11 March 2023 , 07:18
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A chilling Polaroid picture showing a girl and a boy with tape over their mouths in the back of a van has loomed over a missing persons case for decades.
Tara Calico was just 19 when she went for a bike ride on September 30, 1988, only never to return.
Then in August the following year the sinister photograph was found in a Florida car park.
The picture was circulated and Tara's parents became certain the girl in the picture was her, meaning she would have been alive months after her disappearance.
The family hung onto the hope it was a lead and for decades the Polaroid has been used in media reports.
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But a suspect was never found.
A friend of the missing teen spent years investigating in the hope of finding answers to the 30 year cold case.
Tara Calico worked as a bank teller (Patty Doel)Melinda Esquibel, Tara's former classmate, has said the photo isn't of Tara and had her own theory as to who did it.
She believes Tara was stalked and murdered by a group of local boys before being buried within 20 miles.
Melinda told The Sun: "I know that the family believes it is or could be her, but the data I have gathered shows that it cannot be her.
"None of the data I have leads to that girl being Tara."
Other creepy pictures were found (National Center for Missing Adults)Tara had set off on a bike ride near her home in the New Mexico city of Belen.
It was a 36-mile route she knew well, so Tara set off early at 9.30am.
She was last seen riding along a highway at 11.45am with witnesses saying she was being followed by light-coloured Ford pickup truck.
The 19-year-old was never seen again.
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The only trace found was fragments from her Sony Walkman and cassette tape.
Melinda said: "I have information that it was a possibility that this boy and his friends were going to grab her four days before the day she was actually taken on September 16, 1988.
Tara hasn't been seen since (National Center for Missing Adults)"This would mean it was premeditated and thought out.
"Regardless, I believe they knew her route, she was stalked and followed.
"The boys hit her bike and it knocked her off. She took off running and they followed her, grabbed her, assaulted and then murdered her.
"I think her body is buried within 20 miles of where she was hit.
"The details are gruesome of what happened and then what happened in the aftermath."
Melinda recalled her missing friend fondly.
She said: "Tara had a bright light around her. She was fun, serious, smart, playful and kind.
"That is how I remember her. She was an upperclassman and we met in the marching band.
"She showed me kindness and I will never forget that. She showed me kindness when she didn't have to.
Tara alongside the mysterious Polaroid (National Center for Missing Adults)"It says a lot about a person's character when they do the right thing when nobody's looking.
"She and I had more things in common than I ever realised."
Lieutenant Joseph Rowland, the agent who investigated the Tara Calico case for the Valencia County Sheriff's Office, is convinced the case still could be solved despite the lack of physical evidence.
He also said the girl in the Polaroid is not Tara.
In 2021 a fresh tip led to a raid in Belen.
Mr Rowland said: "The search warrant, along with the information obtained to reach the probable cause standard in obtaining the warrant, has been sealed by a District Court judge.
"I cannot discuss the information which led to obtaining the search warrant."
He added he believes the case "is progressing extremely well and is very much in an active status".