Resolved FL - Port St Joe, 2 Children 96UMFL & 66UFFL, bound & gagged in photo, Jun'89

[sony12]

I think this was a family on summer vacation and the kids were in back of van all set up for road trip and they all thought it would be funny to stage something like this.. maybe it was going to be an inside joke for family members and the picture fell out of van! Family gets home and sees their photos all over the news and they're like uhoh we are in trouble! 20 years later send photos to police station as a joke amongst each other

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Could have really been anything from a family on vacation to just a group of kids messing around in their basement with a camera. Again we know virtually nothing about the history of the photo and everything is only assumed as there was no one to back up anybodies story. For all we know the whole thing about it being found in a parking lot where a white van was parked could have been entirely made up as we know absolutely nothing about the person that supposedly found the pic (she just disappeared after the photo was found and now is just as big of a ghost as the two kids in the pic are).

As far as the 2009 pic I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that the person in that pic is the same individual as the one in the '89 photo.

 

[Copper]

I think that until it's proven otherwise, it must be assumed that that girl and boy were being held against their will in the picture.

 

[sony12]

I think that until it's proven otherwise, it must be assumed that that girl and boy were being held against their will in the picture.

Shows how opinions can vary when it comes to this photograph. I think it is better to find reasons as to why it wasn't real than it is to assume it was. After all its not like much of anything could be done now regarding the situation. The girl would likely be in her early to mid forties and the boy would be in his mid to late thirties. The two would probably be like those kids from that movie 'Garden of the Night' (if they were still alive).

 

[dotr]

Shows how opinions can vary when it comes to this photograph. I think it is better to find reasons as to why it wasn't real than it is to assume it was. After all its not like much of anything could be done now regarding the situation. The girl would likely be in her early to mid forties and the boy would be in his mid to late thirties. The two would probably be like those kids from that movie 'Garden of the Night' (if they were still alive).

[video=youtube;GQQ0GLUhyZs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQQ0GLUhyZs[/video]

 

[sony12]

[video=youtube;GQQ0GLUhyZs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQQ0GLUhyZs[/video]

Very good movie. Definitely disturbing though and some may not want to watch it because of that but if you are willing to give the material a chance it is a good character study of what some of these children grow up to be like when they get older.

It's a completely fictional story but the director based it off of his research that he did back in the '80's of some kids that were running the streets in California.

 

[sony12]

Here is a video from a guy who I have watched a few episodes of about his take on the polaroid picture and mainly the Tara Calico case. Some of you may have seen his videos and he possibly may even post on this board. He seems to go into a good amount of detail in his videos which makes them worth watching. In anycase he says it is hard for him to take the photograph very seriously because he said images like that are extremely easy to fake and he says the kids don't really look all that authentic. And he also doesn't think it has much correlation to the Tara Calico case. He does go into some details about the Calico case that I had never heard before.

[video=youtube;OebWns0yj_w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OebWns0yj_w[/video]

 

[jccoa1999]

Tara calico had a lazy eye and It Doesn't look like this girl does! Tara calico was 19 when she disappeared and this girl looks only to be 14-15 years old! I don't even know why Tara calico is even a thought on this one! Oh because she liked v.c Andrews..who didn't back then at that age!

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[sony12]

Tara calico had a lazy eye and It Doesn't look like this girl does! Tara calico was 19 when she disappeared and this girl looks only to be 14-15 years old! I don't even know why Tara calico is even a thought on this one! Oh because she liked v.c Andrews..who didn't back then at that age!

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Tara's mom wanted to believe it was her because it gave her hope that her daughter was still out there somewhere. Completely understandable.

In anycase it does make you wonder if this photo never got attached to the Calico case would anybody even remember it anymore? Would it have even ever of found its way to the internet? After all I'm sure there are thousands of other potential 'hoax' photographs out there just like this one but we don't know about them because they never got attached to any particular legit cases.

 

[Daphne1972]

It' s not Tara but I think these children were abused one way or another. The girl is totally tense. I'm thinking foster children who had nobody. Also, because the pic could have been faked doesn't mean it has.

 

[jccoa1999]

I think they are siblings! They have same facial features! When I was a child, unfortunately my mother used to bring us kids to the bars with her so she could party..there were plenty of times where me and my brother used to play little jokes on her to get back at her! One night there was a fight in the bar and me and my brother were pretending to be asleep in the car! We saw 2 police looking in at us talking about us like do you think they're alive etc etc! Well they never checked on us they just left! I only added that story to this to give an example of how it was in the 80's with parents that partied while their kids sit in the car waiting to go home to go to bed!

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[Gravity Well]

Not sure if this has been confirmed in the past, so forgive me if I'm mentioning something that is already established.

The photo is definitely showing the inside of a 1980's Toyota Previa Cargo Van in white. I've found a listing for one that is currently for sale (http://www.2040-cars.com/toyota/previa/1987-toyota-previa-cargo-van-rare-white-1134801/) that happens to have a picture that is taken almost from the same angle as the June '89 photo.

You can see the "back plastic" feature on the wall just above the girls legs in the right hand corner, you can see the wooden panels behind the boy, the white panels match, and the elongated rounded holes in the white panels match. Counting the panels back the rear window is just out of view in the June 89 picture indicating this is the source of the light.

Wasn't it a white Toyota Cargo van that was mentioned by the person who found the picture?

Looking at the door handle in the picture, I thought there was some defect in the upper right corner as this should be smooth, however it looks like the reflection of an image of some kind, although I suspect impossible to make out what.

 

[jccoa1999]

Yes it was a white Toyota cargo van mentioned! I think it was mentioned that it didn't have back windows somewhere too! I saw some similar pics of van you posted when I was researching,I just don't know how to post pics! But ya DEF looks like they're in back of van!

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[Gravity Well]

It's also worth pointing out there are numerous versions of the June 89 photo floating around on the web. The majority, including the one on the first page of this thread are a cropped and zoomed in version:

This looses not only clarity but the detail that definitely shows it as the back of a white van that can be seen in the original:

The original also dispels some of the ideas that there is an animal behind the boy. The two "white dots" are rivets/screws holding the wood panel in place.

 

[ninij9]

It's also worth pointing out there are numerous versions of the June 89 photo floating around on the web. The majority, including the one on the first page of this thread are a cropped and zoomed in version:

This looses not only clarity but the detail that definitely shows it as the back of a white van that can be seen in the original:

The original also dispels some of the ideas that there is an animal behind the boy. The two "white dots" are rivets/screws holding the wood panel in place.

Wow, I don't remember the original photo. Clearly shows they are in a van.

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[Tbone144]

The original also seems to show daylight reflecting off the white upper left panel. With that angle wouldn't it be from that back window? And if it is from the back window, why wouldn't you crawl on your knees to let others know you are tied up in the back of a van? Although...it doesn't show their feet. Maybe they are tethered by their feet to something up front. I wonder what her feet are sitting on.

 

[Gravity Well]

Her feet are on the raised floor that is just out of view. You can see it on my earlier post of the Toyota van picture above

 

[DQN]

Maybe a family was traveling in the van. After all there is bedding, clean bedding. I don't know what kidnappers would have clean bedding let alone any.

Maybe an older sibling (brother) taped their mouths with tape they found in the back of the van and took the picture. When kids are traveling they get bored and come up with these stupid ideas. The girl looks like she may have been sleeping and just woke up and the boy's eyes looks like he may be smiling under that tape. The picture could have fallen out of the van at a rest stop. The girl also has a paperback book next to her (something you take on a long trip), plenty of families travel to Florida from up North all the time.

 

[sony12]

If that new photo is real it looks even more staged than it did before. There seems to be a whole lot more light in the picture than the older photos indicates (which seems to try to give off a much grimmer light tone like the kids are being tucked a way in the dark somewhere).

What we thought was a shoe is actually a boom box (which was something that teens coveted back in those days). That to go along with the fact that there is a book for them to read and cups back there as well. And if there was a window in the back this entire time that further dispells the rumor that this was an actual kidnapping.

I'm wondering if the photo got altered a bit at some point to make it look more ominous than it really was (bring in more of a dark and gloomy light tone).

Gravity Well I do have to bring up something else. I have been looking up this photo for a little over a year now. Have spent a fair amount of time searching for various different images of it and as far as I can tell the image you just posted is not on the web. This photo has been discussed on the internet pretty much for as long as the internet has been around and as far as I can tell nobody has ever brought up this new image you just posted.

So I do have to ask you are you connected to this photo in some way? Are you perhaps one of the kids in this photo? I see you just joined the forum yesterday seemingly to post that photo. A photo that is extremely hard to find on the net and perhaps it is not on the net at all

 

[Gravity Well]

Hi sony12. I lifted the original image straight from Tara Calico's wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Calico

I'm sure a hi-res scan of the actual Polaroid would reveal even more detail. There is a post somewhere that mentions a partial phone no. was on the spine of the book. You can't even make out the title of the book from that photo, which would indicate there is a much clearer version available.

 

[Gravity Well]

I think the item behind the boys head is a black/gray holdall/gymbag. Had a look around the web, and it looks remarkably like a Nike holdall from that era: