Shortly after around 9 a.m. on June 26, 2010, Tarasha Benjamin, then 17, left home to go to a flea market in Selma with her mother’s friend.
“She goes every Saturday. For some reason, I just felt something, a feeling in my body that something was wrong," the girl’s mother, Regina Benjamin, told
WSFA in a 2017 interview.
Around 2 hours later, at about 11 a.m., Regina recalled she phoned relatives to find out if anyone had seen her daughter and described the vehicle the girl was in when she left home, a gray Mazda Tribute that belonged to Regina’s friend.
A cousin, she told the station, spotted the vehicle “just sitting on the side of the road” with nobody inside around a mile from the flea market. “Now I'm thinking something happened.”
Regina grew even more alarmed when her friend who owned the truck showed up around 1 p.m. and said she allowed Tarasha to borrow the vehicle from her and wanted to know where she was.
Regina called the police.
"And that was the last time she was seen,” Regina said. “The vehicle was up the bypass. My family and I went out searching everywhere. We haven't seen her since that morning.”
According to
The Charley Project, the driver’s side of the vehicle was missing two windows and had a broken door handle. It appeared someone had rummaged through the truck, throwing items on the ground outside.
Despite law enforcement launching an extensive search for the teenager and several initially promising tips coming to the attention of detectives through the years, the case “is as cold as it can get,” Regina has said.
The Selma Police Department continues to investigate the disappearance but officials say they are hopeful the public can provide new leads that might help crack the case. “Maybe someday someone will break,” Regina once said of witnesses coming forward to shed light on what happened to her youngest child.
Theories about Tarasha’s whereabouts include concerns she may be in Florida and the victim of sex trafficking or speculation something may have happened between her and a person she was dating at the time, according to reports.
“I miss her and I'm going to keep looking until she gets here,” Regina has vowed of her daughter, who would now be 30. “I don't care how long it takes but she will be coming home.”
Tarasha was 5 feet, 2 inches and weighed around 125 pounds when she went missing. She has a tattoo of her nickname “Pooh” on her upper right arm or shoulder area.
“I miss her and I'm going to keep looking until she gets here,” Regina Benjamin says of her daughter who disappeared at 17 on her way to a flea market.
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