Criminology - Tara Calico

Episode Date: April 24, 2022

In September 1988, 19-year-old Tara Calico disappeared from Belen, New Mexico. Police suspected foul play as did Tara's family. The authorities did find some witnesses who saw Tara riding her bike as well as a suspicious truck that they thought may have been following her. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the baffling disappearance of Tara Calico. This is an unsolved case that has fascinated the true crime community for many years. Much of the fascination centers around some photographs that surfaced after Tara disappeared that some believe include Tara. There are many rumors and a lot of speculation regarding this case. Some of those rumors involve a police cover-up and the son of a local law enforcement officer. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 204 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, man. What's going on? A lot. I'm packing, getting ready to move and pretty busy. But squeezing in this episode and excited to do it. How about you? I'm doing well also.

busy got a lot of stuff going on happy that the weather is finally starting to warm up here in Ohio I know you don't have that problem where you are but you know we sit around kind of eagerly awaiting you know the return of some warmer weather so we can go out and do some stuff and not freeze our rear ends off yeah I think at this point after being trapped in the house for so long everybody's ready to get out there and live their lives and do some stuff yeah absolutely. Speaking of doing some stuff, man, we are less than a week away from CrimeCon Las Vegas. I mean, really, before you know it, Morph, we'll be jumping on planes, heading over to Vegas. Yeah, it'll be time to have some fun and see a lot of our true crime friends. And I hope

that a lot of our listeners will stop by and say hi to us on podcast row. And if you have not heard the announcement yet, Morph and I and Gibby from TCAT will be hanging out at the Indigo lounge, Jabalys on Saturday night, April. April 30th, starting at 9 p.m. 9 to 10 at least, it could go longer. Who knows? So swing by and say hi. Hang out with this. Yeah, it should be a lot of fun. And maybe we'll squeeze in some time for some roulette or what do you play, uh, Baccarat. I know. I don't know how to play any of those fancy 007 games. I'm more of a blackjack, Texas Holden type of guy. Yeah. Well, that's, that's the fun about Vegas. I guess you can sort of just wing it and wherever you

wind up, that's what you do. Yeah, you can play whatever you want. Yeah. Morph, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Marlene Savala and Wendy. So some great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much for that. It means a lot. It goes a long way. And if there's anyone that would like to help support criminology, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right, buddy, it's time to get into this episode. And our case this week takes us back to the desert, this time in Berlin, near the center of New Mexico. Still today, it has less than 8,000 residents and hosts the only airport in Valencia County on Berlin's Wikipedia page.

You'll find a list of notable people, actors, politicians, musicians, boxers. There is one entry, though, that stands out if you take in a lot of true crime, the name Tara Calico, who left. her home one morning in 1988 and was never seen again. Tara Lee Calico was born on February 28, 1969 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Patty and David Calico. David and Patty divorced in January in 1975, and Patty married John Dole in June of 1975 when Tara was six years old.

She had an older brother, Chris, and she became close with her new step-sister, John's daughter, Michelle. Growing up, Tara was friendly and outgoing. She attended Belin High School and earned good grades. She was a very active student participating in the marching band, French club, ski club, and she was also athletic playing tennis. But one of her activities that she grew to love was cycling. After graduating high school, Tara went to work at First National Bank in Berlin

for just under a year until August when she quit to study full-time. Tara attended the University of New Mexico and was an honor student studying psychology. In 1988, she was a sophomore there with a bright future. On September 20th, 1988, 19-year-old Tara Calico went for a bike ride. This was something that she did often. In fact, she was so dedicated to her cycling, she usually rode about 35 miles every day. Okay, Morf, that is a lot of bike riding. My legs get a little tired just thinking about that much bike riding.

Now, she was 19 years old. me getting close to my 50s, all right, that might be a little rough on me. Yeah, 35 miles. So, you know, I'd be excited if I could do three miles. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. But her bike had a flat tire that day. It had been flat for a couple of days. So this time she took her mom, Patty's Huffy for her ride that day.

She hadn't ridden since the day she discovered her tire was flat. So she was pretty eager to get back out and ride. She had plans that day. She was going to play tennis with her boyfriend Jack Cole at 1230, and she had class at 4 p.m. She jokingly told her mom to go looking for her if she wasn't back by noon. Now, obviously this sounds very eerie now, knowing that this is the last time that Patty ever saw Tara. There was nothing to indicate that Tara was actually afraid something would happen to her. she was more or less joking with her mom. And more if the first thing that came to mind to me was we all do this practically every

day. You know, we say things. We're trying to be funny or, you know, we say little things that don't mean anything, you know, hey, if I'm not back by 10, you know, send the cavalry or, you know, whatever it is. We're joking, though. We don't think that anything is actually going to have. happened to us. But obviously in a true crime case like this, it does become very eerie when somebody says something like that and then something bad happens. Yeah, you sort of go back and look at the

everything that was said leading up to, in this case, a disappearance and you wonder if any of that really means anything. At around 9.30 a.m., Tara took off from her house on Brug Street. At 12.5, when she hadn't returned home, her mom started to think about what Tara had said about being home by 12, and she headed out to look for Tara. After driving around and not finding any sign of her and seeing a storm rolling in, Patty called the hospital to see if they had any patients brought in that might be Tara. Then she called the police to report Tara missing. It seems as if in the missing persons cases that we discuss, police were either real slow or real fast to react to the case. the police in this instance luckily jumped into action,

and only five hours after Patty contacted the authorities, Tara's name was entered into the NCIC database, the National Crime Information Center. Investigators searched the area and Rue Tara typically rode and discovered that she may have been spotted about two hours after she left home at 1145 a.m., riding her bike down Highway 47, northbound, back toward her home.

Some witnesses remembered seeing a white mid-1950s Ford F-150 pickup truck with a trailer or a camper show on the back close to her, but they weren't sure if it had anything to do with Tara or her disappearance. Some witnesses thought the truck did look like it was following her. The truck was spotted behind her when she was about three or four miles from her Rio community's neighborhood. She seemed unaware that anything was wrong, pretty much nonchalantly riding her bike down the highway because she was wearing headphones listening to a cassette tape of the band Boston.

Her not realizing anything was happening and not looking scared may have been part of the reason. Witnesses quickly driving by weren't sure if she was really being followed or if the vehicle was just someone out for a drive. But I will say this morph, you know, in a lot of cases that, we do that involve vehicle descriptions. You know, you're talking about maybe a car or a truck or a van that is five, 10 years old. Okay. That's kind of tough sometimes to put it in the right age range. But when you're talking about, you know, what at this point would have been a 35 year old truck, give or take, a 1950s pickup truck pretty distinctive. Yeah. Yeah, we talk a lot about cases where there are distinctive cars.

And when they're not solved, that's the most frustrating to me because it seems like that car would stand out, that truck would stand out, that someone out there has to have a friend, co-worker, a relative that has a truck like that, yet they're never identified in some of those unselfed cases. And you have to, you know, wonder why that is when a truck like that in this case, it just seems like someone would know who that truck belonged to. Patty normally biked with Tara every day, but they had recently had a bad experience while riding together, and it was weighing on her mind. According to Inquisitor.com, Tar and Patty had been nearly run off the road and followed by a suspicious vehicle. The incident was so unnerving for Patty that she didn't feel safe going on bike rides anymore. After this incident, Tara refused to take Mace on her ride, despite Patty asking her to. While Patty was wondering if the earlier incident was connected to Tara's disappearance, police found another clue that led them to go down another avenue.

Investigators talked to friends of Tara's who told them that she had mentioned receiving threatening letters that someone had left on her car, sometime shortly before she disappeared. They didn't have much information to go on regarding the letters, but it seemed to police that between the earlier incident with Tara and her mom and the possibility of these notes that perhaps Tara had been targeted or stalked. Investigators focused on getting the word out about Tara's disappearance to the public, putting out the following details that Tara was last seen wearing an orange sweater, white First National Bank of Berlin shirt, white shorts with green stripes on them,

and white ankle socks with white a via shoes. Her mom's Huffy was neon pink with yellow sidewalls and control cables. Her outfit was distinct, as was her mom's bike that she was riding that day. And because of that, they believe that the eyewitness sightings of a girl riding her bike were accurate and that the girl witnesses saw really was Tara. Investigators scouring the route terror was believed to have taken, found broken pieces of a walkman and a Boston cassette tape that Patty would later verify was Tara's. They also found what looked like fresh tire tracks from a car on the northbound shoulder of the highway. There were bike tracks in the dirt shoulder. It looked like Tara had pulled off the highway suddenly, and there had been a struggle with the bike being dragged back toward the road. There were also footprints in the soft sand.

Near this, there was a fresh oil slick. A few empty cans of old Milwaukee beer were found near the bike tracks. Later, the rest of Tara's walkman was found 19 miles away near the John F. Kennedy campground. Tara's mom, Patty, believed that Tara had scattered the pieces of her walkman as clues to help someone find her. Unfortunately, the heavy rain the night she vanished had potentially washed away or scattered any evidence. Sheriff Lawrence Romero suspected foul play from the start. No one who knew Tara believed that she had just run away. She wasn't having any trouble in school.

Her grades were good, exceptional. Actually, she had a boyfriend in Berlin and she was happy as far as anyone knew. It wasn't just the sheriff, though, who suspected foul play. Tara's family did as well. Tara's brother Chris would later tell People Magazine. I knew. My parents knew immediately that some foul play had happened. The New Mexico State Police and the New Mexico search and rescue team ended their search just days after Tara's disappearance due to a lack of any more evidence being found in the vast desert and the expense of helicopters and officers.

And I think more of in any disappearance case, there comes a point in time where the massive search effort, assuming one begins, ultimately ends. If a person is not found, if more evidence is not found, that has to be soul crushing for the family. Because they're already going through the range of emotions of wondering where their loved one is. In the beginning, there's a flurry of activity normally where people and agencies are jumping in providing all of these resources to try to find this person. But at a certain point, those resources start to fall away. They're redirected to other cases or, you know, onto other things. I can only imagine what the family goes through, this roller coaster ride and how, you know, on to other things. I can only imagine what the family goes through.

this roller coaster ride and how this one kind of dip in the roller coaster ride must feel to them as though people are starting to give up. Yeah, if you're the family, you don't want that search to ever end until she's found. So you can't blame them. And realistically, there are not unlimited resources where they can just keep going and going. So her family could have had friends or volunteers out there searching even after the police search officially ended, but it wouldn't be the same capacity. You wouldn't have the same technology, helicopters, dogs, anything like that. So it would be a limited search.

And I can imagine they would want to keep going, but realistically just would be hard to do. A composite sketch was released of the man seen driving the white truck spotted near Tara. He was a white male, 35 to 40 years old, between five, five. foot 9 and 6 feet tall, 190 to 210 pounds, reddish brown hair, blue or hazel eyes, with distinct wrinkle lines between his eyes and temples. The truck had a New Mexico license plate and a witness saw a plate number that they thought contained either WBY or WBZ, and ending with a six. The detailed eyewitness account of the truck and the sketch of its driver being circulated led over 100 tips, but no suspects with a truck matching those details was identified.

With seemingly an endless New Mexico desert to search, no new leads and only so many resources, the search for Tara wound down and her case cooled off. Then nine months later, in another state, a possible clue would surface that would once again kick the search for Tara into high gear. On June 15, 1989, someone found a Polaroid photograph in the parking lot of a junior food store a convenience store in Port St. Joe, Florida. Port St. Joe is located in the Florida panhandle, about 1,500 miles from Berlin, New Mexico. The photograph seemed to have fallen out of a white windowless Toyota van that had been parked in the space when the person who found the photo was waiting to park.

When the van left, the Polaroid was on the ground where the van had been parked. The driver of the van was described as a white male in his 30s with a mustache. What is in that photo is pretty disturbing. The Polaroid shows a young boy and a young girl just a few years older than the boy, both with thick pieces of black tape over their mouse and their hands behind their backs. They are laying in the back of a van and the photo is taken from outside of the van with the side sliding door open. There are pillows and bedding underneath the kids in the photo. There is a book next to the girl. It's My Sweet Audrina by V.C. Andrews who happened to be one of Tara's favorite authors.

And more if many people may have actually seen this photograph. It comes up in a number of different missing persons cases that have been unsolved over the years. We've probably even talked about it on other episodes. It's kind of a pretty infamous photograph. Yeah, it's pretty disturbing to see two young people like that in that situation. And it appears, at least from what you can see, that they're in some kind of distress or perhaps being held captive or something along those lines. At first, there was nothing connecting the photo to Tara's case. But when the Polaroid was featured on the TV show Current Affair, Friends of Patty who had seen the show called her.

to tell her that they thought the girl in the photo was her daughter, Tara. Tara's stepdad, John, also got calls from his friend after seeing the photo. Another family was watching a current affair when the Polaroid flashed on the screen, the family of 9-year-old Michael Henley, who had been missing from New Mexico since 1988. Michael had last been seen on a turkey hunting trip in Sibola State Park with his father, about 75 miles away from the highway where Tara was last seen. When they saw the photo, they thought the boy might be able to be. be their missing son Michael. In fact, it seemed as if they was not a doubt in their minds.

Marty Henley, Michael's mom, told People magazine in the 1989 interview talking about a photo that he looks scared, real scared, but he looks healthy and I'm grateful for that. The Henleys and Tara's parents had a meeting with investigators regarding the possibility of their missing kids being in the photo. After this meeting, Patty came away absolutely believing. This was Tara in the photograph. She could see a scar on the girl's leg, which looked exactly like a scar that Tara had gotten as a younger teen in a car crash. Some people have studied this photo say that if you stare at it long enough,

they think they see something that could be a scar. But then after staring, it appears as if maybe it's an imperfection in the film, grain from scanning or a piece of fuzz on the image. Depending on the version of this photo that you look at online, a lot of the highlights in the image are washed out. And you can't see really a lot of detail. Patty may have been able to see the original Polaroid

or a very good blown up copy, where today we really only have copies of copies to look at. That may be why she was so sure it was a scar and that it was Tara. The photo, while disturbing, provided the families of both Tara and Michael, hope that they were out there a lot. Sadly, the Henley's hopes were dashed when his remains were found in 1990, less than 10 miles from where he was last seen. It turned out he had died of exposure to the elements. He couldn't have been the boy in the photograph. If he wasn't the boy in the photo, then who was?

and was the girl actually Tara Calico. Two more photos of girls, which were also Polaroids, were found not long after the original photo was found. People that have looked at these photos think that the girls in these photos resemble Tara and the girl in the photograph found in Port St. Joe, Florida. One of these photos was a blurry close-up of a brunette with tape over her mouth found in Monticello, California.

There's a blue-and-white-stripe pillow behind her that looks very similar to one of the pillows in the van in the photo found in Port St. Joe. Patty has also come to believe that this was a photo of her daughter. The other mysterious photo was taken in what looks like a train, and it's of a man and a woman. The woman looks like she's bound, but it looks like it's possibly with toilet paper or gauze, not rope or tape. It's also very loose, just wrapped around her knees, wrist, and mouth. There's nothing really binding her, though. In fact, it may not even be wrapped around her mouth.

but she may just have the strip of gauze or toilet paper in her mouth. It's a hard photo to describe. Patty wasn't sure if these two pictures were of Tara, but she never stopped believing that the first photo found in Florida was Tara. Tara's step-sister Michelle told the Daily Star, they had a striking resemblance. As for me, I will not rule them out. But keep in mind, our family has had to identify many other photographs,

and all but those were ruled out. Investigators were able to figure out that all three of the mysterious Polaroid photos were taken on film, manufactured no earlier than June 1989. This gave Patty a lot of hope. Tara had to have survived until at least June 1989, and that meant she could still be a lot. Patty also thought she could have been in that van. When the Polaroid was dropped at the convenience store, authorities are torn on the photos, much in the same. way that the general public is torn, investigators with the FBI and the Los Alamos National Laboratory do not believe the girl in the first Polaroid is Tara. But New Scotland Yard did. None of the subjects in the photos have ever come forward or have been positively identified. All of the photos we're talking about can be easily found online. And when you look at the photo of the children

who are supposedly bound, a couple of things stick out. First, duct-tapping someone's mouth with a strip of tape really doesn't work. You can easily work the tape off using your tongue and jaw if it's not actually wrapped around your entire head. But this was just a short strip of tape neatly placed over the mouths of both children. Their faces don't look right or irritated, which makes it look like this was the first piece of tape placed on their face, and it looked to be in perfect condition. The tape probably hadn't been there for very long. The position of the boy and the girl were odd, too. The girl does have her hands behind her back,

but they don't seem to be pulled back behind their back, like they're tied, but rather placed behind her back, like she's just laying that way for a quick photo. The way her shoulders look relaxed, points more to her placing her hands that way, and less to bindings, that would keep them in that position. You can't see her feet, but her legs are elevated,

like they're on the back of a passenger seat, and her knees aren't close together, which means our ankles probably aren't bound together tightly, or if at all. Some people based on these little details have come to believe that the photo was staged and was some kind of prank. The photos may in the end be red herrings not connected to Tara's case at all. With the RAM Declaration of Deals, we're pledging our allegiance to the American people, with great deals on the RAM-1500. Back with the legendary Hemi V8 and the RAM Heavy Duty.

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In 1991, Tara's mom, Patty, and stepdad John actually became authorized deputies so that they could investigate leads on their own. They were also able to use the copier at the sheriff's office to make thousands of flyers for Tara. They searched for Tara for years in vain. Tara Calico was officially declared legally deceased and a victim of high. homicide in 1998, but sadly, Tara's family experienced even more heartbreak. In November 22, 64-year-old David Calico, Tara's biological father, was mugged while he was walking home from an Albuquerque bar. The attacker stole his nitro glycerin, which is a heart medication, his jewelry and his wallet. That night, he suffered a heart attack in his sleep and passed away.

In September 2003, Tara's family moved to Port Charlotte, Florida. They had a room there in Florida for Tara, and they would even bring new Christmas and birthday presents into her room each year. Tara's mother, Patty Dole, sadly passed away in 2006 while still living in Florida. She never found the answer she was seeking. Chris Calico told The Inquisitor.com that right to the end, she looked at every single photo investigators thought may have been promising, including photos of bodies, even dismembered bodies. Billy Payne, a close friend of Paddy's, told People magazine that although Patty had been disabled

from multiple strokes, when Patty saw a young girl on a bicycle, she would point and write down Tara. John would have to remind Patty. No, that's not Tara. After Patty passed, John moved back to New Mexico with his daughter, Michelle. In 2008, there was a new report of a VA, possibly involved in Tara's disappearance, and Sheriff Renee Rivera claimed that he knew what had happened to Tara Calico. Apparently, some witnesses had come forward, claiming to have seen a white pickup truck with a camper on the back with two to four men inside actually hit Tara's bike. This knocked her and the bike over. Sheriff Rivera said that the men then took Tara away. At least one witness who claimed to see the white truck that day said that they recognized the passenger.

It was the son of a police officer from the Valencia County Sheriff's Office. It seemed to be hinted at that perhaps these men hadn't deliberately targeted Tara, but instead panicked when they accidentally hit her with the truck and then took her away. While most people in law enforcement don't give this story any credence at all, it should be noted that former Valencia County Sheriff Frené Rivera was the lead investigator on Tara's case from 1996 until he retired in 2011. And he seemed to think it was possible that there was some truth here. He also believed that the boy's parents may have helped them cover up the crime.

We have witness reports of a truck full of teens following Tara, the witness statement claiming to see men remove Tara's body from the scene. after hitting her. And we also have the broken pieces of a walkman near fresh tire track. So the clues seem to one way or another point towards some kind of incident involving Tara being struck and perhaps killed. In 2009, Chief David Barnes with the Port St. Joe Police Department received two photos in the mail and separate mailings, reportedly showing a boy. One photo was just a regular photo, but the other was on printer paper and had a big black square drawn over the boy's mouth, resembling the tape in the first Polaroid photograph found in the parking lot.

One had been mailed in June and one in August, both from Albuquerque, New Mexico with no return address. There was no letter or information sent with the photos, but the boy resembled the boy in the original Polaroid alongside the girl who resembled Tara. In 2010, Deputy District Attorney Ron Lopez with the Belin District Attorney's Office, as per a state police document, told investigators with the New Mexico State Police that he was not going to review this case again without a confession or a body. In November 2010, Tarr's state police case was officially marked close. A six-person cold case task force was formed in October

2013 to investigate Tara's case, they began a review of all of the evidence in her case on October 15th, 2013, and just a few months later, in November, new but actually very old information came to light. I say new because it wasn't known publicly before that point. One of the cold case

officers Richard Williamson had interviewed the former public information officer with the Valencia County Sheriff, Frank Mithola, who recounted for him a startling confession from 2006. In September 2006, there was a confession regarding Tara's disappearance. An 83-year-old man had been angry about bees on his property, believing that his neighbor, two homes down, had replaced a bee-filled shed and caused them to go into his property. Deputy Mothola couldn't help him with the bees. But he didn't. sit down and talk with the man. The man asked Deputy Mathola if he could share something that had

been on his mind for two decades. The man claimed that in 1988 he had been at the neighbor's home, the same neighbor with the bees, where there was a makeshift basement dug underneath the man's trailer. The neighbor seemed nervous when he was showing off his handmade basement, but he still insisted that the witness see it. The witness said he saw a shallow grave in the basement. His neighbor, who was drunk, then began to talk about Tarakaliko and how attractive she was. But he then threatened the witness not to tell anyone about the basement. The neighbor later covered the basement with cement. So more of, you know, this stuff comes from state police documents.

And it's some interesting stuff. Now it's one man claiming X. The witness believed that in 2001, his neighbor sent an armed man to attack him shortly after the witness threatened to go to the police with what he knew. He said the Valencia County Sheriff's Office had taken a report at that time. There's actually a New Mexico State Police document that has this narrative, but it differs significantly from the information that one of Tara's high school friends, Belinda Esquibble, was able to obtain.

Belinda is now a filmmaker and she has produced a podcast called Vanished the Tara Calico investigation. The last episode came out in October 2019. She also put together the website, Tara Calico.com. She and Tara had both been in the marching band at Belin High School. Belinda was able to obtain the original report from 2006. The New Mexico State Police Report is dated 2013, a month after the task force was put together. The task force officer interviewed Mothola in 2013. And what he said is the basis for that document's narrative. A lot of the information is the same, but the names are completely different. One huge discrepancy is that the neighbor's trailer now belonged to the sheriff's son. The document claims that a man who believed he was dying

and wanted to admit what he knew about Tarek Hellico called Deputy Mithola. Conversation, according to Mothola, was tape recorded. This man claimed to have gone to his small party around the time Tara disappeared. The party was a traveler rented by a Valencia County sheriff for his son. The man was older than the sheriff's son, but he knew him and the other teenagers because the man

had worked at their school. Shortly after Tara disappeared, the confessing man had been in that basement, making fajitas and drinking margaritas. He looked around because he had a weird feeling, and he saw a body and a grave wrapped up in a blue tarp. The young men then began to talk about Tara and

described how they had sexually assaulted and murdered her. And then they threatened the man, warning him that they would come after him if he talked. The story the young men told that day was that they knew Tar and her boyfriend had broken up the day she vanished and they were familiar with her daily bike route. This doesn't seem to be true or accurate because by all accounts, Tara and her boyfriend hadn't broken up. They were still together at the time she vanished. according to the story the sheriff's son was angry with Tara.

He was jealous and he wanted to date her. Another thing that doesn't add up with this story is that Tara's boyfriend in the report is listed as someone other than Jack Cole, who was known to be Tara's boyfriend at that time. The statement itself was a retelling given in 2013, years after the actual conversations and decades after the actual events. And more of, you know, one thing I want to talk about is how dangerous is it to try to

recreate, you know, some of these statements many, many years after the fact. You know, you're relying on people's memory, maybe what notes that they may have. I just wonder what the dangers are and what the implications could be of getting some of the information incorrect. Yeah, obviously when investigators go back and look at an old unsolved case, they have to sort of go back and backtrack and look for old reports and see what witnesses said. And then they try and make revised reports, current reports. And it sounds like at least in this case, somewhere along the line, there was some stuff

that didn't come over cleanly into these new reports. So there were discrepancies with names, details, things like that. and I'm not necessarily faulting the police, but I think that's the risk when you try and update something based on old material. And then you also have the question of, are these people available that gave statements early on? Can they still give statements now and do their statements now match what they did back then? And I think that's an issue in these kind of older cases. You've got that question of what's accurate and what's not. Yeah, it's tough, right?

because if you get it wrong or if people tell it to you incorrectly, well, now are you really working off of correct information? Or is it leading you down a path that it shouldn't because the information is skewed? I guess that was my point. I do think there are some dangers there, but, you know, there are some hurdles in working cold cases. There's just no way around it. The report goes on to lay out a story of a group of men driving around in an old truck when they decided to go follow Tara. They hit her with the truck and then abducted her, putting her on the bike in the back of the truck. They then drove to a gravel pit and sexually assaulted her as a group. As the story goes, Tara didn't shut down.

Instead, she got loud and angry. She actually stood up and told the group of men that she would personally ensure each of them would go to prison. The story detailed how the sheriff's son then got a knife from the truck and stabbed Tara while three other men held her down. They dragged her body over to a bush and hit it, but the search for Tara was quickly grown large before the men could dispose of her body. They took the Huffy Mountain Bike to a junkyard in Berlin, and they later disposed of Tara's body in a pond or a marsh. A while after Frank Mithola supposedly taped this interview, he had to arrest a Mexican citizen for some of. but was told by the man he was arresting that he worked for Renee Rivera. Mothola turned the man over to ICE custody anyway, after which he received a call from

Sheriff Rivera telling him to release the man because he worked for him. Mothola told Rivera to contact I. And it was after this that Mothola was removed from all special teams and assignments that he had been on. And he received numerous write-ups, which caused him to resign. So obviously, more, if there's a ton to unpack here, we're getting a lot of old information from various sources, you know, like you said before, names don't seem to line up with some of the known details of the case. You've got a number of accusations, some of them hinting at a cover

up or maybe not even hinting, maybe even just coming out and saying there was a cover up. And you have a number of people being connected to Tara's case. The problem is, I think, at the base level, how do you determine what is true here with everything that has been reported, the inconsistencies, and all of that? And if the officer's son mentioned in this report really was involved in Tara's disappearance in any way, he can't talk. He died in May 1991 when he was 21 years old. Reportedly, it was either by taking his own life or while playing a game of Russian roulette.

He was found on the floor in the kitchen of his mother's mobile home. The man's father, the Valencia County Sheriff, believed that his son was murdered. He called on the New Mexico Attorney General to investigate the death as a homicide, but the death was ruled as suicide by the medical examiner. The sheriff believed neighbors heard his son arguing with someone the night he died and claims blood spatter evidence didn't match up to a suicide, and crime scene photos clearly showed. showed that his body had been moved a few feet away. A young man who was actually at the scene when

it happened is the one who floated the Russian roulette idea. This man, who claimed he was in the bathroom at the time the gun was fired, was actually charged with evidence tamper. The sheriff must not have been the only one to see the things that didn't add up the scene. However, this man was acquitted. One of the witnesses who claimed to have seen a truck following Tara said that she was shown a photo lineup of men who had possibly been the driver of the truck. She wasn't sure he was definitely the man she had seen, but she did pick a photo. That was the closest match to what the driver looked like. She was later shocked when she saw the photo she chose out of a lineup.

It was used as the obituary photo of the sheriff's son. If the sheriff knew anything about his son or helped him cover up a crime, he can't talk either. He passed away in 2017. Whether the sheriff and his son had any connection to Tara's case may never be known. But it definitely has clouded the waters in this case. I mean, I think at the very least more if you'd have to say that, right? There's a lot of mysterious type things going on. A lot of people online talking about cover up and conspiracy theories. Yeah, I think one thing we can mention too is that the names of the sheriff and his son, they were sort of redacted in the reports. But if you search out hard enough, you'll find their names doing a bit of

searching. But a lot of confusing stuff that go through, a lot of he said, she said, opinions, secondhand information. So it's just, it's just very frustrating to have a lot of possibilities of where to look, but none of them are solid leads. In December 2013, Lieutenant Matt Romero from the New Mexico State Police in Sicaro, the next county over, called Valencia County Sheriff's Officer Williamson with some information. He told him the contact a man named Donald about the Tarak Calico case. Donald informed the officers that he had spoken to one of the men who had been involved in Tara's death shortly before he died in 2000.

and according to a New Mexico state police report that the man Donald spoke to said, Tara Calico talks to me at night. She asked me why we did it. She asked why we buried her out there. The man who had a bad heroin addiction had confessed to Donald that they buried her out by the green lagoons by the rock quarry out on top of the West Mesa. The man who confessed had since passed away, and another unnamed accomplice was supposedly killed after being hit by a truck.

On December 20th, 2013, Officer Williamson attempted to find the area described by the man who confessed to Donald. He drove down the street Camino del Lano to Marble Quarry Road. He crossed the Rio Puerco River and drove to the Isleta Pueblo area west of Berlin. A man was repairing a cattle guard and told Officer Williamson that the quarry miles down the road would require a truck or four-wheel drive vehicle to be reached. We don't know if he ever found the quarry and if he did whether it was searched. In February 2018, the FBI released a new composite photo of what Tara might look like at age 50. In October 2019, the FBI released a new media alert promoting a $20,000 reward for information leading to the discovery of Tara's whereabouts.

In April 2021, a search warrant was executed by the Valencia County Sheriff's Office. The search warrant sealed, but Valencia County Sheriff's Lieutenant Joseph Rowland confirmed in September 2021 that there was a search at a home of Valencia County relating to Tara Calica's disappearance. And Morve, I think the first thing that jumped out to me about that is that they would release a new composite photograph of what Tara would look like at a age. age 50. I mean, she had been declared legally dead many, many years before this. So I thought that was a little bit strange. I get it. They're trying to get information out there. They want

information leading to the discovery of her whereabouts. They also want to, you know, solve what happened to her. But releasing a new composite photo really kind of gives you the thought that there's the possibility that she could be alive. That's what you normally think of when you see this type of age progression photo released in these types of cases. Yeah, it's almost a contradiction. Like on one hand, she's legally been declared dead, but here they are putting out new information about what she might look like if she's alive and then updating the reward. And I wonder if that could be a case of perhaps her family,

wanted to sort of put her to rest by declaring her deceased, but perhaps the FBI still thinks that there's a chance she's out there someplace. I wonder if that's what's going on. There's a little bit of, you know, maybe a disconnect or separate thinking between her family and the FBI. Well, there definitely could be. I get the reward. You know, the reward is for information leading to the discovery of her whereabouts. That could include her remains. That could include her remains. It was really just the composite photo that I thought was somewhat strange, but you may be correct. There may be some within the FBI that believe, well, possibly she could be alive. So what is the harm, really, of releasing this type of composite photo? There really is not.

I just thought it was a little bit strange. Though Tara's case has gotten major coverage since she vanished. There was actually another woman who disappeared from Berlin, New Mexico in 1985. This was a few years before Tara's disappearance. And this woman's case didn't get much in the way of headlines. That's the case of 29-year-old Deborah Lansdell. Deborah, a nurse, disappeared on September 21st, 1985, almost three years to the day before Tara. She was last seen in front of her apartment. According to an article in the Albuquerque Journal, her car, a Porsche, also went missing, but later was found. But Deborah was not. Even today, almost four decades after she vanished, many Berlin locals haven't even heard of her case. And I don't think there's anything to indicate

that her case is related to Tara's, but it's still interesting that in this area, she's not the only missing person from their area. Well, and, you know, this also goes back to something that you and I have discussed a number of times, which is, why do some cases get a large amount of attention while others that are somewhat similar get very little to no attention or media coverage? Now, in the case of Tara Calico, there are a lot of strange things, bizarre circumstances. surrounding her case. And maybe that's why, you know, it's a little more intriguing. It grabs the attention of people a little bit more. At the same time, more if it's a little bit

sad to think, okay, here's another woman who disappeared, has not been found. And practically no one has even ever heard of her, even locally. It just didn't get hardly any media coverage. Yeah, it's just a theory of mine, but I think perhaps since this mysterious photo of the two kids bound, or the two kids in the back of the vehicle with the tape on their mouths, since that was connected to Tar's case and that sort of was nationally broadcast on a lot of different shows, I think that's perhaps why Tar's case wound up getting so much attention. And if it hadn't been for that detail, maybe Tar's Case 2 wouldn't have gotten that much attention. Tar Calico's been missing for almost 34 years now. Her step-sister, Michelle Dole, has not stopped searching, telling

people magazine, I want to know where she's at. But I also want somebody to pay for it, and whether they're alive or dead, at least acknowledge the fact that it happened. Hopefully, she will one day find out what happened to Tara. If you have information about the disappearance of Tarley-Calico, please call the FBI at 505-889-1300. You can also submit tips to the FBI online by visiting tips.fbi.c.c.c.c.c. You can also call the Valencia County Sheriff's Office at 505-866-2,400. So morph as we wrap up this case, you know, Tara's case has received quite a bit of media coverage over the years. It's a pretty infamous unsolved case because of that fact.

I mean, there is a lot going on that has surfaced in this case over the years. I think the photograph, by and large kind of helped propel this case into the spotlight. You know, like I mentioned, I believe this photograph has come up in a number of unsolved cases. I know for a fact, we've talked about it before. Maybe if it wasn't you and I, it was Gibby and I on another podcast, but it's a very well-known photograph. And I think it's talked about in a number of unsolved. cases. But then, you know, you kind of break down some of the other mysteries. And there's obviously a lot

of conspiracy theories here. You've got law enforcement, the son of a law enforcement officer, possibly being involved in some way. You know, a lot of people have floated that idea out there. So, you know, when you add it all up, these are very interesting facets to the case. And I think it's why it grabs the attention of so many different people. This is a case that's followed by many online. A lot of people have their opinions on this case and who might be involved. We don't have the answers, right? And never do in what is truly an unsolved case. But, you know, I think it's important to kind of go through the known facts. I also think it's important to talk about some of the more high profile theories that have been floated because, okay, not all of them can be true,

but one of them might be. Yeah, there's so many different rabbit holes to go down here, which direction do you go and so many different things you can look at. One thing that I keep coming back to is that very specific vehicle, you know, multiple times that white Ford mid-1950s vehicle is mentioned. It has a camper shell or whatever on top of it. One witness even thought they had part of the plate. So it's so frustrating to me that you've got that distinct vehicle and maybe even part of the plate and that doesn't even, you know, link to anyone. It's just very frustrating. And one thing that I also take away from this is there may be some evidence that might one day lead to whoever that vehicle belonged to because the beer king.

that were found at the scene, they might have DNA on them. So if they're in, you know, we have to assume that they were taken into evidence. If they're still there and they've been preserved, maybe they can get DNA off of those beer cans and do some forensic genealogy. And that might lead back to the person that dropped those beer cans there and possibly abducted Torah. Yeah, I think it's a great point. I mean, we kind of touched on the beer cans briefly,

but we wanted to wait until the end to kind of pull them back in. You know, it all goes back to the things that we talk about, right? How were they collected? How have they been preserved? And would the DNA even still be viable? Has it degraded so much that it's not really useful at this point in time? I don't know the answers to those questions. Like I always say, I'm not ruling anything out.

You know, we just saw authority. have the I-65 killer. That was a very old unsolved case. And so, you know, we're seeing more and more of that. People need to remain hopeful about these older unsolved cases. Thanks to Sunny Landon for help with research and writing in this episode. As always, if you love the show, but you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends, a word of mouth about the criminology podcast.

really helps us out. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcasts discussion and fans.

So, Morf, that is it for our episode on Tara Calico. But we'll be back with everyone next Saturday night with a brand new episode of Criminology. So until then, from Mike. And Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.