![]() “Mom really did not want to believe she was dead, period,” Chris says. “She couldn’t not, but it tore her up every time.”įor Patty, the Florida Polaroid was proof that her daughter, though she was suffering, had survived whatever she encountered on her bike ride in 1988. “The police would send photos of every possibility, including photos of bodies, dismembered bodies, and every time mom got an envelope with the newest pictures, she had to look at them,” he tells PEOPLE. “And tell her, ‘No, that’s not Tara.’ “Ĭalico’s older brother Chris says the stress of his sister’s disappearance and its persistent irresolution significantly shortened his mother’s life. She and John kept a bedroom for Calico, bringing her gifts there for passing Christmases and birthdays.Įven near the end, Patty “would see a young girl on a bicycle and would point and write down ‘Tara,’ ” her longtime friend Billie Payne recalls. But her daughter was alway on her mind, her friends and family say. Patty Doel died in 2006 of complications from a series of strokes, after relocating to Florida with husband John. Valencia County Sheriffs office A Mother’s Years of Hope and Grief To this day, neither the boy nor girl in the photo has ever been positively identified. What’s more, Rowland says, “There was no redness around the tape on the mouths of the children, which would indicate that the tape was not on their mouth for an extended period of time.” For example, the young woman’s hands appear to not be tied together tightly, and her shoulders do not seem stressed as they would if her bindings were severe. He had died of exposure.įurther investigative scrutiny has also called into question what the Polaroid truly depicts, Rowland says. However, Michael’s remains were discovered about two years later, Rowland says. ”He looks scared, real scared, but he looks healthy and I’m grateful for that,” Michael’s mother, Marty Henley, said soon after the Polaroid was found in ’89, according to the Associated Press. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. ![]() Michael reportedly disappeared in April 1988, while hunting with his father. Another New Mexico family felt the same about the young boy, saying they believed it was their missing son, 9-year-old Michael Henley, according to Rowland. But answers were not as forthcoming.Ĭalico’s family quickly came forward, saying the girl resembled their missing daughter. The vehicle in the photo was identified as a van, and tips subsequently poured in about various vans, Rowland says. Joseph Rowland, the current lead investigator. The twist made more headlines around the country and was featured by Oprah Winfrey and on America’s Most Wanted, according to Valencia Sgt. Police reports show it was found a month earlier, on June 12, 1989. Joe on Florida’s panhandle, some 1,500 miles away. John said a friend of his had seen it on A Current Affair after the image surfaced in Port St. Valencia sheriff’s officials first learned of the color Polaroid on July 28, 1989, when Calico’s stepfather, John Doel, called to report it. Tara Calico circa 1987 | Melinda Esquibel A Polaroid Thrusts the Cast Into the Spotlight These suspicions are supported by witness reports that she was followed on her final bike ride and had been receiving “threatening” notes on her vehicle. Instead, they and the FBI are probing local suspects in the case amid longstanding theories that Calico was taken or attacked by people in her small community. The Valencia County Sheriff’s Office, the lead investigating agency, is not actively pursuing the image. It was analyzed at least three different times - including by the FBI, who felt strongly that it likely wasn’t Calico, but could not say for certain, and by Scotland Yard in the U.K., who declared it was her. As the case remained unsolved into the age of internet-enabled amateur sleuthing, the picture gathered further notoriety under ominous headlines such as “A Teen Girl Was Kidnapped, And The Only Evidence They Found Of Her Being Alive Was A Horrifying Polaroid.”Īuthorities, however, have never been sure the photo was connected to Calico’s case. For more on the investigation into Tara Calico’s baffling disappearance and her family’s search for justice, subscribe now to PEOPLE or pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands now.Ĭalico’s mom, Patty Doel, believed until her death that the photo showed her daughter. ![]() The questions have lingered for nearly 30 years, ever since Calico went missing one September morning in 1988 while returning from her regular bike ride in Valencia County.
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