Tara Calico Went for a Bike Ride in 1988 and Never Came Home. Inside the Cold Case — and the Ominous Warning She Gave Her Mom

It’s been over 30 years since Tara Leigh Calico disappeared while on a bike ride in her hometown of Belen, New Mexico, and police have still not made any arrests in her case.

“I believe that Tara’s case has been a huge misjustice within the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office,” Calico’s childhood friend, Melinda Esquibel, told The Sun in June 2023. “[I] hope that now the right people are working this case so justice can be served.”

The investigation has gone through many twists and turns since the 19-year-old college student vanished in September 1988. While former sheriffs suggested a group of local boys might have attacked her, a troubling photograph found a thousand miles away made her family wonder if she had been kidnapped along with a young boy.

Neither idea has ever been proven, leaving Calico’s family and friends still searching for answers while remembering who she was.

“Tara had a bright light around her,” Esquibel said. “She was fun, serious, smart, playful, and kind. That is how I remember her … She showed me kindness and I will never forget that. She showed me kindness when she didn’t have to.”

Calico disappeared after a routine bike ride

On September 20, 1988, Calico left her home at 9:30 a.m. for her usual 36-mile bike ride, according to the Valencia County News-Bulletin. She told her mother, Patty Doel, to pick her up if she wasn’t back by noon because she had plans to play tennis with her boyfriend.

The last time anyone saw her alive was at 11:45 a.m.

When Calico didn’t return home, her mother searched along the bike route and called the police. Her Sony Walkman and cassette tape were found along the way, but neither she nor her bike were ever seen again.

Witnesses reported a pickup truck following her

Several people saw Calico during her ride, and some reported that a light-colored Ford pickup truck was following her. Other witnesses said “threatening” notes had been left on her vehicle. Her mother even stopped cycling with her after worrying that she was being stalked and encouraged her to carry mace, according to The Sun.

“I knew, my parents knew, immediately that some foul play had happened,” Chris Calico, her older brother, told PEOPLE in 2018. “We didn’t have any idea what.”

A disturbing Polaroid was found months later

Ten months after she went missing, a Polaroid photo of a woman who looked like Calico was found in a Florida convenience store parking lot. The woman was tied up and gagged, lying next to a young boy who seemed to be in the same situation. They appeared to be in the back of a van.

The photo made national news in July 1989, and her family believed it showed Tara. Her stepfather, John Doel, reported it to the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office.

“When people ask me, ‘Is that her?’ If I had to say yes or no definitively: Yes, that is her,” Michele Doel, Calico’s stepsister, told PEOPLE in July 2023. “Does it make sense? No. That’s not the story that makes sense.”

The Polaroid was analyzed several times, including by the FBI, but the results were inconclusive. The sheriff’s office focused on local suspects rather than the photo.

Another New Mexico family believed the boy in the photo was 9-year-old Michael Henley, who had disappeared on a hunting trip with his father in April 1988. His remains were found two years later. Neither the boy nor the woman in the photo has ever been positively identified.

Police suspected someone she knew

Former Valencia County Sheriff Rene Rivera, who handled the case from 1996 to 2011, believed Calico was killed by at least two local teenage boys and two helpers. He claimed the boys’ families helped cover up the crime and that Tara was buried somewhere in Valencia County.

Esquibel also believes a group of local boys stalked Calico after she rejected one of them.

In 1998, a judge officially declared Calico dead and ruled her death a homicide, according to KOAT.

Years later, in fall 2021, investigators executed a sealed search warrant tied to her case at a local home, as reported by the Valencia County News-Bulletin.

Police say they have identified “the offenders”

In June 2023, the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office said they had made “substantial progress” in Calico’s case and had enough evidence to send to the district attorney for possible charges, according to the Valencia County News-Bulletin.

Lead investigator Lt. Joseph Rowland told The Sun that new evidence from work starting in October 2020 led them to believe they had “identified the offenders associated with Tara Calico’s disappearance.”

“We are seeking to charge and arrest the offenders,” he said. “This case has obvious challenges due to its age and circumstances … A body has yet to be found. No DNA was recovered in the initial investigation.”

Lt. Rowland still believes the case is solvable because so many people have continued to talk about it over the past three decades.

“Belen was a much smaller town in 1988, and almost everyone knew each other,” he explained. “I believe that the person or persons responsible for her disappearance are local.”

Her mother died believing the Polaroid was real

Until her death in 2006, Doel believed her daughter was the woman in the Polaroid. Even after moving to Florida, she kept a bedroom ready for Tara and brought her gifts for birthdays and Christmas.

“Mom really did not want to believe she was dead, period,” Chris told PEOPLE. “And [even] photographic evidence of a young woman alive — even though she’s in extremis — is something to latch onto.”

After her mother’s death, Michele started a podcast about Calico’s case with Esquibel. They now believe they know what happened.

“I feel like me and my team have solved the case, but I am not the authorities, and there is not much I can do about making arrests,” Esquibel told The Sun. She added she had information about a possible abduction planned by a group of boys four days before Calico went missing.

“This would mean it was premeditated and thought out,” she said.