35-Year-Old Missing Girl Case Solved in 2023

35-Year-Old Missing Girl Case Solved in 2023: Inside the Tragic Disappearance and Shocking Discovery that Finally Brought Answers

PART I: The Disappearance of Tara Calico & Community Left Grasping For Answers

For over 60% of the nearly 90,000 active missing person cases in America, the biggest break typically comes within the first week of disappearing if it ever arrives at all.

So when 19-year old Tara Calico embarked on a routine bike ride along New Mexico‘s Highway 47 one September morning in 1988 and never returned, the odds of locating the talented young tennis player already appeared ominously slim.

And yet nobody was prepared for just how baffling and impenetrable the mystery of her vanishing would remain for over three and a half decades — the tumultuous journey toward ultimate truth replete with alleged coverups, destroyed evidence, a haunting polaroid cameo, and above all the relentless yet eventually futile quest by her mother Patty for closure before her own passing in 2022.

On that fateful September 20th morning when Tara Calico first set out along the deserted Highway 47 and straight into the annals of one of New Mexico‘s most agonizing unsolved mysteries, she was by all accounts a focused and vibrant teenager on the cusp of adulthood.

A talented tennis player for Belen High School who dreamed of becoming a professional psychologist, Tara nurtured a tight knit group of fellow ambitious students as she girded for college applications that fall. To keep fighting fit and clear her mind as classes ramped up, she had taken to biking lengthy distances along the highway bisecting Valencia County on occasional weekend mornings.

So it hardly seemed irregular to her loving parents that sunny late summer Tuesday when their brown haired, athletic elder daughter announced over breakfast she planned another long cycle ahead of rehearsals for the school musical later that afternoon. Kissing her mother Patty Calico goodbye, Tara wheeled her signature pink bike out the door with a smile — assured she would breeze through her 10+ mile ride and return home by lunch.

She had no idea that the next embrace from her devoted mother would never materialize.

At first, the Calico family held out hope the sudden disappearance was an accident that would be quickly resolved. Perhaps their daughter had veered off the highway into the desert wilderness that flanked the tarmac, injured herself in isolation, and couldn‘t make her way back to call for help.

Law enforcement crews scoured the arid terrain within 5 miles of the highway for three successive days, aided by search dogs and helicopters. But not so much as a scuff mark from Tara or her beloved bike could be located in the landscape. Only her mangled pink bicycle was eventually discovered 20 miles away along Highway 47 with the frame warped and both tires shredded — hinting at a violent confrontation.

It soon emerged that nobody had spotted Tara since roughly 9 AM that Tuesday morning. And the condition of her recovered bike suggested she likely never made it anywhere close to 10 miles — her hypothetical turnaround point — before something or someone forced her trajectory to a savage halt.

Yet there were no other traces of Tara herself. No eyewitnesses ever surfaced publicly who recalled spotting her along Highway 47. And no coerced admissions or definitive evidence around the actual circumstances of her disappearance ever came to light over 13 successive sheriff tenures spanning 35 fruitless years.

Until the unprecedented call Newly-minted Valencia County Sheriff Carlos Maldonado fielded in June 2023 cracked everything open….

PART II: Deathbed Confession – A Deputy‘s Revelation About the Girl Who Vanished

On the morning of September 21st, 1988, even as federal investigators were just setting up camp in Valencia County to assist with a rapidly intensifying search, Sheriff Renee Rivera took an urgent private call patching through from the residence of her husband Raul Simons.

And unbeknownst to all except a tiny inner circle of deputies who would later be threatened to bury what they knew forever, a carefully orchestrated conspiracy was already swinging into motion with Sheriff Rivera herself at the helm.

Because on the other end of that call was the panicking voice of the couple‘s only son Randy, confessing through hysterical sobs to brutally killing 19-year old Tara Calico the previous night.

In a split second, the sheriff‘s maternal instincts collided catastrophically with her sworn duties to uphold justice. And rather than place her beloved son under immediate arrest, she instead began marshaling the family‘s connections and resources to shield Randy from suspicion as she conspired feverishly with her husband to hide the tragic murder.

This was the earth-rattling revelation sputtered out between ragged breaths by terminally ill 78-year old ex-deputy Martin Brown when he summoned current Valencia County Sheriff Carlos Maldonado to his deathbed on June 4th, 2023. A last ditch ploy for redemption by a weary former lawman who no longer wished to carry decades of guilt and secrets to his grave when prayers and whiskey could no longer quiet the ghosts haunting him.

Because few were closer to the simmering 36-year mystery of Tara Calico than Deputy Martin Brown back in 1988. And seemingly no one still breathing beyond Sheriff Rivera‘s inner circle was more pierced by the behind-the-scenes ugliness revealed after her disappearance.

Until his parting confession pointing the finger squarely at Randy Simons ripped open generations-old wounds once more…..

PART III: The Polaroid Photo, the White Van & Closure That Remains Elusive

Beyond the dark alleged actions of Randy Simons laid bare in Martin Brown‘s account, the other enduring mystery casting a shadow over the Tara Calico investigation was the ghostly Polaroid image that surfaced in a supermarket parking lot several months after her vanishing.

That chilling photograph, now permanently seared into the cultural consciousness of New Mexico, depicted a young terrified girl and boy bound with black duct tape inside the rear cabin of a white Toyota van. And for a brief period in 1989, it seemed the impossible had occurred — that despite vanishing without a trace on that September highway, somehow Tara Calico was still alive as a hostage.

But despite the extensive efforts of Sheriff Rivera‘s office to identify the children as leads dried up on Tara herself, the photographed boy and girl were never conclusively named. Nor was the van itself or its potential driver/abductor(s) ever successfully tracked down.

As the years stretched on with no breaking developments, most resigned themselves to the bleak assessment that the Polaroid likely depicted unfortunate victims of sex trafficking rather than Tara herself. Though their tragic identities and fates too regrettably never came to light.

In one final twist however, Martin Brown‘s explosive confession in the summer of 2023 referenced oblique overheard conversations between Sheriff Rivera and her husband suggesting more direct knowledge or possible deeper involvement with the Polaroid children than his former boss had ever let on……

So despite nearly four decades of relentless examination and speculation, the details surrounding both Tara Calico‘s disappearance and the ghostly Polaroid snapshot have never fully aligned into an airtight narrative accepted by all observers of the case.

The heavy price of tragedy combined with the irreversible passage of time continues stoking simmering feelings around Valencia County that justice — however one chooses to define it — will remain agonizingly incomplete.

PART IV: Seeking Rare Justice as the Years Drag On

For Patty Calico, simply absorbing the crippling news that her first and only biological daughter had allegedly been murdered all those autumns ago proved nearly too much to shoulder on her wearied 60+ year old frame.

Never truly giving up the thin hope that Tara might somehow limp back into her life one day before cancer ultimately claimed her own in the spring of 2022, the crushing finality around her daughter‘s confirmed death eviscerated Patty emotionally……

And yet for the vast majority of souls in Valencia County and scattered groups still tracking the case nationwide, that hollowness persists in yearning for the complete story to be presented and absolute justice to be served.

Because while late deputy Martin Brown may deserve the benefit of the doubt regarding his shocking disclosures from most, pointed skepticism endures from still others about the lack of available evidence around his version of events. Particularly those aspects involving the alleged decisive role of Sheriff Rene Rivera and her son Randy Simons in murdering — and covering up the killing of — a 19-year old who "simply vanished" during an ordinary morning bike ride.

Without question, the fractured tales swirling around Tara Calico‘s disappearance have grown exponentially more intricate and barbed as the truth decayed over time. And the pivotal witnesses or proof required to firmly corroborate Brown‘s rendering will almost surely follow the teenage tennis prodigy herself to the grave.

Yet as Sheriff Carlos Maldonado conceded to NBC News in the aftermath of that fateful June 4th revelation, the police owe it to remaining survivors — especially Patty Calico — to pursue every last shred of possible confirmation around Martin Brown‘s account where legal and feasible. Closure remains tragically incomplete but inching closer for the family so emotionally ruined by Tara‘s unsolved mystery.

Perhaps above all else now, the community recognizes that for 30+ years a mother‘s unconditional love kept hope flickering.

What emerged in the final disconsolate chapter hardly erased the grief or restored what was brutally taken away.

Rather a valiant mother‘s faith despite the passage of youth and life itself kindled the dying embers — and through the last whispered words of an aged deputy granted a sliver of peace in her grieving spirit during those dwindling final years.

Justice delayed by the alleys and agendas of powerful men yet no longer fully denied. A town‘s collective conscience cleared marginally. And the unquiet memory of one remarkable teenage girl — frozen joyfully in her prime — mercifully laid to rest at long last by a single courageous confession.

35-Year-Old Missing Girl Case Solved in 2023

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