Boy Hunting Lizards In Desert Discovers Polaroid Of Mutilated Woman

ADELANTO, CA — A boy in search of lizards while on a desert hike with his family instead stumbled upon a Polaroid photo of a naked woman who had what appeared to be bruising and a gaping stab wound to her chest.

Enedina Alba said she has shared the disturbing photo on social media in hopes someone would recognize the possible victim of foul play and so it won’t get “swept under the rug.”

“I am posting because this is someone's loved one,” she wrote on Facebook. “I would like to know I did all I can for this person. Alive or Gone she needs help.”

On October 13, Alba explained, she and her kids went for a walk in the desert surrounding Adelanto, a California town nine miles from Victorville in San Bernardino County.

“My stepson was looking around trying to find lizards under things. He came to a piece of thin wood and found a Polaroid picture of a woman Naked with bruises all over one being a line bruise under her chin and what appeared to be a stab mark or maybe a piece missing from her chest,” Alba wrote on social media.

“Needless to say she either was dead or severely injured,” Alba continued. “She has a four leaf clover tattoo which I knew would be a good identifying mark and looks like blonde short hair.”

Missing Persons of America noted Alba called police, who came and took the photo.

But when Alba failed to hear or read anything else about the case, she returned to the area and discovered detectives never collected a sock she had pointed out near where the photo was found.

“I thought they would make some news about it to try and identify the woman or at least poke around,” Alba wrote on Facebook, “but the next day we went back to see what happened and they didn't overturn the dirt or take the sock.”

The mystery photo recalls the case of Tara Calico, the 19-year-old woman who went missing after going for a bike ride in Belen, New Mexico, on September 20, 1988.

The following June, a Polaroid photo showing a female and a young boy with their hands and mouths duct-taped turned up in a supermarket parking lot 1,600 miles away in Port St. Joe, Florida. Calico’s mom, Patty Doel, believed the girl in the photo may have been her daughter, especially since there was a book pictured by the missing girl’s favorite author.

The case remains unsolved.

If you are in search of a missing person, make sure to enter their information into the database of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

Read more: Missing Persons of America