Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. I don't know if you've heard, but we
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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the
Speaker 1: podcast asked. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Scoop Bryant. Uh,
Speaker 1: and this is Stuff You Should Know, one of our
Speaker 1: infrequent true crime editions. So if you don't like true crime,
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't listen to this one because it's about true
Speaker 1: crime that goes along with and big time trigger warnings
Speaker 1: on this one. If you have family members who have
Speaker 1: been sexually assaulted or kidnapped, or if you have children
Speaker 1: that you care about at all and they're even safe
Speaker 1: in your home, this might be pretty upsetting for you
Speaker 1: as it was as it was for me. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: is a it's a very sad case just in of itself.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about the disappearance of a girl,
Speaker 1: UM who was nineteen at the time. Her name was
Speaker 1: Tara Calico, and she disappeared in New Mexico from the
Speaker 1: area where she lived. UM. And just that just the
Speaker 1: fact that she's she's never been found, like she basically
Speaker 1: vanished almost without a trace. Um, that's sad enough. And
Speaker 1: then the more you dig into the story, it's very sad,
Speaker 1: but it also has some like does extra couple of
Speaker 1: layers that your average like a true crime missing person,
Speaker 1: probably murdered person's story goes that make this case like
Speaker 1: one of the most fascinating recent true crime cases that
Speaker 1: that I can think of. Yeah, yeah, I know you
Speaker 1: didn't like this one at all. No, it was pretty upsetting,
Speaker 1: So you feel like you can make it through this one,
Speaker 1: I think, so it should be a laugh riot, right
Speaker 1: as usual. Um so, Chuckles's just kind of give some
Speaker 1: background on this case for everybody who's not familiar. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: here's the deal, and you know, ed help help us
Speaker 1: put this together. And he takes great pains to point
Speaker 1: out quite a few times that we don't know exactly
Speaker 1: all the facts, but we know what we know from
Speaker 1: accounts um to uh Tara's mom and a little bit
Speaker 1: from some other family members and a little bit from
Speaker 1: the case files, although I don't think all of those
Speaker 1: are available still, but I don't know. I saw otherwise,
Speaker 1: Like that's that's the problem with true crime, is like,
Speaker 1: especially in the age of the Internet, stuff just gets
Speaker 1: piled on with different weird facts that may or may
Speaker 1: not be true, and you know, down to the down
Speaker 1: to like are the case files still intact that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But yeah, so, so I think you're larger
Speaker 1: points where we don't exactly know all of the details, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what we do know is that in September twenty she
Speaker 1: went for a bike ride. She was athletic and took
Speaker 1: these very long bike rides anywhere from fifteen to thirty
Speaker 1: something miles on a regular basis. She was in nineteen
Speaker 1: years old, smart, smart young woman and a student at
Speaker 1: University of New Mexico and was living in a place
Speaker 1: called I guess Bellin, New Mexico b E L E N.
Speaker 1: I think it's bell En bell In. I think so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I heard somebody say it like that, Okay,
Speaker 1: And she left at nine for this bike ride and
Speaker 1: was last seen at eleven forty five on Highway forty seven,
Speaker 1: which is kind of the standard route that she usually took. Apparently. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um And there are just a couple other details about
Speaker 1: taro Um. She was, like you said, she was an
Speaker 1: intelligent person. Um. I believe she was a sophomore at
Speaker 1: uh at In College and she was studying psychology or
Speaker 1: psychiatry whyn't to. I don't think she decided yet, but
Speaker 1: she was in the field of psychology. And she was
Speaker 1: a bank teller too. And when she headed out that day,
Speaker 1: um is very widely reported that she had told her mom, uh,
Speaker 1: if I'm not back by noon, come looking for me. Um.
Speaker 1: I saw that mostly reported that she had said it
Speaker 1: kind of playfully, jokingly in jest, that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: not that she had set out that day going knowing
Speaker 1: that she was going to meet her her grim fate, um,
Speaker 1: but that she had a walkman with her two and
Speaker 1: that she was playing Boston. And I can only assume,
Speaker 1: because she was out for a bike ry, that she
Speaker 1: was listening to Boston's self titled debut album, which has
Speaker 1: Don't Look Back in it, which would be excellent for
Speaker 1: riding your bike too. Maybe so, or it could have
Speaker 1: been the new one. It could have been. There's several
Speaker 1: that they released afterwards, but Boston. She was listening to Boston,
Speaker 1: just remember that, that's right. And she was on her
Speaker 1: mom's bike, her Huffey bike, and she had a white
Speaker 1: T shirt first National Bank of bell Ann and white shorts,
Speaker 1: green stripes, white socks, tennis shoes, a butterfly ring with
Speaker 1: a diamond insert amethyst stone ring and then ear rings
Speaker 1: half inch half inch loop earrings. And she was last
Speaker 1: seen chuck from what I from what I understand, on
Speaker 1: her way back from her bike ride along Highway forty seven,
Speaker 1: UM about I think like am or something like that. Um.
Speaker 1: And then that was that was it, Like she was
Speaker 1: just riding along listening to her headphones last time she
Speaker 1: was seeing. The only other detail that UM adds like
Speaker 1: a very cryptic twist to that last sighting, was that
Speaker 1: she was reported um being followed. It looked like by
Speaker 1: an old timey truck, like one from like the fifties,
Speaker 1: I think a Ford truck. UM, like some weird color,
Speaker 1: like a dirty gray or something like that. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the cops and there there will be a few different
Speaker 1: people working on this case, as is usually the case
Speaker 1: when it's missing persons, different agencies get involved. But in
Speaker 1: this case, Valenca County Sheriff Romero, his name is Laurence Romero.
Speaker 1: He said that they found some bicycle tracks about four
Speaker 1: miles south of where she lived, and it looked like
Speaker 1: to them that they the bicycle had been dragged off
Speaker 1: the side of the road and then back and they
Speaker 1: immediately thought that was pretty suspicious. And then when you
Speaker 1: put it together with the details of this pickup truck,
Speaker 1: then it was all of a sudden a pretty serious
Speaker 1: case to them, right, Yeah, I mean, because you know,
Speaker 1: if if you can't find a girl, she doesn't show
Speaker 1: up home. Um when she says she's going to and
Speaker 1: she makes that joking cryptic thing, of course, it's going
Speaker 1: to terrify her mom, and it did terrify her mom.
Speaker 1: Her mom's name was Patty dole Um and Patty was
Speaker 1: married to John dole and Um. Through John, Tara had
Speaker 1: two step siblings, Chris, her brother, and her sister step sister,
Speaker 1: Michelle Um. And just immediately, Patty was very, very worried
Speaker 1: when Tara didn't show up at home, and then once
Speaker 1: the once the evidence started coming and she got increasingly worried.
Speaker 1: And probably the most tragic figure in this entire story
Speaker 1: um is Patty because from the moment like she started
Speaker 1: to get worried till the day she died in two
Speaker 1: thousand six, Um, she was worried. She was overwrought by this,
Speaker 1: like it just took her over and consumed her Um.
Speaker 1: But one of the things to her credit for sure,
Speaker 1: as we'll see, is that she didn't just like collapse
Speaker 1: and buckle and and give in, which she would have.
Speaker 1: It would have been very understandable had she done that.
Speaker 1: She instead channeled a lot of that fright and worry
Speaker 1: and concern into action and spent like the most of
Speaker 1: the rest of her life working tirelessly trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what happened to her daughter, find some evidence, bring
Speaker 1: her home. I don't think she ever gave up the um,
Speaker 1: the idea that that Tara might still be out there
Speaker 1: UM or at the very least bring bring her killers
Speaker 1: to justice. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna go with Tara
Speaker 1: for the most tragic figure in this story. But it
Speaker 1: was very sad what happened with her mom. She died
Speaker 1: in two thousand six, um never getting any answers. Her
Speaker 1: biological father died in two thousand two. Her stepfather, you know,
Speaker 1: like anyone, still holds out hope, although he you know,
Speaker 1: he readily admits this is from and the chances are
Speaker 1: are almost zero that anything is ever gonna come to
Speaker 1: fruition about this, but he did have She did have
Speaker 1: family that was looking out for her, you know, basically
Speaker 1: the rest of their lives. Yeah, for sure. And her
Speaker 1: sister Michelle is still carrying that on. Like after Patty
Speaker 1: died in two thousand and six, Michelle kind of took
Speaker 1: over Patty's um role of just trying to figure figure
Speaker 1: out what happened, trying to keep the story in the
Speaker 1: case in the press um. And actually, while she was alive,
Speaker 1: Patty and her husband John managed to get deputized by
Speaker 1: the Valencia County Sheriffs, so they were they were actually
Speaker 1: um allowed to carry guns. They were allowed to call
Speaker 1: contact other law enforcement agencies on behalf of the Ancia
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Department UM to to investigate the case. UM.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of like the level of dedication that
Speaker 1: that they went to, UM, which is pretty pretty cool.
Speaker 1: That that's you know how they channeled that, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: the sweet late eighties when you needed to be deputized
Speaker 1: to carry a gun, right exactly. Because when I read that,
Speaker 1: I was like, it really took that back then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you think so New Mexico, man, they have it locked
Speaker 1: down out there. So as far as clues go, they're
Speaker 1: pretty scant. That's one of the most frustrating things about
Speaker 1: this case. Uh. There are reports that they did find
Speaker 1: a Boston cassette tape a few miles from where she
Speaker 1: lived on that highway, and then a piece of a
Speaker 1: walkman at a campground nineteen miles away. Uh. That seems
Speaker 1: like a bit of a stretch to me. It was
Speaker 1: a long way from Highway forty seven, but you never know. UM,
Speaker 1: But there wasn't any like they didn't prove necessarily that
Speaker 1: that was her tape or part of her walkman or
Speaker 1: anything like that. No, they didn't, UM. But the I
Speaker 1: saw in a couple of places, this is one of
Speaker 1: those examples of the facts getting convoluted. I saw that
Speaker 1: the Boston tape was found with the front of her
Speaker 1: walkman at the same location. Um. And then also I
Speaker 1: saw that it was found elsewhere. So who knows. UM,
Speaker 1: But that is like one of like even that one
Speaker 1: tangible fact is still questionable, and you can't even necessarily
Speaker 1: link it directly to her, like you were saying, um,
Speaker 1: and that was it, But that that's all that was found.
Speaker 1: They didn't find either of her rings, they didn't find
Speaker 1: her shoes, they never found her bike. They never found
Speaker 1: anything except for those bike tire marks, um, which seemed
Speaker 1: to be like a bike being dragged rather than ridden. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then that Boston tape and maybe or not a
Speaker 1: piece of the walkman. And again who knows if that
Speaker 1: was her stuff or not. And they searched like like,
Speaker 1: they searched the area pretty pretty thoroughly from what I understand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, anytime there's a missing persons like this, you
Speaker 1: you have the big line of people marching through the woods.
Speaker 1: It's one of the saddest things that you can see
Speaker 1: in a movie or TV show, And I can't I've
Speaker 1: never seen one in real life, never want to see
Speaker 1: one in real life. But it's uh, it's one of
Speaker 1: the saddest things you can witnesses people literally combing a
Speaker 1: field or the forest for for the body of somebody,
Speaker 1: for sure. So this, uh, well, should we take a break. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's break time. All right, let's take a
Speaker 1: break here, and we'll talk a little bit about some
Speaker 1: of the things that happened after the disappearance. Right after this,
Speaker 1: all right, So we mentioned, um, this truck, this pickup truck.
Speaker 1: That's vehicle number one in this case that you need
Speaker 1: to sort of take note of. Vehicle number two is
Speaker 1: a white van with no windows, which those are always
Speaker 1: a little bit scary. This was in nine nine June
Speaker 1: fift so less than a year after her disappearance in
Speaker 1: Port St. Joe, Florida. And wait a minute, chuck, how
Speaker 1: would a white van in Port St. Joe, Florida a
Speaker 1: year later have anything to do with the disappearance of
Speaker 1: Tara Calico a year earlier in New Mexico. Well, it
Speaker 1: may or may not. Um, but there was a little
Speaker 1: piece of evidence potentially that was left behind. Uh. This
Speaker 1: woman comes out of the convenient store, the van drives away,
Speaker 1: and then she looks down and notices a polaroid on
Speaker 1: the ground, UM that looked like it was inside of
Speaker 1: a white van. I think they later determined it was
Speaker 1: in fact from inside a van and on the inside
Speaker 1: of the van. It was taken sort of from outside
Speaker 1: looking in through the side door. Prole were a couple
Speaker 1: of kids on some blankets and pillows. Uh, young boy
Speaker 1: around ten and a young woman UM that looked like
Speaker 1: she was probably a mid to late teenager, and they
Speaker 1: were looked to be bound. Their hands were behind their back,
Speaker 1: although you couldn't see rope necessarily, but I don't see
Speaker 1: why you would assume anything else. They had duct tape
Speaker 1: over their mouth. Uh, and they were kind of well tanned.
Speaker 1: And it's pretty pretty disturbing, messed up picture. It's an
Speaker 1: extremely disturbing picture. Um. It's it's it's alarming, actually, Like
Speaker 1: when you see this and it sinks in what you're
Speaker 1: looking at, it's a deeply alarming picture, especially when you
Speaker 1: realize that like this is real, This was really found
Speaker 1: in a junior food store parking lot in in Port St. Joe, Florida.
Speaker 1: Like some poor lady like came across this picture and
Speaker 1: was I'm sure just terrified. And the pictures is significant
Speaker 1: enough that the moment they found it in like was
Speaker 1: it was reported to authorities. They started setting up roadblocks
Speaker 1: around the county Gulf County, Florida to try to find
Speaker 1: this white van that the the woman who found the
Speaker 1: picture had had seen parked in that parking spot when
Speaker 1: she came when she went in and it was gone
Speaker 1: when she came out and found the picture. Um, so
Speaker 1: like it was. It's a very alarming picture and a
Speaker 1: lot of people, um said, I think that's Tara Calico.
Speaker 1: And the reason that Tara Calico found her family found
Speaker 1: out about it is because a family friend had seen
Speaker 1: it on a current affair, Like this photo was so
Speaker 1: alarming and so sinister, um and also so inexplicable to
Speaker 1: it was not immediately traced to anybody. It was not
Speaker 1: you know, and came out immediately he was like, oh no, no,
Speaker 1: that was a hoax. We were just kidding that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Um that it ended up on TV and
Speaker 1: very quickly I guess Tara Calico's mom had seen the
Speaker 1: Current Affair episode and said, that's that's Tara. And so
Speaker 1: for from that moment on in until today, Uh, it's
Speaker 1: that photos forever been linked to the Tara Calico case,
Speaker 1: whether that's Tar or not. Yeah. And there were a
Speaker 1: couple of other points about this picture. UM. Clearly visible
Speaker 1: next to the young woman was the VC Andrews book
Speaker 1: My Sweet Audrina. Um. You know. VC Andrews wrote Flowers
Speaker 1: in the Attic and those kind of disturbing horror slash
Speaker 1: I guess, I mean, I don't know if they were horror,
Speaker 1: but uh there most of those books were about bad
Speaker 1: things that happened to kids. Yeah, yeah, for sure, and
Speaker 1: those the horrors is apt horror books. And the other
Speaker 1: thing is that the young boy in the picture. Uh,
Speaker 1: family immediately kind of came forward and said, hey, we
Speaker 1: think that that is our son, Michael Henley. Um, he
Speaker 1: disappeared on a camping trip in New Mexico and as well,
Speaker 1: and I am just as the mom talking said, basically,
Speaker 1: I'm just sure that's Um. That was later kind of
Speaker 1: found out to not be true because about a year
Speaker 1: after that they found his body, um death to exposure.
Speaker 1: So it became pretty clear that he got lost in
Speaker 1: the woods and died out there. Yeah, because his body
Speaker 1: was found not very far from the camping site that
Speaker 1: he disappeared from. So the chances that he had been
Speaker 1: abducted from that camping site, UM, kept in a van,
Speaker 1: taken to Port St. Joe, Florida, and then taken back
Speaker 1: to New Mexico, or even just abducted and kept in
Speaker 1: New Mexico, the chances are pretty slim. The chances are
Speaker 1: far higher that he wandered off and died of exposure.
Speaker 1: And that's what the coroner finally came up with. Two
Speaker 1: ruled as as Michael Henley's death. But the fact that
Speaker 1: Michael Henley disappeared in New Mexico, and that Tara Calico
Speaker 1: disappeared in New Mexico, and that the two people, the
Speaker 1: young woman and the boy in this picture resembled those
Speaker 1: two just his. Like I said, it's inextricably linked that
Speaker 1: photo to this um this case. Uh. And Tara's mom
Speaker 1: apparently said forever that that she was sure that that
Speaker 1: was her daughter. Um, she's there's a discoloration on um
Speaker 1: the girl in the photo's leg. Uh that Tara's mom,
Speaker 1: um said, matched her daughter's scar from a car accident
Speaker 1: that she'd gotten in. Um, and I believe her sisters
Speaker 1: said also, she said, Uh, if you had to ask me,
Speaker 1: if I had to say yes or no, if that's
Speaker 1: Tara in the photo, I would say yes. But I
Speaker 1: also realized that you know this that that makes zero sense.
Speaker 1: That doesn't it just doesn't make sense for this case. Um,
Speaker 1: But that photo, Chuck, I feel like, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people link that photo to this case, but
Speaker 1: that photos not even you know, guaranteed to be real.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of points that people have raised over
Speaker 1: the years that say, I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: actually a photo of what what it seems to be depicting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I agree with any of the points either,
Speaker 1: to be honest. Well, one of the big ones is
Speaker 1: that it's never been matched to any missing person ever, right, Um,
Speaker 1: there's no one's ever come forward, on the one hand
Speaker 1: and said this is just a hoax, we were just kidding. Um,
Speaker 1: you can call off your search. But on this, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, no one's ever said this is this
Speaker 1: is that boy and this is that girl that's missing.
Speaker 1: So it seems unlikely that a family would be unaware
Speaker 1: of that picture. A family that had taken that picture
Speaker 1: as a hoax would be unaware of it and not
Speaker 1: come forward. But it's doubly unlikely that two different families
Speaker 1: with two different kids that have been abducted would not
Speaker 1: be familiar with that picture, would be like, that's our
Speaker 1: son or that's our daughter. That's a big one to me.
Speaker 1: But there was another one where someone said that her
Speaker 1: legs appeared to be shaved, and I think some people
Speaker 1: might surmise that that would be unusual for an abduction victim.
Speaker 1: I don't buy that, but that's what some people think of. Okay. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's also if you look closely, um, the the the
Speaker 1: people in the photos shoulders aren't distressed right there, not
Speaker 1: in like just a stress position. They're actually kind of relaxed.
Speaker 1: And if the if they were bound, um, because remember
Speaker 1: the bindings aren't aren't visible in the photo. If they
Speaker 1: were bound, their shoulders will be pinned back a lot
Speaker 1: further than they are um in that photo, So it
Speaker 1: suggests that they might not actually be bound, right. That's possible,
Speaker 1: I guess. And then the last one that I saw
Speaker 1: was the tape that it should be much redder around
Speaker 1: the tape on their faces, um than it is if
Speaker 1: they've been wearing that tape for any significant amount of time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't get that one. Um. I don't know why
Speaker 1: that it's assumed that they had to be wearing the
Speaker 1: tape for a significant amount of time because they were
Speaker 1: wearing it in the picture. Well, I don't know that
Speaker 1: it's saying like like, well, that proves that they weren't
Speaker 1: actually abducted or being held hostage. I think what they're
Speaker 1: saying is that suggests that it had just recently been
Speaker 1: put on, Yeah, which I believe if someone was gonna
Speaker 1: open the door to the van to take a picture
Speaker 1: of two bound children that they had snatched, they would
Speaker 1: probably put tape over their mouth before they opened the door,
Speaker 1: would be my guess. The thing to me, the one
Speaker 1: point of all that that that just strongly suggests to
Speaker 1: me that that picture is not actually real, is that
Speaker 1: it is never since being discovered in since being broadcast
Speaker 1: on a current affair OPRAH, America's most wanted being all
Speaker 1: over the internet, that no one has managed to link
Speaker 1: it to either the boy or the young woman in
Speaker 1: that picture. Uh, to a missing person that no one,
Speaker 1: no one besides the Tara Calico's family, besides their family,
Speaker 1: has come forward and been like, no, no, no, that's
Speaker 1: our daughter. UM, that that to me says that I
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't I think it's I think
Speaker 1: it might be a hoax. I guess I hate that
Speaker 1: word these days, but I think that's what it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we also didn't point out that the Tara's mom
Speaker 1: said that, Um, that book in the picture was her
Speaker 1: favorite book. UM, so you know who knows it was
Speaker 1: definitely an interesting piece of evidence if that was her
Speaker 1: favorite book. Do you think that that was Tara Calico
Speaker 1: in the picture or do you think you just think
Speaker 1: that the picture was real, that wasn't necessarily her. I
Speaker 1: didn't study it, and I don't want to go on
Speaker 1: record for having an opinion on whether or not that
Speaker 1: was her. Okay, fair enough. UM. One thing we do
Speaker 1: know though, is that you know this this picture, like
Speaker 1: we said, it's it's alarming enough that that, um, the
Speaker 1: FBI got involved as broadcast on national television and poll right.
Speaker 1: It was a poll right, one of those um, the
Speaker 1: ones that you wave in the air. Uh to develop
Speaker 1: in just a few minutes. It was that kind of polaroid.
Speaker 1: I'm polaroid. Analyzed it and said this this film that
Speaker 1: this was taken on his film stock was n't available
Speaker 1: until May of nine nine, so that that couldn't that
Speaker 1: picture couldn't have been taken before May of nine, eight nine. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's the picture and it's not necessarily connected to
Speaker 1: the Tara Calico case, although as far as the world
Speaker 1: is concerned, especially the world of online sleuths, it is
Speaker 1: in some way or another always going to be connected
Speaker 1: to the Tara Calico case from now on. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: there were some other pictures over the years that have
Speaker 1: come out that um are also not connected, yet somehow
Speaker 1: connected because of the Internet. And there was there was
Speaker 1: one that was a couple of people joking around on
Speaker 1: a train. It looks like a young woman and a
Speaker 1: guy a little bit older. Um. And to me, it
Speaker 1: just looks like two people gooping around on a train.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why so sinister. Uh. The other one
Speaker 1: is another young woman with tape over her mouth. And
Speaker 1: there's a similary similarity to the stripe pillow as that polaroid.
Speaker 1: And it was found in California at a construction site.
Speaker 1: But you can't, um, you can't really identify much about
Speaker 1: her all. And I think the only reason it's connected
Speaker 1: is because, hey, it's another picture of a young woman
Speaker 1: with tape on her mouth. Yeah, it looks vaguely like her.
Speaker 1: And that's That's not like if you go on to
Speaker 1: Reddit or web Salutes or any of these online forums
Speaker 1: about this case, there's at least several other photos that
Speaker 1: have been associated over time that seemed to just be like,
Speaker 1: here's an amateur B D s M photo that somebody
Speaker 1: took and I found somewhere, and I think that's Tara
Speaker 1: Calico and this is evidence rather than this is just
Speaker 1: somebody's picture from you know, a wild Saturday night or
Speaker 1: something like that. For the Internet definitely has that effect
Speaker 1: for sure. So chuck before, UM, I guess that's a
Speaker 1: pretty good place to put an ad brake on. Then
Speaker 1: maybe we'll come back and talk about conspiracies. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: do it. Okay, we'll be right back everybody. So there
Speaker 1: are a couple of conspiracies that have emerged over the
Speaker 1: years since then, many many years later, in two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: h the Sheriff of Valencia County at the time Renee
Speaker 1: Rivera said that he had some information about what happened
Speaker 1: and he was just waiting to release this information. He
Speaker 1: wanted to build an airtight case, get all the evidence in,
Speaker 1: perhaps even locate her body. And uh here here was
Speaker 1: the quote. The information I have is at the truck
Speaker 1: accidentally ended up hitting her. I believe the truck bumped
Speaker 1: her bike, at which time she fell to the side
Speaker 1: of the road. From there, the individuals took her. And
Speaker 1: remember the truck that he's referencing, is that truck that
Speaker 1: was supposedly following her when she was last seen at
Speaker 1: five am. That's right, And that she was killed later
Speaker 1: on maybe because she threatened to call the cops or something,
Speaker 1: and that there could be a couple of extra people
Speaker 1: involved in this case, right, so he said, But I'm
Speaker 1: not going to be arresting anybody because we don't have
Speaker 1: a body yet, and I want to have a body. Um,
Speaker 1: so I'm just gonna sit here and hold press conferences instead.
Speaker 1: And um John Dole, Tara's stepfather, came out publicly and
Speaker 1: it's like that was the dumbest thing I've heard in
Speaker 1: a very long time. Like, okay, if you if you
Speaker 1: want like an air tight case. And you need to
Speaker 1: find Tara's body to do that, fine, but you don't
Speaker 1: publicize everything else, you know, because to John Dole, that
Speaker 1: was it seemed like a bit of a warning, um,
Speaker 1: to the to the suspects that were out there at
Speaker 1: the very least, it just seemed foolish to him, or
Speaker 1: a waste of time. Um. And the thing is is
Speaker 1: that Sheriff Rivera, who I believe is still the Valencia
Speaker 1: County ere um, hasn't made any arrests since that press conference. Uh.
Speaker 1: And admittedly Tar's body has not been found, but that
Speaker 1: just does seem like a weird thing to do. So
Speaker 1: that was kind of like one of the first things
Speaker 1: that that kind of reinvigorated this case that had managed
Speaker 1: to be kept alive over the nineties, um, but really
Speaker 1: started to kind of come back in the two thousands
Speaker 1: and and UM. You know, multiple lights have been shown
Speaker 1: on it. But even beyond like you know, somebody doing
Speaker 1: a story on it or a follow up or an
Speaker 1: interview with her sister brother or something. Um, the police
Speaker 1: investigations into he kind of like peaks um or increased
Speaker 1: interests in the two thousand's as well. Yeah, so now
Speaker 1: a character enters name Melinda Eskibell, and she is a
Speaker 1: blogger and a podcaster and I guess one of these
Speaker 1: salus and had done a lot of work on this case.
Speaker 1: And apparently at one point, and this was about two
Speaker 1: thousand ten, was at least that she was working on
Speaker 1: a documentary film about Tara and that she had information
Speaker 1: on the body and that she was being followed and
Speaker 1: the threats were being made. So in two thousand and ten,
Speaker 1: UM state Police officer in New Mexico author or ties
Speaker 1: he was brought in for a meeting about this case,
Speaker 1: mainly because of what was going on with Escabell and
Speaker 1: her research and what she said. Yeah, she said she
Speaker 1: was getting death threats, right, yes, So that that actually
Speaker 1: kind of um reinvigorated this case. Uh well it almost did,
Speaker 1: or tease started to kind of look into it a
Speaker 1: little more, but was eventually told like, hey, that's the
Speaker 1: Valencia County Sheriff's case and just leave it to them.
Speaker 1: So we're going to reassign you. And that was that. Apparently, um,
Speaker 1: the death threats or um, I guess that was death
Speaker 1: threats that Melinda Escobell said she was getting were enough
Speaker 1: to make her of to l a UM and then
Speaker 1: later on she came back and started uh investigating the
Speaker 1: case again with Michelle Dole, Tara's step sister, and they
Speaker 1: released a podcast called Vanished the Tear the Tar Calico
Speaker 1: Story UM about this investigation. Um, that was I believe
Speaker 1: revealed some new some new facts and definitely pieced a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff together. Yeah. So back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and ten, when Ortiz got this information, he met with
Speaker 1: Sheriff Rivera, and Rivera, for his part, said, you know what, Um,
Speaker 1: there was a thorough investigation. Uh, we identified three possible suspects,
Speaker 1: one of them is dead now, and I also got
Speaker 1: some information about where this body might be. And basically, uh,
Speaker 1: there's who was Captain dong Dongas. So that it sounds
Speaker 1: fun and I guess worked alongside Rivera. Is that what
Speaker 1: it was? It was kind of hard to tell that
Speaker 1: was what I got as well. I mean it's a
Speaker 1: quote from Mortiz and he's just kind of presuming everybody
Speaker 1: who's reading this quote understands who Captain Dongas is. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's Sheriff Rivera's imaginary friend or something. Captain. It does
Speaker 1: sound like that. It does neither be one joke in here. Uh.
Speaker 1: So Dongas advised advised him that there was a you know,
Speaker 1: a dig basically at this location where they thought the
Speaker 1: body was and that they didn't find anything, but they did, uh,
Speaker 1: they did dig for the body at this place. Right.
Speaker 1: And then, like I said, Otis basically gets moved off
Speaker 1: of the case because he's state police and this is
Speaker 1: Valencia Counties turf. Um. So, so that was that was
Speaker 1: kind of like a UM. That was two thousand and ten,
Speaker 1: and that was some some new fresh blood investigation injected
Speaker 1: into the case. Um. And then in two thousand and thirteen, uh,
Speaker 1: the state police interviewed a guy named Frank Methola who
Speaker 1: was a former deputy with the Valencia County Sheriff's Department. Um,
Speaker 1: he's not any longer. He apparently was kind of drummed
Speaker 1: out of the sheriff's office. Um, possibly for stuff that
Speaker 1: was unrelated to that I saw. He was arrested while
Speaker 1: he was still a sheriff's deputy because he had failed
Speaker 1: to appear in court for causing a crash in a
Speaker 1: neighborhood during like a high speed chase. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: possible that something like that led to his dismissal. But regardless,
Speaker 1: he came forward after he was no longer a deputy
Speaker 1: and said, um, hey, while I was a deputy, I
Speaker 1: interviewed this guy named Henry Brown, and Henry Brown was
Speaker 1: said he was dying and he needed to get something
Speaker 1: off of his chest. And um, he he gave an
Speaker 1: official statement. And this statement, from what I understand, definitely
Speaker 1: exists and has been verified. This isn't just like hearsay,
Speaker 1: but that um Henry Brown said, I was friends with
Speaker 1: this guy. Um. And his name was Lawrence Romero Jr.
Speaker 1: And laur Tramaro Junior was not a he was a
Speaker 1: bit of a He was not he was not a
Speaker 1: good guy necessarily from what I understand. Um, but he
Speaker 1: was the sheriff's son, Lawrence Ramiro Junior at the time
Speaker 1: that um that all this happened, that Tara Calico went missing. Uh,
Speaker 1: he was the sheriff of Valencia County. And UM, Henry
Speaker 1: Brown said, I was friends with Junior and one day
Speaker 1: I was hanging out at Junior's house and the subject
Speaker 1: of Tara Calico came up, and before I knew it, Uh,
Speaker 1: Laurence Ramiro Junior and another guy were admitting that they
Speaker 1: had killed her, and that her body had been right
Speaker 1: there where we were sitting not too long before, um,
Speaker 1: which they had moved her body after they started searching
Speaker 1: for and then they took her and moved her to
Speaker 1: a pond later on, and that's where she remains. But
Speaker 1: that he definitely killed her and the reason why nothing
Speaker 1: ever came of it because he was the sheriff's son
Speaker 1: and that apparently was given. UM, that's that statement was
Speaker 1: given and written down and taken into into the record
Speaker 1: by the Valencia County Sheriff's department. Yeah, and apparently some
Speaker 1: of these guys were involved with dealing drugs, and UM,
Speaker 1: that may have had something to do with it. There
Speaker 1: was also a report in that statement that it was
Speaker 1: sort of a conspiracy in that Um that Deputy Rivera
Speaker 1: had their backs was the direct quote. UM. So you know,
Speaker 1: maybe because the sun was in deep trouble, the deputy
Speaker 1: got involved and made sure that that sort of stayed buried. UM.
Speaker 1: But again this is you know, I think to call
Speaker 1: this hearsay is pretty pretty accurate, but it's also a
Speaker 1: pretty juicy deathbed story, which you know, these always play
Speaker 1: well in these kind of cases, for sure. I also
Speaker 1: saw that there was another guy who who gave a
Speaker 1: third hand confession or second hand confession like that said
Speaker 1: that UM Laurence Romero Junior confessed to him as well.
Speaker 1: And Lawrence Romero Junior died in from a self inflicted
Speaker 1: gunshot wound. And it's not clear whether Um he died
Speaker 1: by suicide or other people say that he was playing
Speaker 1: Russian Roulette very foolishly and it did not go so well.
Speaker 1: But either way, he died in UM within a couple
Speaker 1: of years of Tara Colico's disappearance. UM so at the time, again,
Speaker 1: his father was Sheriff of Valencia County, and this deputy Rivera,
Speaker 1: who supposedly had the um the Romero's backs, became sheriff
Speaker 1: later and is now still Sheriff of Valencia County. From
Speaker 1: what we understand, UM and what's weird though, is a
Speaker 1: lot of that statement jibes with Rivera's weirdo press conference
Speaker 1: that he held in two thousand and eight, that that
Speaker 1: these these kids had you know, she was being followed
Speaker 1: into trunk, she was bumped by a truck, she was
Speaker 1: bumped by from behind, she was killed, that the people's
Speaker 1: family helped them cover up the crime. Um, he just
Speaker 1: stopped short of saying who it was, and that was
Speaker 1: it's just very odd if he was the one that
Speaker 1: was helping cover things up. To have that press conference
Speaker 1: is a is a very odd thing to do if
Speaker 1: you're in on it, you know. Yeah. And the one
Speaker 1: thing we didn't mention earlier that's pretty important too. If
Speaker 1: if you think back to that polaroid, Uh, if you're
Speaker 1: asking yourself, like, surely they analyzed this thing for real
Speaker 1: and it's not just up to Internet people to to
Speaker 1: compare photos. Uh. There were a few different organizations that
Speaker 1: looked into it, and they very frustratingly. One said yes,
Speaker 1: we think that's our one said no, that's not, and
Speaker 1: one said, well, we can't be sure. So that just
Speaker 1: leads to the frustration. To literally have three groups looking
Speaker 1: into this and each of them have a different take
Speaker 1: on it kind of leads you back to nowhere for sure.
Speaker 1: And if it's frustrating for us or for the web
Speaker 1: sleuths or whoever's listening, Um, think of what it's like
Speaker 1: for the family, you know, to hear you you you
Speaker 1: just rather hear everybody say yes or everybody say no
Speaker 1: to have it just inconclusive like that or contradictories just
Speaker 1: gotta make it so much harder. But ultimately, when you
Speaker 1: put all the pieces on the table, which one makes
Speaker 1: more sense That she was killed locally and it was
Speaker 1: covered up by some local families who had the ability
Speaker 1: to cover it up, or that she was abducted and
Speaker 1: ended up somehow in a polaroid in Port St. Joe,
Speaker 1: Florida a year later. Um, And I think that's what
Speaker 1: her sister was saying, where where she was saying. And
Speaker 1: if I look at this photograph, I know that it's Tara.
Speaker 1: But I also realized that that explanation makes the least
Speaker 1: sense of all of the explanations that are out there,
Speaker 1: so that the case is still ongoing. In two thousand nineteen,
Speaker 1: the FBI, apparently out of nowhere, released a dollar reward
Speaker 1: for information on the Tara Calico case. No one apparently
Speaker 1: has any idea what prompted them to do that or
Speaker 1: why they did it. Um, but it's out there. So
Speaker 1: if you know anything about Tara Calico's disappearance, uh, and
Speaker 1: you want to make a cool twenty grand, get in
Speaker 1: touch with the FBI, or don't even do it for
Speaker 1: the money, do it for the humanity. How about that? Yeah? Uh,
Speaker 1: and that's it? Huh? You got anything else? I got
Speaker 1: nothing else? Well? Then, uh, I guess that's it for
Speaker 1: the Tara Calico case, hopefully for now. And since I
Speaker 1: said that, it's time for a listener, Mayo, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call this math math math. Oh. I was hoping you're
Speaker 1: gonna either ignore this or you hadn't seen it at all. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if. I mean, if this person
Speaker 1: is right, this could be one of those great ones
Speaker 1: wherein someone corrects the correction. That would be great somebody. Hey,
Speaker 1: guys listening to one podcast and responding to Chuck's anticipation
Speaker 1: for correction of Josh's math. Um, Josh, your competence and
Speaker 1: certainty in your math or charming and inspiring. And I
Speaker 1: appreciate it when people say something with conviction. Um. Now
Speaker 1: onto the sour part. Josh, you almost had the math right,
Speaker 1: but for some reason, you stated that the last seven
Speaker 1: digits range from technically one million to nine million. N
Speaker 1: this were true, then you would be correct in your calculations.
Speaker 1: But according to what I can find, that does not
Speaker 1: seem to be the case. The SEC website untold free
Speaker 1: number spells out prefixes which are available, but it does
Speaker 1: not provide a restricted range available for the last seven digits.
Speaker 1: If you enter zero zero zero zero zero zero zero
Speaker 1: as the last seven digits to check that if a
Speaker 1: number is available, there is no information about that being
Speaker 1: an invalid option. M I'm not quite sure. I follow.
Speaker 1: For example, I checked one, eight, three three all zeros,
Speaker 1: and it said there that it was available. So then
Speaker 1: that brings us the range from all zeros to all nines,
Speaker 1: which provides us with ten million, not nine million. Uh sorry, Josh.
Speaker 1: So when you multiply that by seven prefixes, you get
Speaker 1: seventy million combos seven times nine million, and sixty three million,
Speaker 1: not fifty four million. The only reason that I'm sending
Speaker 1: this emails not to draw attention to a well, actually
Speaker 1: you did the math rong liar, but rather because Chuck
Speaker 1: drew attention to it, So blame him, Josh, Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: I'll go with that. Can I blame you both? Sure?
Speaker 1: I think that's most appropriate. And that's from Noah in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: We saw you guys at the Bell House. My sister
Speaker 1: and I saw you for her birthday. Please give a
Speaker 1: shout out to Becca if this ends up on the show.
Speaker 1: So Hello Becca, Happy very belated birthday, Becca. Well she's
Speaker 1: had another one since then. Happy birthdays. I guess we
Speaker 1: do the Bellhouse in October, so it's coming up, yeah
Speaker 1: in who knows. Um. Well, thanks a lot, Noah, and
Speaker 1: thanks to you and Becca for coming to see us live.
Speaker 1: Eventually we will be out there live again. Yes, it
Speaker 1: will be nice, so keep an ear out. I don't
Speaker 1: know when, but we will eventually. And in the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us, you
Speaker 1: can do it by email. Send it off to Stuff
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know
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Speaker 1: more podcasts for my heart radio because at the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
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