Katharina Buczek
Tarasha Benjamin was a well-known and well-liked 17-year-old in her hometown of Selma, Alabama. She also enjoyed frequenting a local flea market every weekend. So, Saturday, June 26, 2010, started off no different.
That morning, the teen– who also went by the nickname “Pooh”– left her mother’s home sometime between 9:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Tarasha planned to visit the Selma Flea Market with a friend, Telisha, so the pair left in Telisha’s truck.
“For some reason, I just felt something, a feeling in my body that something was wrong,” recalled Tarasha’s mother, Regina.
By 11:00 a.m., Regina had not heard from her daughter, and her gut instinct had taken over. She decided to begin phoning relatives and friends– asking if anyone had seen Tarasha that morning.
Then, once Regina got in touch with one of her cousins and described the truck Tarasha had been in, she learned the vehicle had been spotted on Cecil Jackson Bypass.
According to Regina’s cousin, the car had just been sitting on the roadside.
“No one was in it. Now I’m thinking something happened,” Regina explained.
And by approximately 1:00 p.m., the mother’s worry only grew. At that time, Telisha and another friend traveled back to Regina’s house– asking where the 17-year-old was.
This pushed Regina to become alarmed since it was very uncharacteristic of Tarasha to fall out of contact.
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