. It's approximately 50 members. So it was probably less back then. So one of two scenarios here, every single person in the department isn't on it, which I find hard to believe, not because it's not possible, but because you would think there would have been someone in there at some point who would have came out and come clean and said, listen, I wasn't directly involved, but I know what happened back then. And I couldn't at the time out of fear of retaliation, but I want to come clean now

at this point. I'm no longer there. I've moved away. Whatever the case may be, someone would come forward. Now, that being the case, even though it's a small police department, there are different divisions. You may have three or four guys working detectives, a couple guys, one or two guys only on this case. So the amount of people that are being involved in all of the information sharing with this particular case, because it was a major case,

is probably limited. So you would only need three or four detectives to kind of swear to secrecy to make this work. Do I think the entire police department was in on it? I think it would be hard. Again, not saying they're all angels. I just think it would be hard for it not to get out, whether it was for valid reasons because they just wanted to expose this crime or just because they got drunk one night in a bar and slipped up and said something stupid. One reason or another, those relationships amongst those 30 to 40 men and women that were in the police department, they probably weren't all friends. And all it takes is one pissed off employee to drop the hammer on all of them and

that never happened so why is that i mean drop the hammer to who though the media of the fbi other police departments the state police department i mean there's so many places you can go with that information to get other agencies involved to invest to police the police but at what at what point you're talking lar Romero Jr., right? Dead. He shot himself three years after in a game of Russian roulette, allegedly. And we're going to talk about that more. But one of his friends was with him at the time. One of his friends who was also said to have been with him when Tara went missing and they did something to her.

So one of his friends was with him, said, oh, yeah, he's playing with a gun. He shot himself. Then you've got his father, the sheriff, he dies. You know, there's other people who've passed who were involved. So like, to what end now would you even have, to be honest? And then everyone's gonna look at you and be like, so you hid this forever while everyone looked?

Yeah, I mean, I still don't think everyone's in on it, but the reason why we don't know who was in on it is because i think it was a small group of people i don't think it was just one no i think it was some some a group of people in there that were probably close to ramiro who decided collectively that they were gonna help him and his son because i'm sure the narrative that was being explained to those other officers was that, oh, my son was flirting with her and he accidentally hit her with a car and she died and they didn't know what to do. You know, we have to help him. It wasn't, hey, my son raped and murdered this little girl. I shouldn't say little girl, but young woman.

And, you know, can you help me help keep this rapist on the streets? No, no, no. It was much different. It was explained in a way where maybe these officers felt like they were helping out a friend where his son caused an extreme accident that could ruin the rest of his life and they felt like they were doing a good thing. Yeah, but here's the thing. You've got the investigator in, what was it, 1993? And he's like, we know who did this. We're just like waiting for evidence and eyewitnesses. Yeah, you could say, well, I kept saying I knew, but, you know, I was waiting for a body and I was waiting for evidence to actually do something because we didn't have evidence. But like, yeah, I knew. Are you just saying that to like buy yourself some grace when this all does hit the fan? Because you're not making any moves on it. Not the investigator in 1993 for the DA's office

because that dude was the investigator for the district attorney's office. And not the police who, you know, were Valencia County Sheriff's Office after, what's his name? What's his name? The old guy, senior. Larry Romero, senior,

after he wasn't even the sheriff anymore. So like, what's the point in saying, you know who did it, but not coming forward and being like, yo, this is some serious coverup because the person who did it ended up being the son of the current sheriff at the time, who was the lead on this investigation for like three years. Yeah. I can't explain the rationale behind it, but my takeaway from what they're saying is that Rivera and whoever else is coming forward with Rivera when he's thinking about coming forward with it is that we know it was an inside job and we're not going to cover for them and we're going to expose them when we get the last piece of this puzzle, which

they never got. Because I don't think they would say, yeah, we know who did it. If there wasn't some intention to eventually expose that person and do something about it, I can't explain what happened between him saying those statements. And obviously, that was what, 15 years ago? 2008. That was 2009? 2008, yeah. 2008. So what are we talking about? 10, yeah, 12, 13 years? Long ass time. Yeah, long ass time. And I would assume Rivera's not even there anymore now. so what happened? What changed direction? Do I think there's a possibility? Cause this has happened in cases before where they put together a case,

they bring it to a grand jury and the grand jury decides not to indict that has happened. There are cases that I can't speak about that many of you know about, I'll just put it that way that I've worked publicly that have gone to a grand jury I'll just put it that way, that I've worked publicly, that have gone to a grand jury and we just didn't get the answer we wanted. And at that point, you can't say anything. There would be no one to indict, really, because Larry Romero Jr. is dead. Is dead, but how about his accomplices?

Not all of them, but... Conspiracy to commit murder? Conspiracy, you know, sexual assault? But remember also, Rivera said, we think that even some of the parents of these kids helped them cover it up. So he's saying it.

He's saying it. Like the sheriff did this. Well, guess who one of those parents are? The sheriff. Yeah. So, so yeah, and he's dead. So maybe that's why

there's not a sense of urgency. Maybe it's something where he's like, we may not be able to bring charges, but we're going to expose, we're going to blow the top off of this. I think they're not going to because they don't want anybody to look at them. I think they want to just keep saying this and buy time because every couple of years it's like new leads and Tara Kellett going just in 2021, the new lead and Tara Kellett. And there was no freaking new lead.

They just keep saying like, oh yeah, we know we're building a case. You're not building a case. You haven't done shit. Nothing's happening. And you don't want anybody to look at you sideways because we all would. And you know what? We are now. I am. Yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible. So anyways, let's talk about what Ishmael heard when he went to his friend Jack Aguayo's house.

Remember, Jack is Ishmael's friend. J.J. Aguayo is Jack's grandson. So Ishmael and Jack are at Jack's house. They're talking about Tara. And Jack made a comment like, you know, it's too bad that girl was never found. And then his grandson, JJ, JJ just popped up out of nowhere. And he was like, oh, yeah, you know, we saw that girl. My friend and I were out hunting that day.

I shot a road sign and we saw that girl riding her bike. JJ then left the house and Jack turned to his friend Ishmael. And he was like, you know, I really think my grandson knows what happened to Tara Calico, and I think he was involved. Jack Aguayo happened to own a large ranch with a lot of land, and he claimed that on the night of Tara's disappearance, someone had come to the back gate of his ranch, opened it, went in, and then left, closing the gate behind them. Jack said no one ever used that gate, and he wondered if it had been his grandson and his grandson's buddies burying Tara's body or evidence or something somewhere on the ranch. Now, Ishmael told this to the police when he met with them, and he was like, you know, I heard some gossip. I got some hot tea. This is just what the locals are saying. And I don't think that Jack

Aguayo was planning on Ishmael doing that. And so the police reportedly tried to locate Jack's grandson, J.J. Aguayo, and talk to him. But by the time they found him, he was a patient at a mental hospital in Texas. So when the police went looking for his grandson, Jack Aguayo shut down and he no longer wanted to talk about Tara Calico to anyone. Now, on September 11th, 1991, a search warrant was executed on Jack's property. But once again, the results of that search, they were missing from the police files. So we know that there was a search warrant, but we don't know what they found in the search warrant because it's not in the police files. And, you know, like I said, when we turn to the police reports, we find that there's a lot of damning statements that are damning in regards to the sheriff and his son. There's going to be

statements from multiple people detailing what sounds like the horrific abduction, torture, and murder of Tara Calico, followed by a very blatant cover-up. There's also plenty of files and information missing, and it makes you wonder, what was in the missing pieces of the file? You know, with a lot of what was left behind being so incriminating as it is, what the hell was in the missing files? Because, you know, it's like it's terrifying to think about. A couple of things here. It could be that the search warrants are being conducted to find the incriminating evidence before the good cops do, you know, before the federal agencies

come in. Or there could have been an internal war going on where you have a few good cops who know that these bad cops did something and covered up something that they shouldn't have. And you have the good cops going in there trying to do right. They're trying to get the search warrants. And then every time they take a step forward, the bad cops who are in a position of authority, maybe higher up the ranks are making things disappear. Maybe there's a file, there's a fire in the evidence room or that piece of evidence they sent off to get examined by someone never reached its destination. And every time they look at their superior officers, like, hey, whatever happened with that thing we did?

I don't know. It disappeared. Because these folders, unless they're kept in a vault, yeah, the detective has access to them, but their superior officers have access to them as well. So it sounds almost like there were flashes of attempts to try to get these guys, but they were always impeded some way, shape, or form.

So I still am working under the assumption that there was a group of individuals within that organization who were collectively and actively trying to cover up this case. And I feel like those individuals might've been in a position where they had control over multiple officers and would be able to be the last line of defense before the information got out to the public. And they were able to destroy that evidence before it ever saw the light of day. And that's probably why you have a file looking like it's Swiss cheese, because they went in there and anything that implicated their son or their friend's son to a level where they felt that it was probable cause and could be arrested,

that information was destroyed and thrown out somewhere. Or I was wondering, because Sheriff Rivera seemed to know the location of the truck, like maybe that's where the truck was buried and it was pulled up. But like you said, you know, they kind of got rid of anything that could tie back to Tara, the wheels, they maybe burned the insides or something like that. So it's like, we know this truck's here. We know it's like hidden here here but we can't tie it to Tara although like for me I feel like they've gotten arrests for far less you

know like at this point you've got the truck that everybody saw and it's been hidden and like kind of pulled apart you've got multiple eyewitnesses you've got everything that that you need I mean we're gonna talk about next episode deathbed confessions Tons of people who you know claimed the guilt was weighing on them who came forward and started talking to other people You've got all of this at least at this point You've got enough to say like okay We know what happened here and we maybe can't arrest everybody involved because some people have died and maybe some people we don't know where

They are or whatever but we can at least tell you the public who've been invested in this for almost 40 years what happened here. Yeah, I know we still have one more part to go, but just to kind of cap this episode, this case was really doomed from the start. You had Jack and John run into three individuals in a specific vehicle that I'm sure they ended up relaying that information to law enforcement officers later in the day. And because of the size of the community and because of the description of the vehicle and the individuals they spoke with, I feel pretty confident in saying that Romero Sr. knew that day that his son encountered these individuals and at minimum would have asked him about it. And so if he knew

very early on, based on, I don't know what his relationship was with his son, that his son was involved. And again, his son probably spun it as this was an accident. Romero might've been taking active steps from the very beginning of the investigation to make sure that Tara was never found and may have assisted his son and his friends in making sure they got rid of any evidence that could be used to connect them to the case. Couldn't get rid of the witnesses, but he could get rid of any of the collective evidence that would corroborate the witness testimony, which is very important when getting an affidavit. So I think that in conjunction with really bad police work, because I do think there's

probably some officers who were lazy and didn't do their job. It was a recipe for disaster. But I'm really interested to hear part three, because even though that's all said and done, and that's the case that we're dealing with here, I don't see how at some point the lid wouldn't have been blown off this thing and federal agencies would have came in and said, Valencia, Sheriff's County, get out. We want everything on this case. You're not touching anything anymore. We're taking over. We've heard it from everyone.

Nothing you're telling me right now, I'm sure, isn't public information. So clearly there's people at the federal level that know about this. And yet here we are with this lack of resolution. So I really want to hear how this one kind of the arc of this one because i don't see how we don't have something more than what i believe we have which is nothing we don't know where tara is that's kind of the question that everyone has right which is like this seems very obvious what happened here and it feels like everybody knows and it's like the the most open secret ever so what's going I mean, there's been like petitions and, you know, things like that to bring these people to justice or at least, you know, have this case assumed to have happened to her and nothing's happened no no one's

ever you know been brought to justice and it's never been been said outright but you know because i think like the the sheriff larry romero senior like his memory should be tainted by this he shouldn't be remembered as like this good guy who was like a good law, you know, lawman and took care of the community and stuff like he should have that on his record and on his like like a black mark on his record that should be there. So because otherwise and I mean, maybe bigger like the FBI and stuff, maybe they're like, this is, you know, small potatoes for us because the main person who did it is no longer here. So like, what do you want us to do? It may be something like that with the federal government where they're like, we got real stuff to handle. We've got real people like suspects who are still alive and stuff to pursue. So what are we going to do at this point? Like, yeah, a couple of good old boys covered up a murder back in the 80s.

Like you could probably find that in every small town police department back in the day. Like what do you want us to do now? That might be what's happening It could be i'm not saying it's right. I think uh, I know That patty's deceased i'm assuming john is deceased as well Okay, uh, but jack's probably still alive god willing cool. Oh jack cole her boyfriend the boyfriend, you know He's probably living with some guilt. I'm assuming ishmael has passed. I'm assuming a lot of people have passed in this case, but there's still relatives that are here. Why would Jack live with guilt? Not guilt, but listen, at that point, that was his girlfriend.

I'm sure he felt like he was in love with her. And I'm sure this, I mean, he literally was over there within minutes after he heard that she was missing and he probably spent a lot of his time looking for her. So I'm sure that relationship not the what if what could have happened between the two of them maybe not guilt that's the wrong word but this this this unresolved feeling yeah yeah this unresolved feeling of what their relationship might have been down the road so i'm sure he would love to know what happened to her and and he probably has some pretty strong opinions on who did it.

I think it would mean something to him to have those feelings confirmed and to some of her other relatives as well. So, you know, we'll see what part three, you were right. I'm pissed off. Part two, there's definitely some bad police work and some also some criminal activity amongst the police department. That's what it appears to be on the outside. Unless we're just not being told the full story from the outside looking in, it appears that we were not only looking for criminals on Highway 47, but there were criminals within the police department as well. And when you have the criminals looking for the criminals, that's not going to end well for the good guys. well listen um the police reopened the case in 2013 okay yeah well you know why that is right because you get a whole new group of police officers in

there fresh eyes okay they reopened in 2013 they interviewed a bunch of people all right this is where they're getting all these statements from and when we talk about this next episode i'm going to read directly from the the police you know and and I believe it was the New Mexico state police who took over. It wasn't like Valencia County. Yeah. There you go. Remember what I was saying? You have the local guys and you get state or federal. So they got on there, right? And they did all these interviews and they got all these statements, which I'm going to read from and still nothing happened. So. Yeah. I want to hear how we got there because I don't see it. But maybe something next episode will make more sense. Guys, as always, we appreciate you being here with us. Just to recap, again, we appreciate all the support for criminal coffee. We hope you're enjoying the coffee and we love the fact that you're getting some really good coffee, but also contributing to a great cause we're hoping this is the start of something really big and doing these episodes on crime weekly and having criminal coffee it's this one big ecosystem where we're

giving a voice to the voiceless we're covering cases that may not get as much coverage in today's day and age because they're older we're building a community that you know we're we're educating ourselves we're informing ourselves and how we can protect ourselves better but also helping older cases by with criminal coffee fund and all these other things so really happy to be part of this i know stephanie is as well we appreciate you being here stay safe out there and we will see you next week Thank you. you you This podcast is sponsored by IQ Bar. I've got good news and bad news. Here's the bad news.

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