This has been driving me nuts for a while, but I can’t seem to hit on the right search terms to find it on Google (or anywhere!).
Some years ago, I’m guessing late 80s, maybe early 90s, I saw a feature (probably on Unsolved Mysteries) about a photo that someone had found, in a hotel room I think. The pic was of a young boy and a slightly older girl, bound and gagged. Nobody knew who the kids were, where they were, if it was a hoax, if they were safe, etc. etc.
I’ve mentioned this to a few friends; most didn’t even remember the photo and one did, but had also heard nothing about a resolution or debunking. I’ve spent hours on missing kids web sites trying to find out. I know it’s a morbid thing, but with all the coverage of abductions and murders this summer it came back to the surface (in my mind, anyway).
Does this ring a bell for anyone? I’m still hoping it was faked, though I can’t imagine who’d fake something like that.
Um…pornographers? That would be my guess. Sad to say, there are people who get off on that kind of thing, and who will pay $$$ for that kind of photo, and there are folks out there who are more than happy to supply their needs, and who, sad to say, don’t have to kidnap kids for it, since they just use their own, or the neighbor kids.
“Don’t worry about it” would be my advice. If they really were abducted children, they’d have turned up on one of the “missing kids” websites. So they were almost certainly models, whether they were also sexually abused, or whether they simply posed for the pictures.
Rosebud, I remember a similar case, but I remember that the photo was found in a parking lot. There was a lot in the press about the authorities attempting to identify the kids.
IIRC, it was shown on an episode of America’s Most Wanted and they thought they knew the names of the kids. (How they could tell from that photo, I don’t know, it was pretty hard to identify the kids.)
I remember that photo! The terrified look on the girl’s face sent chills up my spine.
I think Tuckerfan is right about it being on America’s Most Wanted. If I am thinking of the right story, somebody found the picture in a parking lot and reported it to the police. I really wish I could nail down the specifics, but it has been a long time since I’ve even thought about that picture.
The America’s Most Wanted website has archives, but they only seem to go back to 1998 at the earliest. Maybe you could try sending an email to them?
mudcrutch, that’s it! I’m reading the article now… how did you find that? Any search term I came up with gave me hundreds of hits that weren’t that one.
DDG–
That’s what made it stick with me, the fact that it hadn’t turned up… that these kids, if they were in danger, have been forgotten by most of the world once a tabloid show got an episode out of the photo.
I searched Google for bound and gagged “parking lot” photo and that page was the second link.
It was probably the “parking lot” part that you never looked for. Anyway, I tried looking up the kids’ names to see if they were ever found. Apparently not. I ran across a bunch of other pages about abducted children. The sheer number of cases like these is scary. And so many of them are never found. It is very sad.
Tara Calico’s picture and information is on the Nation’s Missing Children Organization website. Couldn’t find anything for Michael though. If you look at the picture on the NMCO website and the photo of the girl bound and gagged… there is quite a similarity. I wonder if A Current Affair has ever done a follow-up on that story.
The child named Michael (sorry, I can’t remember his last name) wandered off in a blizzard in the Cibola Wilderness in New Mexico in 1988. After the photo was found his parents thought he had been kidnapped and was alive somewhere, but in June of 1990 his remains were discovered under a bush not far from where he disappeared. As there was no sign of trauma the coroner ruled that he had died of hypothermia.
If they really were abducted children, they’d have turned up on one of the “missing kids” websites. So they were almost certainly models, whether they were also sexually abused, or whether they simply posed for the pictures.
I ran across a bunch of other pages about abducted children. The sheer number of cases like these is scary. And so many of them are never found. It is very sad.