Crime Weekly - S2 Ep94: Tara Calico: The Sheriff's Son (Part 3)

Episode Date: October 7, 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

Bettering your business takes working with the best. With the James Hardy Alliance, you gain access to leads, training, networking, and support from the number one brand of siding in North America. Achieve new levels of success by joining the James Hardy Alliance today. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we are finishing up the Tara Calico case. Do you I think it's actually a very interesting episode and people are going to be super happy if you're listening on audio because we don't have any ads tonight. We just have the YouTube sponsor, which we're going to get into in a little bit if you're listening on YouTube, but we don't have any ads. So it's just going to

be straight, easy listening tonight. And we can discuss the case and you don't have to be distracted and we don't have to stop. It's going to be awesome. But before we dive in, is there anything you want to get out of the way? Yeah. If you guys, it might be up already or now it should be. We just put up a YouTube video with a criminal coffee announcement. Obviously we're going to be donating to a case with the proceeds from criminal coffee. So if you want to check out that video, just head on over. It's going to be right on the main page, or you can go to criminalcoffeeco.com, go on the fight crime tab. You'll see the video, but you'll also see some other case updates about this particular case that we're going to be donating to photos, how they're extracting the DNA

from her bones, and then how they're going to use that DNA to create this genealogical investigation to try to find living relatives to find out not only who she is, but what happened to her. It's really fascinating stuff. We're looking forward to seeing where this goes and hopefully we can solve it. But there's one other big announcement. Why don't you share it, Stephanie? Yes, we have a big announcement. We actually have a new editor. If you follow us on social media, you probably knew we were looking for one because unfortunately our old editor john who's been with us for a little over a year he was moving on to greener pastures where he doesn't have to talk to derek every day i wish that i could do that sometimes but here i am stuck with derek anyways now we have a beautiful young woman named Shannon editing for us.

She's incredibly talented and impressive. And we went through many reels of incredibly talented and impressive individuals. I am so dazzled by how much talent there is out there. And Derek was just talking about how much I suck at technology. And I can't do even 2% of what any of you can do but we did go with shannon because um she she really impressed us and we're very happy to have her on the team so everybody in the comments if you're watching on youtube tell shannon hello uh goodbye john hello shannon and it's going to be great yeah super excited about it thank you to everyone i'm

glad you mentioned it thank you to everyone who applied. We had a lot of submissions. We have some other projects planned in the future. So if you didn't get hired for this spot, we're going to send out an email. So you probably already know this, but if you don't, we have some other projects in the future and we'll probably be in contact with a few other people because there were some really talented individuals who were impressive and motivated and it sucks. We can't hire everybody, but we do appreciate it and excited about shannon excited about the future you might see some style style changes because shannon's a little different in what she does so if you notice it point it out because we definitely

have yeah they're good style changes they're very cool very very cool so it's gonna be fun uh let's dive into the episode, right? 25 years after 19-year-old Tara Calico disappeared while riding her bike down Highway 47 in New Mexico, a new task force was put together to reopen her case. The case had previously been handled by the Valencia County Sheriff's Department, as we know, but the new task force was made up by six law enforcement officials from Homeland Security, the Albuquerque Police Department, the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office, the New Mexico State Police, and the Valencia County Sheriff's Department. Although if you ask me, in my opinion, the Valencia County Sheriff's Department probably should have been left out of it altogether because as we had discussed in the

previous episodes, it seemed like there was a little corruption and some cover-up going on. But you be the judge of that when we finish with this episode. I will say this is a very common practice. So you will have the original investigating police department. You'll have representatives there in case there's any questions you have or something generic. But I will say the main investigating police department. You'll have representatives there in case there's any questions you have or something generic. But I will say the main purpose is for the other agencies to really look at this with a fresh set of eyes, because obviously at this point it hasn't been solved and it may

not be for lack of effort or whatever. You know, in this case, it might be different, but they may have put their best effort forward. But sometimes having someone else with a different perspective look at it. They may bring something to your attention that the original investigator overlooked. So this is a common practice when you have a cold case to bring other agencies in. A lot of the times, like in Rhode Island, we have a cold case like unit where it's detectives from every department where they'll get together, kind of discuss the cold cases within their agencies to see if anybody has any ideas as to how they should go forward.

So common practice. And there may, in this particular case, been something where rumors were flowing that there might have been something going on within the Valencia Police Department. And that also may be why other agencies got involved. They won't say that publicly, but it absolutely could be going on behind closed doors. Yeah, I think for sure that's the reason why the task force was formed and why other agencies were involved but let me ask you a question if there was corruption or cover-up happening with the original investigating department which was the

Valencia County Sheriff's Office and And this was sort of not proven, but alleged. Would they still be invited to be a part of the task force just so that they could be there to offer information? Because, you know, at that point, I feel like it's a little tainted to even have them there. Well, I mean, at this point, as you said, it's alleged. And also, they're not the ones being investigated. If that were the case, you wouldn't have them there. But it is good to have someone from that original agency because there may be situations where the other officers who may not know the Valencia officers personally might say, this doesn't look right.

There was evidence here. You guys took a statement. And now you're providing us with a packet. Where is that statement? You might be able to say to the public, like, oh, it just, it went somewhere, but we do this every day too. And that doesn't make sense. How about this piece of evidence?

So there's going to be questions that come up for these new agencies where they're like, this doesn't make sense. How did this happen? And they're going to have to ask the Valencia Police Department representatives, how did this happen? Where did this evidence go?

So they're going to need them there regardless, but more than likely, it wouldn't make sense. Even if the Valencia Police Department representatives, how did this happen? Where did this evidence go? So they're going to need them there regardless, but more than likely it wouldn't make sense. Even if the Valencia Police Department wasn't being accused of possibly covering this up, you don't want the original police department doing all the work in this multi-jurisdictional operation, this investigation, because you're probably going to come to the same conclusion, which is unfounded. So in these cases, even when all agencies are up to good standing, usually you let other agencies take the lead because you don't want to be led down the same path that the police department already went down. So they'll usually sit back and be in a more reserve role and answer questions if asked, as opposed to taking the lead. And it's also been 25 years. So most likely any of the original police officers who were a part of anything nefarious would most likely have moved on or retired by then.

They're gone. And in a lot of cases, may not be the case here. We won't know. The original agency will request this kind of unit to be established. It may not be the situation here. They might have said, hey, we're doing it regardless. State police doesn't have to ask for permission. But usually you'll have the original agency say, hey, we're kind of stuck on this one. We want some new people to take a look at it. These are the agencies we'd like to be involved.

So that could be the case here. But I don't know if we'll get that answer. That is not the case here. And we will get that answer. That is not the case here. And we will get that answer. Oh, great. Perfect. In October of 2013, Sheriff Dan Houston, who's the sheriff of Bernalillo County, he addressed the public during a press conference saying, quote, we have tried to make it clear to the families that are involved in our cold cases that we continued to have resolve to bring justice to their loved ones for the crimes that they've suffered in their families,

end quote. But the family member that Sheriff Houston was referring to in Tara's case was not her long-suffering mother, Patty Doyle. Sadly, after decades of working tirelessly to bring her daughter home, never believing that Tara was actually gone, Patty Doyle passed away. For many years, Patty refused to leave her home in New Mexico because she thought that one day Tara was going to come home or call home, and she worried she wouldn't be there when that happened. But in 2003, Patty and her husband, John Dole, moved to Port Charlotte, Florida. By that time, Patty had suffered several strokes, her mind was deteriorating, but she still felt that Tara was going to come home. Even in Florida, Patty would sit by the window of her retirement home waiting for her daughter, and she would point out every young woman riding a bike and ask her husband if

he thought that this young woman could be Tara. John Dole said, quote, I'd have to try to explain to her that it wasn't Tara, that it was a person too old or too young. Patty was looking for Tara right to the end, end quote. In May of 2006, Patty Dole passed away at what I feel to be the very young age of 64 with no answers as to what had happened to her beloved child. And I really do believe that her health issues and all the stress that she was under after Tara went missing contributed to her early death. And she was really suffering in the last years of her life. And mentally, physically, emotionally, I think her life would have been very different if this hadn't happened to Tara. And that kind of once again shows you the residual effects and the ripple out effects that crime have, not just on the victim, but on their friends, families, communities. It ruins a lot of lives, not just one life.

Couldn't agree more. And this is something that we've discussed at length. We're talking, she died 17, approximately 17, 18 years after Tara's disappearance. Am I that right? 1988, right? So almost 20 years. And this is the real conundrum and the ethical dilemma we face as police officers, because you don't want to put a clock on when you have to solve this case, because that's how you make mistakes. And that's also where you get officers who will manipulate evidence to try to get to some type of resolution for the family. You don't want that. You want it to be done the right way. But there is that question, where do you draw the line and what type of time frame do you put on yourself as an agency? Because let's say hypothetically they solve it now. Yes, would love to see it solved now. Would love to get answers for the remaining family members and to obviously hold the person responsible or persons responsible accountable. But at this point you've lost certain loved ones like her mother and the offenders themselves Have lived most of their life as free men and women whatever the case may be. So was justice really served?

for me No, if that was my daughter, I wouldn't be satisfied with that outcome if they caught the person who did it 30 years later So that's the thing you have to address because I think for me, 10 years, that's about the point where you need to start enlisting outside help. 10 years is a long time for the family to wait, but I feel like 10 years, a lot can happen. And sometimes people in that timeframe will come forward. But after that, I think we start to get in that area where while the case is still relevant, while witnesses are still healthy and can remember things, while evidence is still usable, if it's been preserved correctly, that's when you got to make the move.

That's when you got to bring other people in. That's when in some cases you got to bring television shows and whoever it might be who have these financial resources to explore the technology available today. I think that's the point when you have to start doing it because you want to get answers not only to get the person who did it, but also for the family members so that they can get that justice in a reasonable time. So this this seems like it's a little long for me. Yeah, it's very much like the Golden State killer. I mean, we're all happy that the Golden State killer, Joseph D'Angelo, was was finally apprehended.

But I mean, he was like 150 years old when they caught him. It's like, what else? What kind of life did he even have ahead of him? He caused so much damage to so many lives. And he got to live his entire life, not only knowing that he got away with it, but being free to do whatever he wanted. So it doesn't feel like a huge amount of justice. It's almost like we solved this puzzle. We know what the resolution of this mystery is, but it doesn't help anybody who was harmed by this person, really. Yep. I agree. I agree. Yeah, it's a tough situation for sure. But I do think, I feel like, hey, Derek, you got to put a number on it. 10 years. 10 years and you got to start bringing in outside help. At that point, if you're hoarding it for new detectives, whatever, you're doing a disservice to the family and the case itself. And I mean, in this situation,

I don't think it was that they were hoarding it for new detectives. I literally just think that they didn't want anybody to look too close to it. Wanted it to go away. Yeah. And that's just my opinion. Allegedly, don't come for me. But yeah, I definitely, there's something sketchy with this. And we'll go further into that. But there was somebody left alive in Tara's family who still was trying to seek justice. And that was Tara's younger sister, Michelle Doyle. And she's the one who began working with journalist Melinda Escobar in 2010 to get to the bottom

of what had happened to Tara. And they actually began working with a private investigator. They were going through police files, which as we had discussed previously, were an absolute disorganized mess. But at least they did give the two women a place to start and leads to follow. Sheriff Dan Houston, remember, he's the sheriff of Bernalillo County. He claimed he became interested in reopening the case when he had bumped into Michelle Doyle in town. And although they'd never met before, they started discussing her sister's case. He became interested in reopening the case when he had bumped into Michelle Doyle in town.

And although they'd never met before, they started discussing her sister's case. And then Houston reached out to Valencia County's then sheriff, Louis Burkhardt, and they started on putting together the task force. So it wasn't Valencia County who was like, let's get this solved. You know, it was neighboring Bernalillo County who was like, hey, you know, we got a cold case here. Like I talked to the victim's sister. What's going on? What are you guys doing with this? And I think that that says a little something. I agree. As I just said earlier, it's usually the original agency that does that. And it doesn't appear to be the case here. But that kind of falls in line with the idea, as you've said numerous

times, that there might have been some criminal activity going on within the agency itself, specifically with people in higher positions. So based on everything you had told me in part one and part two, the fact that these individuals don't appear to have ever been questioned, it's crazy to me. Whether they are charged with anything, that's a different story. But questioned, brought in, cars examined, things like that? Nah, we're not going to do that and you know I know we said like obviously it's over 20 years turnover in the police department new guys but I always feel like there's a part of these new guys who know the rumors and

you know know what people are saying behind closed doors and they kind of are like oh we weren't a part of that but we also don't really want this to become like a scandal for our police department because we're doing the right thing and we don't want this to make everybody look bad when this happened so long ago and we're trying to do the right thing here. So I think there's a little bit of that, maybe some good intentions of trying to protect the integrity of the police department or the sheriff's department now that all of the bad apples are gone. But at the same time, you're still brushing things under the rug because you don't want to be embarrassed. You don't want to be called out. You don't want to make your department look bad, which I understand. But at the same time, I don't. It's hard.

Let me throw another angle at you because that's definitely possible. I'm not there, so I don't know. But I'll throw another angle angle at you. That's less nefarious, but still happens all the time. It's happened in my own department. I don't care how good the new detective is. They're only as good as the original case file and how the file was collected, how the evidence was collected, how the reports were written because they weren't there. They might not even been born yet when that case happened. And I can tell you personally that we've opened up files and said, what the happened here? You know, what, what were they doing? They didn't have the information that they referred to, or they said they spoke to this

particular person, none of it's here. And that may be not even something that's worth a criminal element to it, but just negligence, just not doing a good job. So you have situations like that where the previous detective just didn't do their job the right way. And in this particular case, you may have a situation where there was a folder there, there's a file, there's a jacket, but it's missing everything. So it's like giving this new talented detective who wants to do the right thing, this brand new puzzle box, right? And saying, here you go,

solve the puzzle, puzzle, little Johnny. And then he opens it up and 30 of the hundred pieces are missing. And in this particular case intentionally So it's like good luck solving this case without a third of the puzzle pieces. Good luck He's not gonna be able to do it So there's multiple elements that could be taking place here some more innocent and then others much more nefarious Yeah, it just seemed like this open secret, you know, in the area that like everybody knew what was going on. And so when when you hear that, it kind of does feel more nefarious. You know, that's that's just because if you're a brand new detective and you're like, I'm going to take care of this puzzle. It's not even like let's solve the puzzle. It's like, let's write it wrong, which we were possibly a part of. But once again, I understand not wanting to shine that light when you are now trying to do the right thing. So it's just a very slippery slope. But check this out. This is what gets me. So the new Valencia County Sheriff, or at least the Valencia County Sheriff

at the time of the creation of this task force, Sheriff Burkhardt, he said, quote, we felt that we should take a good close look at all of the evidence that's been gathered over the years and hopefully we'll come up with something that will assist us i don't think there's anything that's come about just recently in regards to this case but we're going to take a look at everything that there is we don't know if she's alive but that's certainly a possibility end quote i want to point out the differences in statements from one Valencia County Sheriff to the next. We have this very bold statement from Sheriff Rene Rivera in 2008, claiming that Tara's case was no mystery, that he knew how she had died

and he knew who had killed her. He even said that he had enough information and evidence to get warrants on these individuals, that all he needed was for someone to come forward and point him in the direction of Tara's body so that he could recover it and then bring the responsible parties to justice. And then just five years later, the current Valencia County Sheriff, Louis Burkhardt, is saying, you know, it's possible Tara could still be alive. Like, we don't really know. And then this is followed by a statement from Sheriff Dan Houston saying quote I think the issue with this particular case is that as old as it is we have absolutely no clue as to what happened to Tara end quote so what the

hell's going on here you've got investigators with the sheriff's department you've got the sheriff at the time saying like case closed no mystery here it was some boys that she went to school with. They hit her with the truck. They picked her up. They got rid of her bike. I mean, he laid it out as if, you know, he had been there. And then just five years later, these guys are like, we have no clue what would happen. No clue. There's like just no evidence, you know, but we're going to try our best. What do you make of that? Well, two things. What Rivera said doesn't make sense because if you have enough to get an arrest warrant, you get the arrest warrant and you know, going into getting that arrest warrant that the prosecution has an uphill battle without a body, but it's not

impossible to get a conviction without a body. But if you have enough evidence to have a judge sign off on an arrest warrant, well, then you do that. You don't just throw it to the side. That's one. As far as the statements made five years later, it's not what you know, it's what you can prove. Maybe Rivera was overzealous and overstepped with what he was saying. And maybe it's a situation where this newer department, they're coming out, they're making a political statement where they're just saying, we don't know, we're still looking at all angles, they're being impartial. But in reality, it's kind of what you said, where they all know behind closed doors, what's being alleged, what they believe happened. They might have an idea of what they think happened. And maybe they really were pissed

at the fact that Rivera went out there and said all these things that weren't necessarily true. Or I said it in last episode, there are situations where police departments and the prosecution will go and convene a grand jury for particular individuals. And that grand jury will come back. No true bill. They'll say basically that they can't be indicted. And then that's it. And you're not technically supposed to put that out publicly. So that could have happened, but I would put my money on that, that that didn't happen in this case. They just, Rivera was out there spouting off at the mouth. And for some reason, you guys can come to your own conclusions why that didn't happen.

So it seems like the newer investigators are almost backtracking from Rivera's original statements. No, Rivera, definitely what he was saying, in my opinion, and the opinion of every other single person in the world who's ever had eyes on this case, that's exactly what happened. So why five years later are they like, we have no clue? It's stupid i think it's stupid because first of all it looks like they don't know what they're doing stop for a second what are you saying no to what are you saying no to no you said oh rivera maybe you know he well he kind of was overzealous i don't think he was overzealous he knew what happened you think he was overzealous in revealing it yes i'm not saying what he's saying wasn't true what i'm saying is he knew what happened but he didn't have anything in revealing it? Yes. I'm not saying what he's saying wasn't true. What I'm

saying is he knew what happened, but he didn't have anything to support it evidentiary wise. So they're walking it back. So what's the defense for walking it back? Because Rivera might be looking at the file, making assumptions based on the evidence in front of him that we don't publicly know. So he's saying what the truth is, right? But there's not enough to actually go after these people or because of the way the case was done, whether it's, again, criminal or negligent, whatever it might be, there's not enough to get an actual warrant for him. And you have to take that into consideration because all these other agencies that looked

at this case, state police, Homeland Security, after that happened, did they get an arrest warrant for anybody? No, but it's complicated. Well, no, it's complicated because they probably looked at it and said, hey, we think we know what happened, but we don't have enough to get a warrant for their arrest. No, I don't believe that. And I think you'll agree with me once we go through this, but I don't think there's any defense for walking it back if they know what happened because then they could just easily, because he never gave names, you you know so he wasn't like compromising anybody it was like oh we don't

have enough to get an arrest well that's fine he didn't name names so nobody's out there on a witch hunt but you could now say like oh we we have an idea of what happened but we're really just trying to put the pieces together and and fine-tune the details at this point so that's what we're working on doing now but to come out and be, we have absolutely no clue what could have possibly happened. It makes me feel icky. It makes me feel like they're like, don't pay attention to what that guy said five years ago. I know he made it seem like everyone knew, but we don't have any idea, actually. We're starting from scratch. I don't like it at all. So let me ask you, because I'm not completely following you. What is your insinuation that they were just,

they're being, there's something nefarious there with these new people where they're like, we don't know why Rivera revealed that. We didn't want you guys to know that. Or do you think they're walking it back because they're like, we don't know what he's talking about. We don't have enough to get an arrest warrant right now. So we're going to go the opposite direction as far as our new statement. What do you think? Do you think it's criminal in nature where these new guys are saying it because Rivera just revealed too much? I don't know what I think, but I don't like how I don't like the way it went down. It seems like either it's very disjointed, like they're not talking to each other. Maybe they're making the statement before they even started investigating the case. So maybe at this point, Valencia County hadn't shared any information with Bernalino County.

And Valencia County was like, we don't have anything. I don't know. And so Bernalino County was just repeating what they thought was the case before actually getting in. I don't know, but I don't like it. And I don't like the complete 180 from Sheriff Rivera in 2008 and five years later, the new Valencia County sheriff and the head of this new task force basically acting like we don't have evidence here when we know that they do. They have eyewitnesses. They have a ton of stuff. They have descriptions of these people. He said he said we don't have evidence. We have no idea what happened. We have no idea what happened. Well, that's different. That's different than no evidence though. Yeah. You know, here's my thing. And I'm not saying I agree with it. There are different

approaches and I know how you feel about this. We actually talked about it a few cases back where certain head of the agency, whether it's the chief or the PI or the person that does the media releases, some will be very theatrical. It happened in the Faith Hedgepeth case. We had people come out from that agency say, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And in that particular case, they were right. They got them, right? Still has to be found guilty in a court of law, but they got him. But there are many cases where you get that cowboy detective or a lieutenant or captain who comes out and says that. And it's been 30 years and nothing's happened. So I'm not saying I agree with it or not.

It could be something. I don't know. I'm not behind closed doors. I'm only going off what you're telling me. But it could be a case where maybe there's something there that's kind of more dirty that I don't want to really think is going on. Or it's something where Rivera had one approach where he was more like, he's going to just fly off the seam of his pants and say, hey, this is what I think happened. And this other guy is more conservative where he might behind closed doors with his team, think they have an idea of what happened based on the evidence they have, but to not find themselves in a situation where media is coming to them later saying, you were very confident. Why do we not have an arrest yet? He might just be someone who takes a more conservative approach, not saying I agree with it. I know you don't agree with it.

And so it's one of those things where, I don't know. I don't know. It's definitely contradictory. And that's what happens when you have a turnover in an agency like that. Different approaches, different philosophies. But even the district attorney's investigator, Jay, I forget his last name. It started with an E. But even he said like, oh, it looks like she, what seems to have happened here is Tara was accidentally hit by these boys in the truck and then blah, blah, blah. So he had the same idea

and the same kind of from his investigation came to that same conclusion. So, I mean, for them to say we have absolutely no clue what happened to me is just like, come on, man. It's too conservative for you. It's well, in best case scenario. And I have my own theories about what's going on with Sheriff Rivera. And I don't know if I'll ever even be able to tell them because they're just speculative and I'd have to like allegedly the shit out of it. But maybe if I'm feeling feisty at the end of the episode, I'll talk about it. You're definitely feeling feisty for sure. You think this is like a multi-jurisdictional conspiracy with people at every level of law enforcement. I think it started off as a coverup. And I think everybody who came after

pretty much knew it and didn't try to prove it. And that's why they can't prove it. It's not what you know, it's what you can prove. Well, you got to try to prove it in order to know that you can prove it. And I don't think that anybody tried because honestly, they would rather that it go away. And yeah, that upsets me. It should upset everybody. Listen, here's the thing. We could go back and forth. I'm not going to because I'm sure there's people in the comments that agree with you. So everyone's entitled to their opinion.

Sound off in the comments. We always love that. All right. Well, listen, the task force actually did put together police reports, which we have access to. Now, I'm sure we don't have access to the entire thing because this is a very short police report. And for a task force of six people, you'd expect, you know, more than like seven pages. But from what we what we have, we can see that Melinda Esquivel, remember, she's the one that started looking into it. And she knew Tara from back in the day, she began requesting information

from law enforcement in 2010. Now, she initially told the Valencia County Sheriff's Department that she'd been investigating the case and she felt that she was being followed and she may be in danger because people in town kind of were on to the fact that she was looking into it. During this meeting, which included law enforcement personnel not only from Valencia County, but also from the New Mexico State Police, Sheriff Rene Rivera and Captain Don Dargis stated that they had identified three possible suspects, and one of those suspects was deceased. Sheriff Rivera also claimed that he had received information regarding the whereabouts of

Tara's body and that they had gone to this area and searched but had not found her. And once again, there is, I kind of want to get into it, I can't get into it too much and I can't say names, but there is this house where two women who were residing at the house saw a young man who happened to be friends with Lawrence Romero Jr. come up in his truck and it was his father who lived there and he and his father started getting shovels and digging a hole and they pulled something out of the truck and they buried it and then the guy who owned the property who was also related he called the police and reported it and he said you know you've got to dig pretty deep because the main guy who owned the property, who was also related, he called the police and reported it. And he said, you know, you've got to dig pretty deep because the main guy who had come up, the younger guy, he was like over six foot tall.

And when he was digging the hole, it was already up to his waist and they kept digging until night. So the guy assumed it was at least a hole over six feet. And they called the police department and Sheriff Rene Rivera. He came out and he was digging in that area but he only dug down three feet and the guy who owned the property once again I'm not trying to be cryptic but I can't say their names because they are threatening legal action and stuff so he said to sheriff Rene Rivera like you got to dig deeper and sheriff Rivera was like well I don't have time for that now. Like I'll have to come back later or something like I'm very busy and I can't keep

digging any further. And you don't have an exact spot. So I can't keep looking. And it kind of just died there. So I believe that's what he's talking about when he's explaining this to Melinda Escobar. Yeah. And now they could use that equipment where we almost did it for a case for breaking homicide, where they can just basically examine the ground for disturbances in the dirt. And they can kind of at this point tell based on their experiences, whether it's just an anomaly or it's a grave site, because they know what to look like on those screens to say, yeah, that's usually what you see when you have, because there's a lot of grave sites around here. Unfortunately, that things have been paved over or whatever, because they're so old where we don't even know it.

But, you know, 100, 200 years ago, there was 100 bodies buried there. So they can usually tell pretty quickly. Six feet down wouldn't be hard for that type of equipment at all. Would they not have had access to that in 2010? No, they would have. They would have. For sure. I would think so.

I mean, because they were trying to do it on the uh springfield three when that concrete parking lot we didn't really hit on it too much in in our series but the cats medical center yeah yeah exactly and we almost went out there for that case and they drilled like pilot holes out there i don't want to go too far off the tracks here but they didn't want to dig it up they didn't want to break up the concrete or whatever but they used that technology and they did identify three anomalies that they appear that could be potential graves so that was pretty interesting and they could do it here no problem yeah but they didn't you know so yeah i mean there's definitely something going on there three feet down and you stop it just it just makes no sense that he's the only guy 40 man agency he's

the only guy questioning like hey i can go you might not be able to stay but i'll dig deeper you know i don't know do they have 40 40 people is that what we came to conclusion yeah we came to the conclusion that as of right now i don't know back then but as of right now you said it was about a 35 to 40 man police department men and women police department yeah well there's that so you know i i believe that's what they were referring to. But there's been multiple places where they've said Tara may be buried and they've checked there. But, you know, whatever. On May 6th, 2010, an agent with the New Mexico State Police Investigations Bureau met with Deputy District Attorney Ron Lopez of Belen, New Mexico, to let him know that he would be assisting the Valencia County Sheriff's Office with the investigation. And this district attorney, Ron Lopez, he informed

the agent that multiple agencies had looked into the case over the past 20 years and no solid evidence or suspects had been found. And unless Tara Calico's body was found or a confession was obtained, he would not be reviewing the case again. According to this police report, this law enforcement official seemed to try and push the case forward, but everywhere he turned, everywhere he went, he was told basically the Valencia County Sheriff's Office is the lead agency on this case and any further digging or searching for Tara's body would have to be done by them. Now, as we know, three years after that, the task force was created and they began going through the police reports and evidence all over again and they started interviewing people. One of the people interviewed was Deputy Frank Mithola, a former sheriff's deputy with the Valencia County Sheriff's Office. Deputy Mathola had taken the deathbed confession of a man named Henry Brown, and this man, Henry Brown, had called the police, claiming that he had information about Tara Calico,

and he wanted to clear his conscience before he passed. Deputy Mathola spoke to Henry Brown and he tape recorded his entire interview. Henry Brown was an older man who had lived up the street from Lawrence Romero Jr. Actually, I did some more digging on that and he lived just two doors away from the trailer where Lawrence Romero Jr. lived. Brown also knew Lawrence because he appeared to work at the high school. I think he did like janitor stuff. And he also purchased drugs from Lawrence Romero Jr., who, as we know, is the sheriff's son or was the sheriff's son. And Henry Brown said he knew that Romero Jr. and his friends, they smoked weed and they skipped school all the time. Brown said that Romero Jr. lived in a trailer on his father's rental property and he and his friends had created this sort of makeshift basement underneath the trailer where they would hang out, drink, and smoke weed. And

sometimes Henry Brown, when he was buying weed, he would join them there. So it's not like a basement. It's more like a cellar, I think, because it's going to be like they basically dug a hole. They basically dug a hole under the trailer. you know it's just dirt walls dirt floor but they put a bunch of stuff out down there and they would hang out pretty good at digging holes i guess huh just saying yeah yeah they could probably have dug six feet on that guy's property easy yeah should have went into business according to his confession, Henry Brown claimed that one night after Tara had gone missing, he was in the trailer cellar basement with Romero Jr. and his buddies. They were drinking margaritas and eating fajitas.

And Brown noticed something laying there wrapped up in a blue tarp. He claims the conversation then turned towards Tara Calico, and Romero Jr. and his friends started talking about how they had raped and killed her. According to Henry Brown, Tara had been dating a guy named Jeff Abeata, but they'd just broken up, and knowing this, Romero Jr., who had been interested in Tara, he went to go find her that day, knowing that she rode her bike down Highway 47 every morning. So Romero Jr. and two of his buddies, they drove out in an old truck to find her, but Tara didn't want to have anything to do with Romero Jr. because even though she'd broken

up with Jeff Abayata, she was in a new relationship. I'm going to read directly from the police report for this next portion. Quote, they explained they hit her with the truck and then put her in the back of the truck with Leroy Chavez and then took her out to the gravel pits where they sodomized and raped her. Lawrence Romero Jr. said she got ballsy,

stood up and said she was going to make sure they all went to jail. Lawrence Romero Jr. got a got ballsy, stood up, and said she was going to make sure they all went to jail. Lawrence Romero Jr. got a knife from the truck, and David, Leroy, and the tall red-headed guy held her down while Lawrence Romero Jr. stabbed and killed her. He said they drug her body and put her in a bush nearby until they got nervous when the search started for her. He said they joked that they kept her nearby.

Mr. Brown believed she was under the tarp and hidden in the grave in the basement because no one would look for her there, end quote. I'm not saying this guy's not telling the truth. He very well may be, but the one thing that comes to mind is she would have had to been down there for a few days, right, maybe even weeks.

A few days. Going down there. Yeah. A few days even. I'm surprised, again, it might just be one part A few days. Going down there. Yeah. A few days even. I'm surprised. Again, it might just be one part of the statement. He may have said this, but it would smell pretty bad down there. And so the fact that he's not talking about that, it wouldn't be pleasant. I can tell you that much. So this obviously is just one part of the

statement and it's sort of like a summary. Yeah. The statement was actually tape recorded, which we'll get to in a moment. So according to Henry Brown, the entire situation was centered around drugs. Apparently both Romero Jr. and Tara's ex-boyfriend Jeff sold drugs, but they never got caught because Romero Jr.'s father was the sheriff. Brown had also heard Romero Jr. say on more than one occasion that his father had hired Deputy Rene Rivera, and Deputy Rivera had their back. Henry Brown told Deputy Frank Mithola, quote, your sheriff there is not innocent, end quote, meaning that even when Rivera had been a deputy and he was investigating Tara's case, he still had Romero Sr. and Romero Jr.'s back.

Henry Brown said that he thought Tara's body could be in or near a pond on the property of one of Romero Jr.'s friends in the Llano Mountain area, and he believed they had taken Tara's bike to the junkyard in Ballin to dispose of it. Completely possible. I mean, everything you're saying there, you have to ask yourself, what's the why for Brown, right? Is he dying? Is he someone... A lot of people do this. He is dying. It's a deathbed confession. That's what I'm saying. So that's what I'm saying. But these are the questions you ask. And if the answer is, yeah, it seems he's going to be deceased soon, there's no incentive for him.

There's no financial gain. There's no notoriety. This is probably coming from a place of truth as he remembers it. So if I'm going out on a limb here without me and Mr. Brown myself and taking everything at face value as far as his condition at the time, I ask myself, why would he lie? And I believe it. Now, as far as the speculation as to where her body was afterwards, that is probably speculation on his point where he thinks it could be. So that's tough, right? It could be anywhere.

But up until that point, things that are firsthand perspective, you have no reason not to believe this man. There's no incentive for him to go after these people. You would have to look into the idea. Did he ever have any issue with the Romeros? Was there something there? If that's the case where it was kind of they were always friends no anything documented that they had a history of issues between each other between the families i would take it i would run with it yeah because i was going to say some

people just be petty you know and they're like i'm dying but i hate this person and i'm gonna make sure like i take him out before i go like i'm not gonna take that off the table because human beings man, they will carry a grudge like no other. I've had it happen. I've had it happen where people have come out and they're convincing that what they're saying is true and it's not. And if I had to put money on it, I would have bet everything I had that they were telling the truth. But there does seem to, based on what we know, to be factual as far as out that day, other witnesses seeing certain individuals, how they saw those individuals, what they were doing, one being in the back of the truck. That does make sense.

I will say it's a little odd to think that they had Tara sitting in this open area that could have been accessed by anybody. Cause I'm assuming this basement didn't have like a lock on it. It wasn't probably hard to get to. Yes, it was on their property, but I would think that if the police were involved, they would have been like, we got to get this away from here as fast as possible because this is the one thing that's going to put you in prison. And I don't know if they would necessarily let this other guy come in who's just basically a junkie or someone who they sell to and give an entire confession.

You would probably want to keep that amongst the people you're closest to. But then when you're drunk drinking margaritas, having fajitas, I guess, man, you might be. I don't know. Criminals do dumb things all the time. They're dumb, a lot of them. And that's why they get caught. So I don't know. But I feel there's probably some validity to this.

Well, here's the impression I got. First of all, at this time, we have to remember Lawrence Romero Jr. He's a young kid. I think he's like 19, right? So he's stupid to begin with. All 19-year-old kids are stupid. No offense to any of you out there who are 19. You are stupid now.

You won't be forever. It's okay. I was also stupid at 19. You'll get past it. But the point is he's stupid and he feels protected, right? His father's the sheriff. He's got Deputy Rivera over here, who's in daddy's pocket. No one messes with him. He's selling drugs and not getting in trouble for

it because his daddy's the sheriff. And remember, later in 2008, one of the things that Sheriff Rivera said in his statement, his blatant statement that we were discussing earlier, was he knew that there was other people who had helped cover this up, including parents of some of these kids. So it just may have been a thing like we haven't introduced this cover up yet, and we haven't introduced the hiding of the body yet, but people are going to help us. And I have a really strong feeling that one of those people was probably Romero Jr.'s own father, the sheriff of Valencia County, who, in my opinion, clearly knew what was up. Once the description of the truck started coming out, once the description of the drivers and the people in the car started coming out, Sheriff Romero Sr. knew what was up. And it seemed there was a lot of threatening going on because a lot of people have come forward. And even now they're saying, like, you know, people are dying um we're not going to prosecute anybody like enough

time has passed you're not being threatened anymore etc etc now you can come out and tell us i think there's probably a lot of like it's a small town everybody knows everybody if you open your mouth we're gonna know it was you and who are you even gonna tell anyways because my dad's the sheriff we run this town what are you gonna do go to my? Because my dad's the sheriff. We run this town. What are you going to do? Go to my dad. He's going to be here in five minutes and then you're going to have a bullet in your head. So like, have fun with that, Henry Brown.

I know where you live two doors away from me. Completely possible. Can't can't discredit you there. Completely possible, especially out that way. Back in the day like that, there was a Wild West. So absolutely possible. Literally Wild West, right? Really? Yeah. So so it's one of those things where things where yeah i can't say that that's not the case henry brown could have

been like listen i live here this is all i know if i say something there's going to be a police shooting where i confronted them first and they had to defend themselves and that's the last you're going to hear from me so yeah this there it could have been the case terrible to believe that all you had to do is tell someone who you know but again who does he tell you he can't go to the police department so i'm yeah i don't know it's terrible and you don't know once you're i think i think people don't really understand but i feel like once you're in a town like that that where you do have a corrupt police force you don't even know how high it goes so you don't know can i go to the neighboring sheriff's department are they corrupt because this is all i know should i go to the state police are there people in the state police

who are also involved in this like how high up does it go i'm not willing to risk my life for this right now i'm just going to mind my own business and pretend i know nothing yeah and that is a case it still happens today where essentially the common person doesn't differentiate between the colors of your uniform. Everyone's the same. We're all in and out together. So as you mentioned, Valencia Police Department, yeah, they're all corrupt. I'm not going to deal with them. But what if I go over to the state police? They may be no different. They might be their buddies. It doesn't matter to me that they're a different agency. I don't know. I look at you guys all the same you got a uniform and a gun on that's all i know and i don't and i don't have that so

i'm not going to roll the dice and pick one particular officer here and then it gets back to the local guys and before they can even get a chance to come out and speak to me i'm i'm right next to tara so that's that's probably what his mentality was at the time if this is all true if we're to take it at what he's saying, fear could have been a big component as to why he never said anything. Yeah. And if you've ever watched like a cop movie, man, you know, it always gets back to the local guys.

It always does. Yeah, no, for sure. I can see it sucks. But I mean, there were, there were options. Obviously he didn't take advantage of those, but there are options in those cases. I don't know how much of an impact it would have had, but there are things he could have done. But unfortunately, he didn't.

And at that point, Tara's body was removed from that area, put somewhere else. And who knows if we'll ever find her at this point? I mean, with information like that, it makes me hopeful. But we're sitting here in 2022 and we don't know. So it's a long shot. Not impossible, but a long shot. So Henry Brown, he actually did die a few months after giving this statement. And when Deputy Frank Mathola had finished writing the report, he was like asking around. He didn't know who was currently in charge of the Tara Calico case because it was so many years later.

And so he called Sheriff Rene Rivera and he was like, who's in charge of the Tara Calico case because it was so many years later. And so he called Sheriff Rene Rivera and he was like, who's in charge of the Tara Calico case? And he was told to bring his report directly to Sheriff Rivera. Now, years later, when Deputy Frank Mithola was contacted by Melinda Escobel, she informed him that she had been through the police records. And although there was a record that he had interviewed Henry Brown, there was no documentation of the tapes he placed in evidence, which held the entire conversation. So in his interview, it says like, oh, I'm Deputy Frank Mathola. I'm interviewing Henry Brown. I'm tape recording this whole conversation, blah, blah, blah.

But there's no tape cassettes anywhere to actually show what the whole conversation was, which is interesting. But I mean, it seems like in this case and in these police files, lots of things go missing all of the time. And that's something I brought up earlier, where you have this confession that seems pretty credible and you have who appears, maybe you're going to tell me otherwise, Detective Methola, Detective Methola, I should say, appears to be trying to do the right thing. And yet when he goes to look into the information as other individuals are looking into it, all the hard work that he did, all the evidence that he collected is gone. So how does a good detective process that? How do they bring that to a

prosecution and say, hey, we had a dying declaration from this person where he basically implicated these individuals. It was really good. It was really compelling. It was his own voice recordings right there from his own mouth. It's awesome. I think we might be able to do something with it. And the AG or the district attorney goes, great. Can I listen to it? And you go, well, it's gone. Well, then get out of my office. That's, that's what, that's where they're at. So you could have someone who's trying to do the right thing. And every time they take one step forward, they have to go seven steps back because someone made sure that that evidence was never found again. I do want to say, we don't know any of these people, right? We don't know if they're good

people, bad people, if they have good intentions, bad intentions. We don't know if Frank Mithola had a grudge against Sheriff Rene Rivera. We don't know any of that. And it's all sort of speculation at this point. You hope that everybody who wears a badge is good and has the right motives. But of course, just like all humans, they don't. So we have to take it all with a grain of salt. But I do think that it's not just Deputy Frank Mithola who's sort of making Sheriff Rivera look like he may have been involved.

Because remember, in I think it was episode one, we talked about Witness One, who was a young woman who didn't want to be identified on the podcast. And she had seen Tara on her way to school that morning. And she said that she had later worked with Rene Rivera in a different capacity. And he had told her like, oh, yeah, I know where the truck is that they used, like they took the wheels off and they did this and that to it. So it seemed like Rene Rivera knew more than he was saying. And this Deputy Frank Mathola guy, he's not the only one who is alluding to that. So we just have to kind of look at the consistency among statements to see where the chips are falling. But we can't just take one

person's statement and be like, all right, case closed. That's it. You know, guilty. Yeah, no, I'm with you. And I'm just looking at it from what we've said over the last three parts, where there's this clear direction towards three specific people. And forget the fact that they're related to who they're related who they're related to i'm just looking at it very pragmatically binary ones and zeros here there's multiple witnesses these witnesses do not know each other they all have different backgrounds ideologies whatever it may be and yet they're all giving a similar description for the person who was or persons who were seen with tara almost immediately before she disappeared.

And so those in that area, it'd be pretty easy to identify those people. It'd be easy to find the truck through the DMV and it would be pretty simple to go and speak to them. But you're telling me that that never happened. So the fact that that hasn't happened or the fact that that didn't happen blows my mind. And I can't come to any other reasonable explanation other than a coverup because the shittiest police officer in the entire world would go and question them. Even if they had no intention on solving it, they would go do it just for the optics of it. There would be a report a mile long saying we interviewed them.

They gave all the right answers. Now, granted, those answers could have been provided for them by the people helping them, but there would still be something there, some effort to show, man, we really looked into them. We really dug into that one. We pressured them. We just couldn't break them.

We couldn't find any evidence. There's nothing there. There's nothing there. These guys never even were really brought in and pressured and brought down. There was the one photo pack that was put together where they identified Lawrence, correct? Lawrence Jr. Yeah. Lawrence Jr. And then that disappeared. And then he was never questioned. And that's definitely

enough to bring someone in for questioning. So that in and of itself to me, like, I don't care how much experience you have. You could be a day on the job. That's police 101. You don't even have to be an investigator at that point. So I'm just coming to my own conclusions based on what you've told me. And I can't understand, I can't wrap my hand around the idea that these individuals weren't brought in multiple times and that their properties weren't ripped apart and that every vehicle that was registered then wasn't seized and put into custody and still in custody at this point. We had Amber Jackson that we did a while back, that avalanche that we talked about. I believe that truck is still in custody

in Kauai. I believe it's still there just in case. So this doesn't make sense to me. And that's where I'm developing my opinion. Just like you said, we don't know these people. We don't know what their intentions were. I'm just going off what you've told me about the actual case and the fact of where we are today. And it doesn't add up. Yeah, I absolutely agree. And, you know, I definitely think there's some sort of cover up here.

I've said it a million times. That is just my speculation based on the evidence we have. The evidence we have could be 5% of the evidence that's there. And the 95% that's there could completely prove me otherwise. But if that's the case, I don't see any reason why this many years later they haven't released that or come up with something better or come up with like a plausible alternate explanation or an alternate theory. This has been sort of like the theory and the suspects since the beginning and just nothing's been done about it. And that's frustrating. Yeah, I don't get just nothing's been done about it. And that's frustrating. Yeah, I don't get it. I don't get it. I think where you and I differ is you think it's a bigger thing where multiple agencies involved in the cover-up. I'm more, neither

one of us, who knows who's right. I'm operating under the assumption that the local officers, the ones that were immediately involved, did unfortunately such a good job of destroying evidence, hiding documents, getting rid of things, helping coach whoever was involved to get rid of things, whatever they had to do with the reports, witness statements, whatever, where it's such a terrible file at this point, the best detective in the world can't put it together. But it does raise the question that you brought up, which if that's the case, then come out and say that. Come out and say, we think we have an idea of what happened, guys, but there's never going to be resolution in this case because we believe at

the time there were officers involved that made a conscious effort to make sure that no one could ever be prosecuted. And unfortunately for us, they did a pretty damn good job. They could do that. Yeah. I don't necessarily think the multiple agencies were involved in the cover up. But for me, you're complicit if you do nothing. Right. And there's you said earlier, you did. You said you thought this whole unit, state police, Homeland Security, you think they're all kind of. with me that they would completely do a 180 and not acknowledge any of the previous people who had come out and said, Oh, this is, we know exactly what happened. This is no mystery. Literally Sheriff Rivera said, this is no mystery. And they just acted like it never happened.

And they were like, we have no clue. To me, that's super suspicious. You always said the best liars add a little truth into their lies. So if you don't wanna come out and tell us that there was this like terrible cover up with a young girl's life and her mother kept searching for her for 20 years and literally sent her to an early grave. If you don't want to come out and tell us that, that's fine.

But like, give me a little depth, like at least pretend like you're trying to make me feel as if you're doing something. OK, to just come out and be like, we don't have any clue what's happening here. Like you said, hey, we think something nefarious, something shady might have gone down. But at this point, we can't prove it. And we're going to keep trying. Like say that even if you have no intention of trying, because as far as I'm concerned, by the time this task force was formed, multiple law enforcement agencies had been like privy to the fact that there may have been some cover up in Valencia County and they still did nothing. So, like, are you involved in the cover up?

No, but you're complicit in like kind of turning your head the other way and saying, well, not my circus, not my monkey. The other interesting thing is the one person who did come out and kind of like blow the lid off of it saying we have all this evidence, we could go get an arrest right now is allegedly the person who was in the back pocket of Romero Jr., a senior. Well, allegedly, I think that he did that and the timing was just perfect. And I'll tell you, like I said, if I'm feeling sassy still at the end of the episode, I'll tell you. Okay. All right.

Easier with anticipation here. So Deputy Frank Mottola, he also claimed to have interviewed a cattleman named Ron Chavez, and he asked him about, you know, ponds in the area, like houses with ponds in the area. Because remember, Henry Brown had said he thought maybe she was buried in a house or behind a house with a pond now chavez said that there was a red and white house that had a pond at the back of the property and chavez also mentioned something about the investigation into the alleged suicide of lawrence romero jr which we're going to talk about more in depth in a second and he mentioned that sheriff Rene Rivera had been, you know, part of this investigation. And Chavez had heard that there had been a note left behind. And in this note, Romero Jr. had confessed to the murder of Tara Calico.

And this note had allegedly been taken into custody by Sheriff Rivera, but then it had never been placed into evidence. So basically, Ron Chavez is saying like, hey, I heard tell through the grapevine, because there's always more than one cop at a crime scene, that there was a note found at the scene and it was collected into evidence by Rene Rivera, but now nobody knows where the note is or what happened to it or really what it said.

They just kind of remembered that it was Romero Jr. confessing to what had happened to Tara. But now the note's gone. Well, that's par for the course now, isn't it? Yeah, it's like the least surprising thing about this case at this point. Like evidence went missing? What? Crazy.

Yeah. So Deputy Mathola also interviewed a man named Freddy Wakiki, who was a veteran living in the Llano area near the mountains. And Wakiki told who was a veteran living in the Llano area near the mountains. And Wakiki told Mithola that he knew of the Red and White House with the pond at the back of the property, and he reported that around the time of Tara's disappearance, the trees around the pond had been cut down and the pond had been extended.

Now, according to Frank Mithola, the family who owned this home had an Irish-sounding name, although when he was interviewed by the task force many years later, he couldn't remember the exact name. He was, however, able to give directions to the house, saying it was about four and a half miles from the road between the high school and the La Samara Villas on the Manzano Expressway. So just for some context, that whole story that I told you earlier, where I couldn't use names, they have an Irish sounding name. That's all I'm going to say. That's all I'm going to say. Okay. And in this area where it does seem like a lot of people have, you know, Mexican sounding names or Spanish sounding names, because almost everybody that

we're discussing, there's not a lot of Irish sounding names that are just being thrown around here right yeah that would probably stand out yeah I would stand out so that's why it stood out to me because I was like Irish sounding name Irish sounding name because I had read this report it was one of the first things I did when I started redoing this case for crime weekly and so obviously the whole time I'm researching and I'm keeping my my eye out for any Irish sounding names. And so when it came up in my research, I was like, oh, okay, I wonder if this is them. But I don't want to say anything because I'm not trying to get sued or attacked.

Yeah, people can go and look up their own research as well. So if you're really that invested into it, you can find it as well. It's public information. And if you would like me to tell you where you can find it, you can message me on Instagram. So you don't have to look too hard. There you go. So during this investigation, Deputy Mithola also arrested a Mexican national that he apprehended for a drug-related incident. And this man told Mithola that he worked for

Sheriff Rivera. So Mithola called Rivera, and Rivera confirmed that the man worked for him and that he should be released. Deputy Mithola informed the sheriff that he had already turned the Mexican National over to ICE, and if Rivera wanted the man released, he was going to have to arrange it himself. After this incident, Mithola claims he was removed from all special teams and assignments, and after numerous write-ups that he felt were unfair, he resigned from the department. The task force also interviewed a man named Donald Dutcher, who was referred to as a person of interest in the Tara Calico investigation. Dutcher told law enforcement that he had lived in New Mexico all his life and he knew Tara Calico.

He was also familiar with two of the boys involved in what had happened to her. One of these boys, who was not necessarily involved but seems to have been involved in the aftermath, his name was Charles Houghton, a known drug user among his friends and the locals who would smoke weed and skip school with Romero Jr. And later in his adult life, he became addicted to heroin. Charles Houghton died in 2008. It is believed that his death was drug-related, although his obituary does not say so. And Donald Dutcher feels that he ended his own life taking the easy way out because before he died, Donald Dutcher claimed that Charles Houghton had told him he'd been involved with Tara's death and he was being haunted by her. Charles Houghton told Donald

Dutcher that he sometimes heard Tara's voice at night, asking him why he did it. Now, like I said, I did find Charles Houghton's obituary. He died on August 19th, 2008. The following month, Sheriff Rene Rivera was telling the Albuquerque Journal that he knew who had killed Tara, boys who had gone to school with her, and Charles Houghton was a boy who had gone to school with her. In fact, like I said, the article made it seem like everybody knew this, stating, quote, Rivera has been working on the case since he started as a deputy in 1989, since he was promoted to detective in 1996, and since he was elected sheriff in 2006. For all those years, the walls of Valencia County have been talking, naming names of boys who were in the truck, names of the boys who helped bury Tara's body after they killed her, End quote.

According to Donald Dutcher, Charles Houghton confessed to being involved with Tara's murder right before he died. So maybe with Charles being gone and Lawrence Romero Jr. being gone, Sheriff Rivera felt a bit more comfortable coming forward with what he knew, what he had always known, now that there was really no risk of these two people being arrested or talking to the public about this massive cover-up that he himself may have been an active part of, allegedly. So Donald Dutcher said that one of the other guys who had been involved had also died when he'd been run over by a truck. And like I said, Romero Jr. had reportedly shot himself during a game of Russian roulette, but Donald Dutcher also said he didn't know the name of the other guy who had been there. But if we look at the story of Lawrence Romero Jr.'s death, we might get some clues as to who the other guy was.

On May 19, 1991, this is just two years after Tara goes missing, 21-year-old Lawrence Romero Jr. was found shot dead in his mother's mobile home. His friend who had been with him, Leroy Chavez, claimed that Romero Jr. had once owned a gun that he would sometimes play around with. He would, you know, jokingly put it in his mouth, and allegedly that's what happened that night. Even though it wasn't Romero Jr.'s gun that had gone off, it was Leroy Chavez's gun. But Romero Jr.'s parents, Lawrence Romero Sr. and Hazel Romero Chavez, believed that their son was murdered. So let's start from the beginning. Earlier that day, both Lawrence Jr. and Leroy Chavez had attended a barbecue at the home of Lawrence Jr.'s uncle, where they had been seen drinking. After that, Margie Rushing, a bartender at the Westerner

Lounge, claimed that both men came into the bar just before midnight. She said that Romero Jr. seemed fine. He came over to say hello and he gave her a hug, but his friend, Leroy Chavez, did seem out of sorts and in a bad state of mind. Chavez claimed that he and Romero Jr. had left the bar and went to the mobile home that Romero Jr. shared with his mother, Hazel. Chavez took his revolver from the truck, and he brought it inside. He said that he did this because he didn't like to leave valuables in the car. And once inside, he laid his gun on the table. Chavez then went to the bathroom, and within a few minutes, he heard a gunshot. He ran from the bathroom to find his friend on the floor, dead. Chavez said that

Romero Jr. liked to play with guns, and like I said, sometimes playfully put them in his mouth because, I mean, that sounds like so much fun, right? That's how I like to play games, just put guns in my mouth. But apparently, Romero Jr., he liked to do this all the time. And his friend, Leroy Chavez, would have to stop him. But he said, quote, we were buzzed and he was doing that again. But this time, I wasn't there to stop him. I didn't see what happened. I found him that way. He wasn't serious. That's what I'm trying to get through everyone's head. It wasn't intentional. He didn't mean it. I know he didn't. He just liked to play with guns." Romero Jr.'s parents also didn't believe that their son had taken his own life

on purpose. They didn't think he'd taken his own life at all. They claimed that Lawrence Romero Jr. was at the best point of his life when he died. He'd been working as a welder for Hawaii Construction Company for about a year, and he seemed to have been positively influenced by a pastor he had met while he was there. But Leroy Chavez told the Albuquerque Journal, quote, His family didn't know how he was. He played the part in front of his dad, but he was no goody two-shoes,

end quote. Now listen, all that can be true in a lot of ways. I mean, we're talking about this particular situation. Whether he was in a good place or not, Chavez isn't saying that he killed himself. He's saying that he was screwed around

and the gun accidentally discharged. So he could be in a good place if that's what the parents want to say, but he was intoxicated. He's playing with a gun. And by the way, this happens more than you think. It's happened in my own personal life to someone I knew. My brother was very close with him. And then also, I just keep thinking about that incident on, I hate to bring this up as a reference, but Tiger King. Remember there was the guy in tiger King who was playing with the gun in the office and it went off and he shot and killed himself. He wasn't suicidal. But they thought he might've done that on purpose.

Exactly. That's exactly just like this. Like we don't know what their intentions were because they're dead, but some believe he was just doing like the Russian roulette thing where you spin it, you pull it up. But yeah, but there's a chance you die there.

Yeah. Well, there's a trick to it. I don't even want to explain it because I don't want anybody doing it. But there's a way to do it where supposedly the round won't be in the chamber. It's a side of hand type thing. Yeah, but there's still a chance that you might shoot yourself. You make a mistake. Yeah, and you're drunk.

Right. That's what I'm saying. It could be a situation where he didn't intentionally take his own life. He was in a good place, but he plays stupid games, wins stupid prizes. I'm sorry. If you play with a gun like that and you put it in your mouth and pull the trigger or you put it to your head and pull the trigger when you know there's a bullet inside you don't value your life period like that's it you you because there's a chance it doesn't go your way i'm sorry we have a rule in law enforcement where it's you don't even call lasering someone whether the gun is empty not empty whatever it may be when even if the gun's

resting on the table you never point the muzzle of a gun at anybody else regardless of whether it's loaded or unloaded and if you the the the purpose behind that is if it's not pointing at someone it can't kill them accidentally so yeah and that's whether it's loaded or not loaded that's just good practice because if you do that when it's not loaded you're definitely not going to do it when it is loaded because it just becomes habit like this is not law enforcement or police this is like common sense gun ownership for people who aren't idiots like lawrence romero jr bless his soul rest it rest in peace jesus i feel bad like he's dead

and he's not here to defend himself but you're just stupid if you play with the gun when you're drunk and you put it in your mouth or near your head you're still you're not a smart person so just like unbelievable so many people out there just struggling through every day. And this guy's just playing games with guns like a dumbass. So Romero Jr.'s parents acknowledged that their son liked to party and drink and have a good time. But that was just because of his boundless energy. And his mother, Hazel, said, quote, One of his high school teachers told me that if he could figure out how to cor And his mother, Hazel, said, quote, one of his high school teachers told me

that if he could figure out how to corral his energy, he'd really have something. He was a natural leader. I think he was finally coming to a point where he was reaching some of that potential. End quote. Sheriff Lawrence Romero Sr. even admitted that his son had a reputation for being reckless at times, and he'd had to arrest him when he was 15 for possession of marijuana. But recently, Romero Jr. had started taking care of himself. He was getting into bodybuilding, and his life was going well for the first time. How much you want to bet that marijuana arrest when he was 15 is not on record? It was like one of those scared straight things where like, I'm going to put you in a jail cell now, son.

Okay, you're going to see what it's like. and i might even make you stay in there a whole hour yeah it would definitely be in the internal records if they kept it it wouldn't be obviously for public record because he's a juvenile but it should be in the valencia county internal database for sure guarantee you that it's not on his record at all no it wouldn't be on his record but you're saying in even in the police department yeah he didn't like him, you know, officially. Come on. What are we? What are we, fools here?

So it's pretty clear from the newspaper articles that Sheriff Romero, who I keep calling him Sheriff Romero just so we know, but he wasn't sheriff at this time. At the time, yeah. Yeah. He believed that his son's friend, Leroy Chavezavez had been responsible for the gun going off. And he kind of like alluded to the fact that he thought it had been purposeful, which makes me wonder why Sheriff Romero would think

that Leroy Chavez would have a reason to wanna see Romero Jr. dead. So why does he think so vehemently that his son's best friend who who's with him every day, would all of a sudden, two years after Tara Calico gets missing, just want to shoot him in the head and get rid of him? So he was very, very insistent on it. Romero Sr. wrote a letter to the attorney general claiming that a neighbor had heard Chavez and Romero Jr. arguing the night of his son's death. This neighbor was

Jack Bonin, and he lived just 50 feet away from Hazel's trailer, and he claimed that he'd been outside smoking a cigarette that night when he saw a car pull up outside the Romero residence with two people in it. One person got out of the car and started walking away, and the other person yelled, don't walk away from me, where the hell do you think you're going? Bonin claims that the two men argued for several minutes, but Leroy Chavez denied that there had been any argument that night, saying, quote, I never argued with him, we always seem to agree on everything, end quote. Lawrence Romero Sr. also claimed that Leroy Chavez waited

before calling the police to report the incident. Chavez told police that he had tried calling directory assistants twice around 12.30 a.m. to get the police on the line, but he'd been put on hold. When he could not reach the police in a panic, he called his mother and told her that Romero Jr. had shot himself. Jack Bonin's mother, remember Jack Bonin's the neighbor, her name's Beatrice, she told the police that she was woken up shortly after midnight by dogs barking, and when she went outside to get them to be quiet, she heard a voice coming from the Romero mobile home. Beatrice said, quote, he was yelling out, I'm dying. I'm not lying, mom. I thought it was little Lawrence, but the voice could have been saying he's dying, end quote. Now, the phone bill from Hazel Romero's trailer showed that someone

called Leroy's mother, Linda, at 1219 a.m. that morning. And at 1237 a.m., a Berlin police dispatcher had called the sheriff's department to report that he had just received a call from a telephone operator who claimed that she had received a call from a man at the Romero residence saying, quote, there's a male subject yelling that he's going to kill himself or someone, end quote. So reportedly after calling his mother, Leroy Chavez went to the house of a neighbor to call the police. This neighbor, John Nislage, was woken up around 1245 a.m. by someone yelling and banging on his door. It was Leroy Chavez, and Chavez told John that someone had shot themselves, and it was no joke. So John drove Leroy back to the trailer, and he

went inside. He saw Romero Jr. lying on the floor not moving and he checked him for a pulse. At this time, John Neslage said there was no pulse, the body was cold, and the blood underneath Romero Jr.'s head was coagulated. Police and ambulance arrived within 10 to 15 minutes after this. Lawrence Romero Jr. was found under the kitchen table in a large pool of blood with a 38 caliber revolver next to him. There were five bullets on the table and one spent bullet casing in the revolver. The report claimed the spent casing was one position past or before the firing position. Sheriff Romero claimed that his investigation revealed

ballistics showed the bullet was not in the firing position and the weapon had been wiped clean of prints. Leroy Chavez said he could not explain why the bullet was not in the firing position because he had not touched the gun after he had put it on the kitchen table. Romero Sr. goes on to state that pictures taken by the police department showed that his son's body had been moved at least three feet and that Romero Jr. had a contusion on his head. Leroy's statements to the police claimed that Romero Jr. had been seated at the kitchen table, but blood spatter did not exceed 10 inches above the floor. And this was an indication to Romero Sr. that Romero Jr. had been on the floor when he had been shot. So basically, Sheriff Romero, who was no longer the sheriff at that point, but he did his own

independent investigation because he thought the Valencia Police Department did a shitty job. Ironic. But anyways, he did his own investigation and he said he believed that his son had been hit and like knocked out and fallen on the floor and then shot. Yeah. I mean, from what I'm seeing, it sounds like it could be either way, but it's one of those situations where if the scene was tampered with and yeah, it would make sense. Although that phone call, if you're taking outside parties into play, if he's calling his mom saying, mom, he's dying, I don't know if he would necessarily do that if you intentionally killed the guy so the fact that an impartial party said i heard that and there's a phone call record proving it that is something where he might have been like shit i'm in trouble

let me i'm gonna call mommy and apparently from this outside witness he did do that and he was saying like i didn't just kill him he was saying he's dying mom you know so that i'm not lying like she was probably like stop fucking around you know and so that. I'm not lying. Like she was probably like, stop fucking around, you know? And he's like, I'm not lying. Like, seriously. Yes, I'm serious. What do I do? So I tend to believe that it's probably the truth. There's probably a game of Russian roulette.

I can see how taking away everything else for right now, Romero senior doesn't want to believe that his son was that stupid, that he would play a game like that. And that's the reason he's dead. He's there's got to be more to it, right? There's got to be something. There's got to be someone responsible for what happened to his son other than himself. And so I can see a lot of parents going this route. And again, that's taking out

what we believe or what is being alleged about Romero Sr. It almost felt like he was so, because these two were best friends, you know, best friends forever. So it almost felt like Romero Sr. maybe knew what had happened. This is just a theory, but knew what had happened with Tara Calico, knew that maybe Leroy Chavez had been there as well as his son. Maybe, hey, I know that this guy is capable of killing someone or maybe he killed my son to keep him quiet because maybe my precious little Lawrence was going to say something and he was having a crisis of conscience. And so Leroy Chavez was like, not today and took him out. But I definitely think that Lawrence Romero Jr. did this to himself, whether purposely or accidentally. Yeah. Who knows? Who knows? I will say it's

interesting because if Leroy Chavez is involved and he can implicate Romero Sr., why would you want to rock that boat? Because Chavez could come out and say, Romero Sr., you're coming after me? Why don't them can say what happened that, but Romero Sr. can be like, I can get you on this, but we can't talk about what happened with Tara. We can never talk about that. But as I'm saying, if he gets Chavez on this and Chavez is going to jail for the rest of his life, why wouldn't Chavez come out and go, hey, if I'm going down, you're coming with me. So the interesting thing is Romero Sr. never says Leroy Chavez did this, right? He never says my son's friend killed him.

He says my son didn't do this to himself. Someone else did it. Leroy Chavez happened to be the only person there and it was his gun. So there's like an implication, obviously. That's interesting. But he never comes right on. He's like, this dude did it. He just sort of like alludes to it a bunch.

That's interesting. And why do you think the bullet wasn't in the firing position or why it was like one position before or after? Is that like a Russian? Is that part of the Russian roulette like trick? Well, I'm not I wasn't understanding that completely, to be honest with you, because my understanding of the revolver would be obviously it's in the position where it would be fired when you pull it.

But then after you pull it and I'm kind of making a mannerism for people on audio who can't see this, after you pull it, the chamber, or I guess the barrel goes over one, it moves over to the next position. So the next round could be fired. So if it was one round before that wouldn't make sense, because that means that that particular round wouldn't have fired yet. But if it's one round after, that would make perfect sense. It shouldn't be in the firing position when it's found, the gun later. So I would need more clarification on that. Maybe he meant it wasn't in the firing position when it was shot? Yeah, it was before.

It had to be before. For it to be questionable, it'd be like it to be questionable it'd be like listen if my son fired this gun then why was the chamber that was fired still before the firing pin position because there's a basically a firing pin in the gun yeah so when it as the chamber spins with the five rounds it'll go from one position to the next and so as it gets into the position where it's aligned with the barrel the firing pin hits it it fires, the gun continues to spin to the next round, et cetera. So yeah, if it was still before it, that wouldn't make sense. But there are some explanations for that. I mean, Chavez could have picked the gun up, opened it, looked

at it, seen what was going on, whatever. There's a million things he could have done before placing the gun down. He might not even remember doing it, but that would definitely raise some questions from an investigative perspective where if the only witness alive is saying i didn't touch the gun i didn't manipulate it in any way and yet the round that was fired is still before the actual chamber yeah that that would definitely raise some eyebrows for sure yeah i didn't get that at all and which is why i pretty much word for word wrote it the way it was in the newspaper article i was hoping you could you know clarify it for him for me so maybe anybody out there who's like maybe you're a gun expert or you have an idea of what this is sort of trying to explain let us know in the comments because yeah it makes sense if it's one round before then that's not where it should be if it wasn't tampered with if it's

one round after then it's supposed to be there and if it's in if it's in the chamber then it definitely shouldn't have been there because that round was just fired the gun unless it was broken should manipulate and go to the next round so yeah I mean obviously yeah I think that the newspaper might have misquoted it too it definitely you know they don't always talk about the firing position three separate times yeah yeah so weird but but but if they talk about it and they know so much and yet they can't tell us if it was one round before or one round after yeah so you they know so many details but they're kind of guessing and they know and by the way

depending on which side you're on one makes perfect sense one makes none so it's kind of a big difference you might want to get that fact right yeah that's why they were so like generic about it before or one round before or one round after. They're pretty generic about it. Yeah. So yeah, I definitely think Romero Sr. doesn't want to believe his son would do this to himself. And understandable. Any parent is going to try to fight for justice for their child, just like Patty Doyle did for Tara. But I do think it's a little ironic that Sheriff Romero is like the Valencia County Police Department screwed this up, you know, like you guys did a terrible job. And it's like, look who's talking.

It's almost karma. Like if what happened happened and if he knew that it was his son and if it was his son and if he covered it up, I don't know if there is better karma than that. No, I'm with you. And I'm so glad you said it, although we don't necessarily personally believe it. But just to throw it out in the world, there is a scenario where Lawrence Jr. is not involved and therefore Lawrence Sr. wasn't involved. Of course. It doesn't look like that but if that's the case then obviously feel very bad about what happened to them and the fact that it was suggested

by multiple people that they were involved the evidence as it's being portrayed to the public does appear to have some holes in it that do not make sense and can only be explained by someone deliberately going in and manipulating the file but we're assuming it's Romero jr. maybe it's someone else who knows but yeah it's a tough situation and if they are involved in some way shape or form with Tara's disappearance and or death yeah karma at its finest you know it could be worse for them actually they got off easy yeah I agree and so the detective in charge of the case of that time Don Baca he, So far, I haven't discovered any outstanding evidence that would point to a homicide.

End quote. Lawrence Romero Sr. claimed the investigation by the Valencia County Sheriff's Office was inadequate wanted on a warrant for assaulting an Albuquerque police officer from the previous February. And at the time of his arrest in February, he'd been found with a loaded and concealed handgun. Now, if you remember from Henry Brown's deathbed statement, Leroy Chavez had been present at the time of Tara Calico's abduction and murder. In fact, he was the one who would have been in the back of the truck with her. Now, did Lawrence Romero Jr. kill himself on purpose because of the guilt? Did Leroy Chavez kill his friend to keep him quiet? Had they been arguing about Tara when a struggle ensued

and Romero Jr. ended up on the wrong side of the gun? From everything that's been gathered, it seems to me that the three main people involved were Lawrence Romero Sr., a guy named David Sylvia, who's mentioned in Henry Brown's statement, and Leroy Chavez. And then there was others who were brought in to, you know, help hide the body and cover up the crime, including adults related to these three individuals. Now, Lawrence Romero Sr. is now deceased. So Leroy Chavez was shot to death in August of 2017. And at the time of his murder,

he was actually a suspect in the murder of another man named Dante Shepard, whose body was found in a ditch near Bellin in 2015. So it turns out that a man named Adrian Mastis was charged with the crime, the murder of Dante Shepard, and his girlfriend, Angela Weaver, called him in jail the day before Chavez was killed. Now, it turns out that Weaver and Mastis believed that Chavez had implicated him in the murder and basically turned him in, even though he was kind of in on it, Chavez was in on it. And Weaver said to Mastis, like, I can't believe this. I thought he was one of us. And this is actually captured on jailhouse recordings, which is how they knew that, you know, she was one of the people who had gone to kill Leroy Chavez.

So the next day, she and a man named Dale Cock, they went to Chavez's home and they shot him to death for turning on her boyfriend, Adrian Mastis. Now, as far as David Silva, I could only find records for one person by that name in Belen, New Mexico. The birth date works. It works out for what age he would have been at that time. And it looks like he died in a car accident on I-25 in Belen, New Mexico, in December of 2008. And remember from Donald Dutcher's statement, he said he couldn't remember the name of the third man, but that he had died in a car accident. So it could possibly be him. And that means that all three of these people who are directly involved with the abduction and murder

of Tara Calico are deceased. And for the record, I would like to say none of these three men have ever been charged with anything. They're innocent until proven guilty, which at this point, if they are guilty, it seems like that will never come out because I honestly think that this is the reason they're not pursuing this anymore because they know who did it and they know that they're gone. And so what's the point in embarrassing an entire law enforcement office and bringing these old secrets from under the carpets and out of the closets when you can't even arrest these people? It's true. I'm not saying that's right. But yeah, when there's nowhere to go with it, they believe all parties involved are deceased, if anything, it's just going to bring more scrutiny because it's going to be like, hey, why didn't you guys get on this years ago when they were still alive? Super good question.

That would have been – that would be a super good question. That's a good one, yeah. But I mean you have to think by the time the task force forms, these three people are gone. And maybe the task force knows that and they're over here like we have no clue what happened to her because they're like we know what happened but we can't give you all the justice that you want we can't give you all this huge trial and this big um you know show where you're gonna finally have some resolution to this long-standing mystery so what's the point and it's almost one of those things like, oh,

it's the greater good. Bringing this all out isn't going to help her and it's not going to bring them to justice. So what's it really going to do besides take away people's trust in their law enforcement officials? And that's the last thing we need right now and blah, blah, blah. So I can totally see this being, like I said, not a grand cover up, but people being complicit and just looking the other way and acting like they don't know what's going on. Lawrence Romero Sr., he passed away at the age of 74 in 2017. Sheriff Rene Rivera left the department in 2011. I don't know what he's up to now. And in 2021, the Valencia County Sheriff's Office announced that they had new leads in Tara's case and that,

quote, she's certainly not forgotten. She's not forgotten in the hearts of the residents of Valencia County, nor has she been forgotten by the Valencia County Sheriff's Office, end quote. That's like, that's rich, man. According to Lieutenant Joseph Rowland of the Valencia County Sheriff's Office, a search warrant relevant to the case had just been executed, but the details from that warrant were sealed because it's not like it's been a hundred years since she went missing. We really have to protect every new bit of information that comes in at this point because, you know, it's so new and ongoing. That's all I have to say about it. I think you know where I stand.

Oh, here's my little Sheriff Rene Rivera sort of like theory. Even though this is just a theory, purely a work of fiction, there is no evidence that Rene Rivera had anything to do with this or any evidence that he is involved in any cover-up at all. This is just alleged. Don't come for me. I think that he waited until all of those suspects were dead. And then he went to the papers and he was like, hey, I know what happened. I know everything. But we got to wait for information now. He said this in 2008. By 2008, basically almost all of them were gone besides Chavez.

And maybe that was the one person he was going to like bring in and kind of like blame it on. But then he died, too. And it looks like Chavez was kind of doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like Chavez really went on the straight and narrow after getting away with what happened to Tara if he was responsible which kind of yeah that's that's not surprising that's usually the case they'll go away for a little bit and then they you know a zebra doesn't change its stripes you know I again it's just it's it's a guess so we're not saying this is true you guys shouldn't put any value in this because we don't know much more than you guys know, because everything that we've said tonight is in the last three episodes is public for the most part. Based on everything that we've heard over

these last three parts and how there's so many consistencies and witness testimony who have, they have nothing to do with the case personally. It does appear that these three individuals in that vehicle were more than likely the offenders who abducted Tara and most likely killed her. There have been a lot of people who've come out with different scenarios. There's people who've said they've saw Tara come into their bars and have a drink and she admitted that it was her. There's other theories out there that could be involved. I know it's very popular on social media. So there's a couple different angles out there that you could play, but just based on what we know and based on the consistencies with these statements and based on the individuals involved and the fact that the actual investigation itself, it doesn't make sense how there would be so many

mishaps, so many mistakes made with the evidence collection and the preservation of interviews and recordings. All these things just disappeared. Yeah, I will tell you there are instances where one piece of evidence that may be very important wasn't preserved correctly, or the evidence room gets damaged or broken into. Those things do happen. And it might be one particular thing that could hurt the overall case. But to have this much information from different officers, from different detectives over different years, all go missing. It's just too much of a coincidence. And so it does appear to me that there was someone within that agency who had an incentive to hide these things. And just looking at it from a generic perspective, I don't think any parent out there would disagree

with me here. A lot of parents would go to great lengths to protect their children. And especially if they believe that their son or daughter was a good person and made a mistake. So I think I said this in episode one, if Romero Jr. came to Romero Sr. and said, dad, we were talking to her and we accidentally hit her with the truck. I don't know what happened, dad. Help me. That's how Romero Sr. is justifying it. I got to protect my son. She's gone. I got to protect my son. I can't have him go into prison for the rest of his life for an

accident. I know what's going to happen here. He's gone again, not saying it's justifiable, but I could see that being the mentality when Romero seniors in there, allegedly destroying evidence, making sure that this, this police report never gets to the right people, making sure that any evidence that could connect his son or his friends to this case is gone forever. That would be an explanation as to why this was so shoddy from the beginning. And that's really honestly, to me, the only explanation for why so many things went missing. Will we ever get answers? You know how I am, guys. I always like to give that little bit of hope where anything's possible.

And I hope for the family, even though most of them, they're no longer with us. Some of them already passed. I still hope for that. I would love nothing more than to be wrong. But based on everything that we know about Tara so far and the evidence that we do have, there was definitely a struggle. Something happened to her in that moment and it probably didn't end well. But like I said, I hope I'm wrong for the family. It's a tragic case that Polaroid, we got some heat for it. I created the

thumbnail, you posted it. And I agreed with Stephanie. I posted a different one on crime weekly, but we are a true crime channel. And we don't know if this Polaroid is true or not, if it's real or not, we don't know who these children are. We want to identify them. That's why we do these cases. It's not to sensationalize it, but it's to try to get answers. And what better way to get answers than to post the photo in question? But that's a story for a different day. A lot of pieces to this puzzle. It's a fascinating case. I hope that we get answers one day. I do hope that some other agency takes it on themselves to try to go through the whole thing from the beginning, but not to be a Debbie Downer. I said it before, I'll say it again. If they're going there and they're trying to reconstruct the puzzle and they only have half

the puzzle, I don't care how good they are. There's only so much you can do. And they might have an idea of what happened, but they're not going to probably put that out publicly because if they're wrong, it's going to affect them in a negative way. And if they're right, it's going to affect them in a negative way. That's right. Because it shows them that whatever happened, exactly. So there's a lot of different things there. So we might not ever get a concrete answer. And that's unfortunate, but it is the world we live in.

It's not fair, but that's the sad reality. I'd like to address something before we wrap up. Okay. Because I didn't want to interrupt you, but I think that the chances that Tara Calico is out there walking around free are less than zero percent. You mean to tell me that she faked her own disappearance, threw her bike on the side of the road, dragged everything around, made it look like there was a struggle, and then watched her mother publicly suffer for years into an early grave because why she just wanted to escape and never be able to use her real name and she can't even apply for a credit card because she can't use her real name and she has no social good

they're less than 0% chance so Tara Calico is not walking in nobody's bar and if someone's walking into somebody's bar saying they're Tara Calico then they're a liar and an attention seeker. But there's absolutely no way, even if you were not a very nice person or a selfish person, I cannot imagine that Tara would watch her mother cry and be heartbroken every day for years and years and years and never once just say, even when she grew up and like, it's me, I left, I'm sorry, I just wanted a new start, but it's me, you know, I left. I'm sorry. I just wanted a new start.

But like, I'm here. Don't worry anymore. And like, take her suffering away. There is absolutely no chance you'll never convince me. And that's that on that. I mean, listen, I'm not going to try to change you. My thought process has always been if I don't have a concrete proof in front of me, I'll always leave that small window. And it's and you're not wrong in saying it's a small window. I'm hopeful.

I think it's more hope than it is coming from a reasonable place of thinking. It's just, hey, listen, at this point, nobody knows, with the exception of maybe a few people who are already dead, what actually happened to Tara. And so I think it's more of a, if any one of her family members or friends are watching this and they rely on us or they're actually invested in what we have to say, I'll say this to you. It doesn't look good, but I'm not God. And if you're not a religious person, I wasn't there that day. So I don't know what happened definitively. And I agree with everything you said, Stephanie. Maybe she wasn't capable of coming out and not putting her mom through that.

Maybe she was held against her will. Again, very small chance. Yeah, She could have been held against her will. I'm not saying that that's not what I'm saying. She didn't just like fake her own death and disappearance and like she's hanging out, going to bars, ordering vodka tonics. Like, come on. Yeah, no, I don't think that's a plausible scenario. And I was bringing it up because those are the things that are out there. But if anything, if they're in it, I don't know if this makes it any better. She's held it. She was held against her will someone for where for a very long time. And it was not pleasant, whatever happened. So I don't know what's worse, but you know, for everyone out there, we're not fortune tellers.

We don't know what's going to happen in the future. Crazier things have happened. So we'll have to see, but it's another case where this is one where I don't really have a lesson to be taken from it. Tara did nothing it. Tara did nothing wrong. She did everything right. Actually. She's out biking during the day, public area. She's just a young girl on her bike, getting her exercise in. She should not have a care in the world, but unfortunately there are scumbags out there. And even when you're doing everything

right, sometimes it's unavoidable and trouble will just find you and wrong place, wrong time. That's really what this looks like. There's nothing she could have done differently. There's nothing the family could have done differently because when you're relying on the police department to protect you and also investigate what happened to you, and there's a strong possibility they were actually the ones contributing to it not being closed out. Well, then you're kind of running up against a brick wall there, right? When the people are supposed to save you are actually working against you so terrible case overall the

polaroid all of it i'm glad we covered it i'm glad i got the details of it now and uh yeah i guess we'll we'll put a pin on this one and hopefully new information comes forward because you know it doesn't seem this was recent they just executed another warrant and the fact that it was sealed the fact that it was sealed stephanie come on that could be good maybe they're going somewhere here dude i have no hope i have no hope for these people jesus you're brutal tonight yeah brutal i'm so sick and tired of these assholes so do we can we change gears for a second yeah you were supposed to remind me of something i'm gonna remind you but quick response reminder again because we have we were passionate about this.

Like we said at the beginning of the video, go check out our other YouTube video with criminal coffee. If you want to go see the rundown of Preble Penny, go over to criminalcoffeeco.com. If you want to stay up to date with what's going on with Preble Penny, because I can tell you right now, there's already things going on that I'm getting emails about, and we're going to be updating you guys. It's going to be fascinating to see how that all unfolds. And like Stephanie said, we're going to Utah. We're going to the lab. I believe Detective Adam Turner, lead investigator on this case, is going to be joining us out there. So we're going to see how much we can film, how much we can relate to you guys. Really excited about the possibility of solving that case.

Follow us on all our social media. Drink Criminal Coffee is our Instagram. Drink Criminal is our Twitter. And then obviously Crime Weekly Pod. We've got a bunch of socials. You'll find them all in there. They'll be in the description. But we have an announcement for our next case. Most requested case we've had in the last six months by far. And we are finally deciding to take it on and hopefully in the Crime Weekly way. So I wanted to remind you to tell everyone. Yes. So next week we're starting a new case, as you know, because this one has wrapped up. And we are going to be doing the Adnan Saeed case because there's been huge developments in this case. He was recently released for, I mean, I can't remember exactly how long he was in prison,

but I know it was over half his life. And we're going to go through it from beginning till end and kind of get an idea. I know Derek doesn't know the specifics about the case, but I will tell you that the serial podcast saved my life. When Bella was a small infant, just a newborn, I stayed up all night listening to it and stayed up all night with her and it sucked me in. And I am familiar with the case, so I am going to deliver it. Derek's going to give us his detective perspective. I'm looking forward to it and I hope the rest of you are too. Yeah. And what's interesting to it about me is you can't go through this world and not know

that some of this case, right? I mean, I'd be living under a rock. So I kind of know the general overview of it. And I will say what's fascinating about it is, although he's been released and I believe it's not, it's been, the charge has been vacated, but from my understanding, and I'm not a lawyer, they can still recharge them if they wanted to. Do I think they will? Absolutely not. And so they're not going to do it. I don't think it's been 30 days yet though. I think it has. It's close. But the reason why I'm fascinated by it is I was looking at social media and I'm looking at news outlets and yes, the majority of people very excited about the fact that he's been released. But there is also another group of individuals who believe the investigation was horrible, but that Adnan did in fact commit this

murder. So I really want to break that down. I really want to look at it because I have no skin in the game. I'm going to call it how I see. I know Stephanie's going to call out. She sees it. So you guys have requested it. This is obviously going to be a multi-parter.

I would think I don't even want to guess at this point. It's going to be long. Yeah, I'm going to try to call it as I see it. But this is one of the very few cases where I don't have a gut feeling. I go back and forth, back and forth. Michael Peterson, the staircase, same thing. There are people out there who are like, that dude is guilty as sin. What are you talking about?

And at times during the case, I'm like, yeah, yeah, definitely. And then I'm like, oh, maybe not. And this is exactly what happens with Adnan Saeed. I go back and forth because something isn't right there, but I can't put my finger on it. So we're going to go over it. And I'm excited. Yeah, we definitely do. Yeah, I'm excited too.

This is going to be a good one. We'll dive into it. Maybe we'll convince each other of something. Who knows? We'll see how it goes. Guys, as always, stay safe out there. We will see you next week. Bye. access to leads, training, networking, and support from the number one brand of siding in North America. Achieve new levels of success by joining the James Hardy Alliance today.