![]() While he wasn't on the force when Tara initially disappeared, he began his career the next year and began receiving information about the disappearance. It was extremely hard on her, but she never gave up hope - she never quit."Īnother person who has never given up trying to find answers in the case is Valencia County Sheriff Rene Rivera. "It's been a rough 20 years, especially on Patty. We were both commissioned as auxiliary deputies. "It allowed us to do two things - to carry weapons and also to be able to contact any other law enforcement agency on behalf of the sheriff's department regarding the case. "We were both deputized after Tara's disappearance and were able to investigate the case," John Doel said of himself and Patty. They pleaded for any kind of information, appearing on national television and investigating the case themselves. In the days, months and years following Tara's disappearance, her family never gave up working on finding out what happened to her. But I just kept thinking that she was going to come back." I didn't think that she was missing until later on that evening when I started to realize how serious it was. "I just assumed that she maybe had gone a different way and that we were going to find her. "I didn't understand what was going on," she said. ![]() The house was in chaos - people going in and out. Michele remembers being briefly filled in that Tara hadn't come home from her bike ride and that people were out looking for her. They picked me up, and when we got home, there was a bunch of cops." "I remember one of my sister's best friends and her boyfriend came to get me from school. "I was 15, a sophomore in high school," Michele remembered. Needless to say, Tara wasn't there - she wasn't anywhere. When Tara failed to return home, Patty went out looking for her, thinking that she would find her walking home with a disabled bike. She took her mother's pink Huffy bicycle because her bike had developed a flat a day or two before. On the morning of her disappearance, Tara left her Rio Communities house at about 9:30 a.m. She was described as a very intelligent young woman who was athletic, outgoing and had many friends. She was a sophomore in college, worked at a local bank and had plans to become a psychologist. Tara Leigh Calico was 19 years old when she disappeared. And being that so much time has gone by, I didn't think it was practical that she was still alive." "We would discuss it frequently, and I would tell her my reasons that if she (Tara) was able to, she would have contacted us. "Patty knew that I felt that way, but she continued to hope to hear from her," he said. He said if Tara could have come home, she would have. While Patty never gave up hope that her daughter was alive, John said he's felt for years that Tara didn't survive whatever happened to her. "Whoever knows something about this, I hope that they come forward because, as hard as it's been on them to live with that information, they have no idea how hard it's been for our family," she said. And if Tara isn't alive, her sister just prays that she didn't suffer long. Michele's hope is that if Tara is still alive, that she's not suffering. Statistically, the odds are against her, and if she's not alive, we still need to know where she is." It's hard just not having closure and not knowing what happened. "If I'm driving down the street and I see someone who possibly resembles her, I find myself watching them - staring. "It's gotten harder because we still don't know," said Tara's younger sister, Michele Doel. Even after 20 years, Tara's family still thinks about her every day. ![]() ![]() Patty and John Doel moved to Florida five years ago, leaving behind the community that had stood by their sides since the day Tara disappeared. "She was still concerned, and she still expected Tara to walk in at any time." "We passed notes back and forth for about eight months, but after that it was more difficult to communicate," Doel said in a telephone interview. Her husband John, Tara's stepfather, said Patty had severe dementia and wasn't able to speak for the last year of her life. Patty Doel died in Port Charles, Fla., at the age of 64 in May 2006 from complications from a series of strokes she had suffered. The University of New Mexico-Valencia Campus student never returned home, leaving her family and an entire community to wonder and wait for any word about her fate. Twenty years ago today, Tara Calico disappeared into thin airĬlara Garcia News-Bulletin Staff Writer Patty Doel died two years ago, she still had hopes that her daughter, Tara Calico, was alive and would be found.Īfter 20 years of searching and praying, Tara's family still has no answer to the mystery of what happened to their bright beautiful daughter who vanished in broad daylight on her daily bicycle ride on N.M.
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