FL FL - Tara Exposito, 14, Gulfport, 6 November 2002

[coco]

Couldn't find any threads on this case so thought I would post-

-Tara Exposito*, missing since November 6 2002 from her family home in Gulfport, Florida

-Human remains discovered January 7 2003 in an East Hillsborough citrus grove

-Remains thought to be those of a white female, aged 12- 17 years of age. This Jane Doe was thought to have been dead for at least 6 months , possibly 2 years

- November 2003, remains found in citrus grove are confirmed to be those of missing 14 year old,Tara Exposito

-Tara's death ruled a homicide.

^That's just a brief summary of the case, anyone know of any other developments?

*Doenetwork spells last name as "Esposito"

 

[outofthedark]

Article on Tara:
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/11/23/Floridian/Who_is_she_How_did_sh.shtml

Identified Victims Internet Memorial- 2 parts (includes Tara, she's on pages 7-8):
http://www.angelfire.com/blues/meyahna/in_memory/index.album/in-memory?i=0

 

[Hiandmighty]

This is such a sad story. I hope her family can solve the puzzle about what happened and who murdered Tara.

 

[aThousandYearsWide]

Was her COD ever determined? Like did they ever find clothing remnants in the orange grove? If not, that points to homicide to me. If the victim was found naked. Also the article I read mentions her sweater was found in her driveway and hair tie was found a bit further away, that indicates a struggle to me.. I don't see a runaway throwing her sweater in the driveway before running off. It just seems strange to me.

 

[PayrollNerd]

Was her COD ever determined? Like did they ever find clothing remnants in the orange grove? If not, that points to homicide to me. If the victim was found naked. Also the article I read mentions her sweater was found in her driveway and hair tie was found a bit further away, that indicates a struggle to me.. I don't see a runaway throwing her sweater in the driveway before running off. It just seems strange to me.

She must have tried to pull away and the sweater was effectively torn off of her. She must have been so scared. Poor girl.

 

[PayrollNerd]

Who is she? How did she die?

The skeleton was scattered across a citrus grove in East Hillsborough - a femur, a finger, a jawbone nestled in a tangle of highlighted hair. Sun had bleached the bones. The skull lay on its left side, tilted toward a rotting orange.

Fragmented remains of a life, now barely recognizable as human.

Detective Dale Bunten arrived on the scene Jan. 8, a day after a young man stumbled across the skeleton and called the police.

Bunten called in the medical examiner, who measured the size and shape of the skull and the growth plates in the pelvis. He said the bones belonged to a white female, age 12 to 17. She had been dead for at least six months, maybe as long as two years.

"Neighbors told us that grove hadn't been worked in more than a year," Bunten would say later. "But you have to wonder how this person was out here for that long, and no one discovered it."

Finding only bones is unusual. So is finding the remains of such a young girl. Bunten had no idea who she was or what she might have looked like. He had no tissue, no fingerprints. He gave her the usual police name for an unidentified female: Jane Doe.

It would take almost a year of steady, determined work for Bunten to learn her identity. What he discovered would solve a year-old mystery and break the hearts of a family in Pinellas County.

Jane Doe turned out to be somebody after all.

 

[PayrollNerd]

Her Find A Grave. What an adorable smile!
Tara Exposito (1989-2002) - Find A Grave Memorial

 

[PayrollNerd]

Death Masks
When Tara Exposito, 14, went missing from her family home in Gulfport, Fla., in November 2002, officers at first considered her a runaway. Even when the skeleton of what was determined to be a small-framed, teenage girl was discovered in East Hillsborough, about an hour’s drive away, it wasn’t at first linked to Tara’s disappearance.

It took the perseverance of Det. Dale Bunten and the skill of forensic sculptor Wesley Neville, a lieutenant at the Florence County (S.C.) Sheriff’s Office, to link the remains to the girl.
First, Bunten sent the girl’s skull to Neville, a full-time certified forensic artist. Neville reconstructed the girl’s face, using markers and clay to flesh out her unique features.

“Upon completion of the reconstruction, I sent the package back to the Florida investigator in charge of the case,” says Neville. “Then, while searching through various missing persons Websites, I came across Tara’s photo, and the likeness was uncanny to that of the reconstruction that I had just completed. The investigators obtained DNA from Tara’s mother, submitted the sample to the FBI lab for analysis, and the match was confirmed.”

 

[PayrollNerd]

History

2003 A local teenager disappeared in what was believed to be a runaway case, and her decomposed body was found several months later in a Hillsborough County orange grove. The remains went unidentified for quite some time until a forensic artist applied a clay mask to the skull and noticed the resemblance to photos of the missing girl, Tara Exposito. The cause of her death has yet to be determined.

 

[StarrChance]

It really doesn’t sound good, she must have had a troubled life and in fear of her father.

 

[Sillybilly]

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