NM NM - Tara Calico, 19, Belen, 20 Sept 1988

Are there any higher quality versions of the Polaroid available? All I can find are low quality images. I assume that the copies available online aren't the best copies available as there's reportedly a phone number scratched into the spine of the book, and only a couple of the numbers are unreadable.

I can't see the squirt gun, but it may be the black object below/near the cup? Also, could someone circle or point out the scar on her leg for me?
 
only heard about this case a few years ago the photo can be very disturbing at times when looking at it - 2 young abductees who are yet to learn there fate they both could Dead it is very hard to tell if that's Tara in the photo it's very difficult to tell although Tara looks much older in her pictures then in this photo
 
Just recently discovered this one. I think the girl in the Polaroid is probably Tara but I still haven't made up my mind on that one yet. This is my first post on this board on WS and also my first post of 2016. It is also the first post of 2016 on this Tara Calico board. I'm hoping we can find answers soon. After reading all these threads, Belen certainly doesn't sound like a place I would want to visit. I still just find it odd that the photo was found in a convenience store parking lot in a small town thousands of miles away. That just doesn't make sense.
 
I have always just lurked on this thread and am caught up.

I have tried and tried to see a marked resemblance to Tara in the girl in the Polaroid and cannot. This girl does, however, have on the type of clothing one would wear to ride a bike or even typical summer clothing.

IF Tara were this girl it would make sense for an abductor to get she and the boy as far away as possible from the area they were abducted from. The wall next to the boy looks to me to be plywood as in being a home-made camper shell. The girl and boy both look as if they are very hot as in being in the heat rather than A/C. No one has mentioned the fact that this girl could have the book as a clue for her parents/family. She could have talked her abductor into buying it for her.

Looking at the pic, it really would never occur to me that it was a hoax as some think.

Whether or not it is Tara is something we may never know. I hope and pray that these two, as well as Tara is still alive. The Polaroid haunts me terribly!

My post adds nothing not already discussed and certainly nothing to help solve this. I just wanted to comment and also say that I will follow Tara's case as long as I live and will never stop praying for she and the young people in that pic.

JMO
 
https://www.facebook.com/TheTaraCalicoStory

Today is the 28th anniversary of Tara's disappearance. Her case goes unsolved by Valencia county as of today, 28 years later! After six years of work on the documentary and her case, I feel very frustrated, sad and disgusted. There are so many thing I want to share with you all, but at this point am unable to without proper disclosures, at this moment. I believe we now know what happened to Tara and the parties responsible for this horrible crime, and embarrassingly enough so does half of Valencia county. What is done in the dark will eventually come to light, and I believe the truth WILL come out. And in the end what we can still strive for is #Justice4TaraCalico
What YOU can do to do help is come forward with any information you may have. Anything you may have. Stories, information, rumors, anything. It's all important.

#FindTara
#Justice4TaraCalico
 
...the fact that it doesn't sound like she was abducted and held, according to the Sheriff who seems to know what happened but can't make an arrest.
To know something requires evidence.

The sheriff if either saying this as a ploy to throw off a suspect or he's being unscientific in his approach. Paraphrasing Sherlock Holmes, if you draw conclusions before getting facts you invariably are biased toward facts favorable to your hasty conclusions.
 
I recall when it was announced the B.D. Cooper case was closed about a year ago. His identity and fate remain unknown but their reasoning is he must be dead given the passage of time.
 
Does anyone know if there has been any new little evidence in this case? The picture of the girl and the little boy is horrifying; but the book beside her does not make much sense. Why would she be allowed to read when she was held up against her will ?
 
One or the reasons the Florida photo generated so much interest was that the young boy in the picture looked very much like a boy named Michael Henley who disappeared from his family's campsite in New Mexico close to the time Tara disappearance. The possibility that two children from New Mexico were abducted and held together was intriguing. Later however, the remains of Michael Henley were found in the forest near where he went missing (no indication of foul play). This definitely lowered the odds of the picture being of Tara.
 
In my opinion you should forget about the polaroid. It's simply not Tara.

Taking this report seriously is the best way to follow up. My questions would be:

1. Did they dig at the point at west mesa?
2. Did Rivera hold back the note about Tara's death? Did he cover the guys who did it?
3. Did anyone ever contact the persons mentioned that case above?

I feel like everyone gave up on this case already since they closed the task force years ago cause of "no to little evidence coming up". In my opinion this is ********. If it's true and the police (e.g. Rivera) hold evidence back this case will hardly be solved.
 
Ok, in Namus database found this two cases of human remains/bones posted from me in the forum:

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...-vehicle-at-Hwy-116-Jan-06&highlight=valencia

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...-and-bones-in-field-Sep-14&highlight=valencia

Now they have failed to establish the alleged sex age; probably so the remains are old enough; since Tara has disappeared since 1988 in the same county, perhaps for the sake it would be to better control. ;)

The first case mentions an old truck (Older model, Ford F-15). The report I mentioned in my post tells us that the kids used an old truck from one of them to hit Tara while she was on her bike.

Is there a specific reason why you did not mention this case? https://www.identifyus.org/en/cases/13719
Unidentified skeleton found in a shallow grave (about 1 foot) along side of Rio Puerco river. No obvious filings or indicators of modern origin. Possible trauma on skull. Renants of possible "carpet" (fibers) found with remains and a piece of ceramic (?? pottery) | Location: Mesa west of Belen, NM

I made a map with all three cases & Tara's story: https://goo.gl/4OSqL7

Pretty strange that 2 bodies were found very near to each other. The other body was found near Belen (high school) which is not far away from where Lawrence Romero Jr. lived. In my opinion, Mr. Brown, the teacher who came years after and reported everything to the police knew he will die soon. He was scared and full of fear years before, when the kids told him the truth about what they did to Tara. Btw. Mr. Brown died few months after his report.

The report states: Romero said, after they hit her with a truck and then put her in a back of the truck where they sodomized and raped her: "she got ballsy, stood up and said she was going to make sure we were all going to jail." Romero went and got a knife from the truck and David, Leroy and the tall red haired guy held her down while Romero 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 kept her "near-by", but later he joked about that. One body was found near the trailer where Romero was living (see map).

Mr. Brown (teacher) said this whole thing had to with drugs. Jeff Abeyta and Lawrence Romero Jr. sold drugs and the only reason they never got caught was because his dad was the Sheriff and that he heard Romero say that his dad hired Deputy Rivera and that "Deputy Rivera had their back". He said "the sheriff there is not innocent". Mr. Brown said they took the bike to the junk yard in Belen to get rid of it.

Mr. Methola (former Sheriff's Deputy) said when he got the report he did not know who was in charge of the case so he contacted Sheriff Rivera and was told to bring his report to directly to him. Mr. Methola said he needed to tag his cassette tapes into evidence first. Later he was advised by ms. Escuqibel taht there was a record he had taken a report but there is no report or any documentation of any tapes placed into evidence.

Mr. Chavez later said he understood that Rivera had conducted the investigation surrounding the suicide of Lawrence Romero Jr. and that he understood there had been a note left behind confessing to the Tara Calico murder but the note had been taken by Rivera and not placed into evidence. It is widely believed that this note really has existed.

Here you can read more about this truly adorable Sheriff Rivera: http://www.topix.com/forum/city/valencia-nm/TB0I8JBSEHGRKNP58/p2

Some opinions about him:

"I have known Sheriff Rene Rivera for 21 years. I am also a former Deputy Sheriff with VCSO and worked side by side with Rene. I recently attempted a return to work at VCSO but Rene gave me the total run around. I am still a fully certified law enforcement officer but he will not allow me the opportunity to even return. In recent days, I have learned of Rene and his various unethical activities in recent years to include a young lady that shared a specific story into her being sexually assaulted by Sheriff Rivera. The incident occured several years ago and she has been afraid to come forward. Not good at all!!!

"I know rene rivera he was the investagator in my brothers murder case. he was given names address & phone numbers.to contact the people.to get information. do you think he did his job. he also knows the person who killed my brother and knows his mother.what do you think happend? well this person is not in jail. nor has he served any time for the murder of my brother. i wonder why?I was told the person that killed my brother was taken to rene's office and told rene he killed my brother.they told me rene told the killer there is no body therfore we cant do anything. aprox one month later his body was found.rene was given alot of information but did nothing. I reported rene to his boss. the D.A's office said Rene F---ed up the case.this person has committed other violent crimes and is not serveing any time.

"I'm surprised that no one has brought up the fact that Rene is a known pedophile. He likes girls about 12 years old, same as most of his predecessors. He comes out of Lawrence Romero's old bar in Jarales where him and LAWrence, Richard, Manuel and the entire Garley family spent all of their off hours trying to lure little girls. Hell one of the Garley's got caught with a 13 year old girl in a motel room.........WITH HIS WIFE,and him, in bed NAKED. I know for a fact that Rene raped a 13 year old girl a few years ago, but it was swept under the rug by Mike Runnels, DA. Rene was on the NM drug task force, but only for a few days, and then was canned. [...] We all know that the Valencia County Sheriff's Department is, and has been, one of the most corrupt law enforcement agencies in the country. [...]


Look at this article dealing with the suicide of Lawrence Romero Jr.:

Suzanne Fetsco of the Office of the Medical Investigator has confirmed the autopsy Concluded Romero Jr.'s death on May 19 1991 was a suicide by gunshot. Former Valencia County Sheriff Lawrence Romero Sr. on Thursday and again Friday disputed the findings about his son's death. "I look forward to his amendment because it will be amended," Romero Sr. said in a telephone interview. "There is compelling new evidence that will show that he has to make an amendment." Romero Sr. has maintained that his son's death was a homicide. The Valencia County Sheriffs Office has said they believe Romero Jr. accidentally shot himself. A man who was with Romero Jr. when he died told police he was in another room of Romero Jr.s mobile home west of Belen when he heard a gunshot and emerged to find Romero Jr. shot on a kitchen floor. In the interview on Friday, Zumwalt said he determined the cause of death was a gunshot to the head. He said he also determined the manner of death. "The manner of death was determined to be suicide and that determination was based on autopsy findings, the investigative reports of the circumstances, the conversations with the Valencia County Sheriffs Office, and with the father of the deceased," Zumwalt said. He added the death certificate was issued June 28. Zumwalt said he based his findings on "reasonable medical certainty, although not absolute certainty." . Asked to define reasonable medical certanty, Zumwalt responded, "In my opinion, it's much higher than just plain probability, much higher than 50 percent, but not absolute, not 100 percent ... I'm not sure what percentage I would put on it, but I think it's much more likely . . . that the wound was self-inflicted."

And this article says: after Romero Jr. was found shot dead in his mother's mobile home west of Belen. He has not been charged in connection with the death. Chavez has told the Journal he didn't kill Romero Jr., whom he described as his friend. He said Romero Jr. liked to play with guns and accidentally shot himself, apparently while playing Russian roulette

The interview with Donald Dutcher In 2013 was an interview with Donald Dutcher, who stated he lived in New Mexco for all his life and was familiar with two boys involved in this "accident" and that he knew Tara Calico. One of the last gentleman involved that has passed away spoke to him, he was a known drug user and he spoke to him right before he died. He said "Tara Calico talks to me at night, she asks why we did it? She asks why buried out there?" He said the guy was freaking out because of that and that they buried her out by the green lagoons by the rock quarry out on top of the west mesa. He mentions pond of water, green lagoon and the street "Camino Del Llano" and when you go all up that street on top of the west mesa you would find her. He said Romero was one of the ones nvolved and Charles Houghton was the other one involved and he didnt know the names of the other two gentlemen involved but all four of them are dead now. The guy who talked with Dutcher was Charlie Houghton, who died in 2000, he believed. He said Charlie was hyped up on heroin all the day and he later died cause of an overdose.
--------------

What do you need more? They took drugs, they somodized, raped and killed her. They threatened the teacher, Mr. Brown, to not talk to anyone or they would come after him. They got covered up by the Sheriff Rivera who destroyed all evidence after one of the killers (Romero) committed (or got killed) suicide. Mr. Brown reported everything they told him because he knew he would die soon and his time has come, so they could not do anything against him. He died 2 months later. Than the interview with Donald Dutcher which mentioned Romero too and other suspects. In my opinion, this case is very clear if you take everything into account and count 1+1 together. Of course it will be hard to charge anyone today, but maybe one of the bodies in the map is Tara - one is very near to the description of the road and near Romero's old home.
 

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
74
Guests online
3,545
Total visitors
3,619

Forum statistics

Threads
592,399
Messages
17,968,377
Members
228,767
Latest member
Mona Lisa
Back
Top