Lesser Known Mysteries V: Disturbing Disappearances

I'd been considering several topics for this installment but when it came time to compose the material, I found myself most interested in writing about two mysteries of a darker nature than those in the previous four threads in this series. Mystery and horror often go hand in hand and there is nothing I find more horrifying than knowing that walking among us are human monsters capable of depravity unthinkable to most.

I expect that beginning part VI, I'll return to a less macabre subject (at least until we get a bit closer to Halloween!). As always, if you enjoy this thread or reading about mysterious subjects in general, you may be interested in the previous installments of my ongoing series, Lesser Known Mysteries: Mysterious People, Enigmatic Inscriptions, Unexplained Artifacts and Strange Seas.


Diane Louise Augat

Diane Augat c.1998

On April 10, 1998 (Good Friday), Diane Louise Augat was seen leaving her residence in Pasco County, Florida on foot at approximately 11:00 AM, wearing a white tank top, blue shorts, a pair of sneakers and coral nail polish. Diane, a divorced mother of three and former homemaker, had a troubled past. She was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder in the early 80's, lost custody of her children in 1988 and had a history of drug addiction and alcohol abuse. Over the years, she'd been taken into custody by authorities on at least 32 occasions for psychiatric evaluation and had recently been released from a mental health facility.

A bartender at the Hay Loft Tavern told investigators that he'd seen Diane later the day she disappeared. According to various sources, she was seen again the following day — this time walking north near U.S. 19. According to published statements made by her sister, the police later confirmed that one of the last places she was known to have been was the Coral Sands Motel on U.S. 19. A waitress told police that two days later, on the afternoon of the April 13th, she'd seen Diane eating lunch at the Inn on the Gulf.

This is where things took a very strange turn.

Later on the 13th, a message from Diane was left on the answering machine of her mother, Mildred Young. In the message, she was recorded frantically pleading, "Help, help, let me out!" followed by the sounds of a brief scuffle and then Diane, speaking again, "Hey, gimme that!" before the call was ended. According to her mother, the name on the Caller ID was "Starlight" and when she called the number back, nobody answered. I have been unable to find any source detailing the results of the police investigation into the source of this call.

Three days later, on April 16th, a woman walking along U.S. 19, less than a quarter mile from the Coral Sands Motel, discovered two severed fingers. When the police arrived, only a single finger was recovered, amputated just above the knuckle, with the fingernail painted with a coral color nail polish. The finger, identified by prints as belonging to Diane Augat, was the middle finger of her right hand. About a week later, a bag containing Diane's neatly folded clothing was discovered in a freezer outside of a convenience store in nearby Odessa. Details on the final two possible clues to the disappearance of Diane Augat from The Charley Project:

In 2000, just one day after the St. Petersburg Times, a Florida newspaper, ran a story on Augat's disappearance, another bag was found at a Circle K convenience store in Pasco, Florida. It was discovered by Augat's brother's girlfriend. The clear zip-top plastic bag was labeled "Diane" in black marker, and contained black eyeliner, Taboo perfume, a tube of bright pink lipstick, and a tube of generic toothpaste. Augat's mother says the makeup and perfume were items her daughter would have owned, and she was issued a similar tube of toothpaste when she was released from a mental hospital a few weeks before she disappeared. Investigators have not been able to confirm that the bag or its contents were Augat's possessions, however.

One of the last places Augat was seen at before her disappearance was the Coral Sands Motel, which was managed by Gary Robert Evers and his girlfriend. In 2001, Evers was charged with murder; he allegedly shot and killed a man during an argument. He has no prior criminal record in the state Florida. Evers is considered a possible suspect in Augat's disappearance, but has not been charged in connection with it.

Additional Sources:

Pasco County Sheriff's Office
St. Petersburg Times (2000)
St. Petersburg Times (2010)
Missingin.org
North American Missing Persons Network

Tara Leigh Calico

On September 20, 1988, 19 year-old Tara Calico, a sophomore at the University of New Mexico, Valentia, left her home in Belen, New Mexico for her daily bike ride along Highway 47 at around 9:30 AM. Because her own bike had a flat tire, she borrowed her mother's neon pink Huffy. She asked her mother, Patty Doel, to come pick her up if she wasn't home by noon because she had plans to play tennis with her boyfriend at 1:00 PM. When she hadn't arrived at 12:05 PM, Patty Doel drove along her daughter's usual route and unable to locate Tara, she called police.

Witnesses reported seeing a dirty white or light gray 50's ford pick-up with a hand painted shell, appearing to follow Tara. It's unknown if the truck played any part in the disappearance as the truck has never been located. The following day, Patty Doel found a cassette from the band Boston on the side of the road, approximately three miles from her home and on the opposite side of the road — the side of the road Tara would have been travelling when she left. Near the cassette, she observed bike tracks and skid marks. The next clue was found nineteen miles from Highway 47, near the John F. Kennedy campground, where pieces of Tara's Sony Walkman were recovered by police. Patty Doel stated that she believed the pieces of the Walkman were possibly dropped by her daughter in an effort to mark her trail. The bicycle has never been located.

In the months immediately following her disappearance, there were several possible sightings of Tara, mostly in the southern states. Then in 1989, a truly chilling piece of evidence was found. From Wikipedia:

On June 15, 1989, a Polaroid photo of an unidentified young woman and a boy, both bound and gagged, was found in the parking lot of a convenience store in Port St. Joe, Florida. It was theorized that the woman in the photo was Calico and that the boy was Michael Henley, also of New Mexico, who had disappeared in April 1988. According to investigators, the picture had to have been taken after May 1989 because the particular film used in the photograph was not available until then. Despite much conjecture, the identification of the boy in the photograph as Henley seems unlikely because his remains were discovered in 1990 in the Zuni Mountains, about 7 miles from his family's campsite where he had disappeared, and 75 miles from where Calico disappeared. Police believe that Henley wandered off and died of exposure.[1]

Her mother believed the woman in the photo was indeed her daughter due in part to what appeared to be a scar on the woman's leg, similar to one Calico had received in a car accident. In addition, a paperback copy of V.C. Andrews' My Sweet Audrina, said to be one of Calico's favorite books, can be seen lying next to the woman. Scotland Yard analysed the photo and concluded that the woman was Calico, but a second analysis by the Los Alamos National Laboratory disagreed.[2] An FBI analysis of the photo was inconclusive.[3]

Two other Polaroid photographs, possibly of Calico, have surfaced over the years, but they have yet to be released to the public.[4]

Is this Tara Calico? If not, who is it and who is the boy?

Excerpted from The Charley Project:

The photograph was taken in the back of a white Toyota cargo van with no windows, manufactured in the late 1980s. Polaroid officials say the picture had to have been taken after May 1989; the film it was made of was not available until then. A copy of the V. C. Andrews novel My Sweet Audrina, a plastic cup, and a squirt gun are also visible in the photo. V. C. Andrews also happens to be Calico's favorite author. There is apparently a phone number written on the spine of the book, but some of the digits are unreadable. Experts say it could be 300 possible numbers, 57 of which are valid.

Authorities believe that the girl in the photo was seen walking along the beach in Port St. Joe shortly before the Polaroid was located. Witnesses said that the girl was accompanied by several unidentified adult Caucasian males who appeared to be giving her verbal orders. An unidentified boy was also pictured in the photo; both he and the girl were bound and gagged. The girl's photo and a computer-generated image of the boy are posted below this case summary.

Authorities believe that the girl in the photo was seen walking along the beach in Port St. Joe shortly before the Polaroid was located. Witnesses said that the girl was accompanied by several unidentified adult Caucasian males who appeared to be giving her verbal orders. An unidentified boy was also pictured in the photo; both he and the girl were bound and gagged.

The Federal Bureau Of Investigation (FBI) examined the photo and cannot determine whether the girl is Calico or the boy Henley. The girl's hairline and ear are similar to Calico's, and she has a mark on her calf similar to a scar Calico got from an car accident injury. It is not known whether the Polaroid was staged or whether the boy and girl were being held against their will.

Two other similar photographs have surfaced over the years. One Polaroid, made on film that was unavailable until June 1989, was found near a residential construction site in Montecito, California and depicted a girl's face with her mouth covered by duct tape. The image is blurry, but Doel said she thought the girl in the photo is her daughter. She has a cowlick on her right temple like Calico, and also a lazy eye like Calico has. The blue-striped fabric the girl is lying on is similar to the pillow in the first photo. The third Polaroid photograph was shot on film not available until February of 1990 shows a woman who is loosely bound in gauze and has her eyes covered with gauze and large black-framed glasses. There is a man sitting next to her on the passenger seat of an Amtrak train. Doel wasn't sure whether the girl in the photo was her daughter; she believed this photograph may be a cruel joke.

20 years after the disappearance of Tara Calico, the Valencia County Sheriff, Rene Rivera, announced that he had compelling information that Tara had been killed by a couple of young men she'd known from school. In this scenario, the young men were following too closely behind her in a truck and inadvertently struck her. They left the scene with Tara and when she threatened to go to the police, she was murdered, her body disposed of and the crime covered up. Many question the judgement of the sheriff in presenting his hypothesis as no body has been recovered and no suspects are expected to ever be named let alone charged and prosecuted. Without evidence, it seems to be just another hypothesis — the kind that could have originated from nothing more than gossip and baseless hearsay.

If the girl in the photo is Tara, what became of her? If not, who are the children in the photo and why has nobody ever come forward to identify them? What if anything is the significance of the book My Sweet Audrina?

This thread is nothing compared to what I found the other night.

WARNING DEEPLY DISTURBING**



www.youtube.com...

Emerald53, you are right! I always get Deeply Disturbed when I click on a non-existent video--deeply disturbed that my time has been wasted, that is! (Just teasing--but your link does not work)

OP, S&F. I have really enjoyed your series. Keep them coming, please.

Keep these threads coming mate



Don't know why they don't get more attention

originally posted by: Habit4ming

OP, S&F. I have really enjoyed your series. Keep them coming, please.

originally posted by: Thefarmer
Keep these threads coming mate

Don't know why they don't get more attention

Thanks for the support, I'll keep them coming. I think I might have chosen a bad time to post these last two!

a reply to: Emerald53

Albert Fish is exactly the type of sadistic sociopath that I was referring to in the OP. I already have some ideas for a thread on lesser known unsolved serial murders that I'm saving for the week or so before Halloween. Albert Fish is at the top of anyone's list of the most deranged and depraved: kidnapper, murderer, pedophile, cannibal, sadistic (physiological and psychological) torturer, masochistic self-mutilator, etc but he's got a bit too much notoriety for me to cover in a thread.

My Sweet Audrina is a 1982 novel by V. C. Andrews. It was the only standalone novel without incest published during Andrews' lifetime. It was a number one best-selling novel in North America, published in between If There Be Thorns and Seeds of Yesterday, before the publication of Heaven. The story takes place in the Southeastern United States during the 1960s—70s. The story features diverse real-world subjects such as brittle bone disease, rape, posttraumatic stress disorder, diabetes and autism in the haunting setting of a Victorian era mansion near the fictitious River Lyle.

-From Wiki

May be some clues in the book. Who knows?

nice series OP. but ive already heard of this case... you owe me another one.
*first world problems-meanwhile people are being abducted by psychopaths*

I do NOT agree with that sberiffs analysis... Why the photo(s) if it was a simple hit and run cover up? This was a twisted individual or group. Why even take photos of something you are trying to cover up? They left the photos to torment the family OR took them to relive the crime, but the victim somehow got a hold of it and left it as a clue.

For emeralds post, the link below the embed works. Its about some maniac named Albert Fish...

a reply to: theantediluvian

You referenced this thread on another, thanks! Well deserving of a bump.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Most likely white slavery.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: Emerald53

Albert Fish is exactly the type of sadistic sociopath that I was referring to in the OP. I already have some ideas for a thread on lesser known unsolved serial murders that I'm saving for the week or so before Halloween. Albert Fish is at the top of anyone's list of the most deranged and depraved: kidnapper, murderer, pedophile, cannibal, sadistic (physiological and psychological) torturer, masochistic self-mutilator, etc but he's got a bit too much notoriety for me to cover in a thread.

I never knew about many of this country's evil people until my father got a hardcover book from a friend called "Bloodletters and Badmen" back in 1979. It is an amazing, disturbing but accurate account of so many of these folks. If you haven't yet read it, I highly recommend it. It's described as a narrative encyclopedia and the author is Jay Robert Nash.

Bloodlette rs and Badmen