Tarasha “Pooh” Benjamin was a 17-year-old female from Selma, Alabama, last seen on June 26, 2010, in Dallas County. She was a Black teenager, about 5 feet 2 inches tall and 125 pounds, with black shoulder-length hair and brown eyes, and she may have worn colored contact lenses. Tarasha also had a distinctive “Pooh Bear” tattoo on her right shoulder.
On the morning she disappeared, she was reportedly wearing blue jean shorts, a turquoise and lime green shirt, gladiator sandals, and likely a silver necklace. Official missing-person listings identify her case as NamUs MP8618 and NCMEC case 1151013, with the Selma Police Department listed as the investigating agency.
That Saturday began with ordinary plans. Tarasha was known to go to the flea market, and accounts of the case say she left home that morning intending to go there. Some public summaries state that she stopped at a yard sale along the way and encountered a relative who borrowed her phone to make a call; whether she ever reached the flea market has remained unclear. The last confirmed thread of her day appears to be this short trip through familiar places in Selma, a routine errand that turned into a lasting absence. Her family’s worry grew quickly when she did not return or make contact, and her mother’s concern became part of the early story of the case, as relatives and others began trying to determine where Tarasha had gone.
A major piece of the investigation centered on the gray Mazda Tribute connected to Tarasha’s disappearance. Public case summaries report that the vehicle was later recovered, with some sources placing it along Route 80 or Cecil Jackson Bypass, about a mile from the flea market. Reports describe the vehicle as abandoned and disturbed, with details varying by source, including accounts that it appeared rummaged through and had damage such as missing windows or a broken driver-side door handle. The discovery raised deeper concern because Tarasha herself was not with the vehicle, and the car’s location seemed to suggest she had come close to her intended destination but vanished before the morning could be accounted for.
As the years passed, Tarasha’s case remained open and painful for those who loved her. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children continued to circulate her poster, including an age-progressed image showing how she may have looked at age 20, and NamUs continued to list her as missing from Selma with the last-contact date of June 26, 2010. The Charley Project notes that her disappearance was considered extremely uncharacteristic and that foul play has been suspected; it also reports that authorities did not believe she remained in the local area after extensive searches failed to locate her. Public summaries have mentioned theories, including possible trafficking or the involvement of someone she may have been dating, but no public source confirms exactly what happened to Tarasha.
Tarasha Benjamin’s disappearance remains the story of a young woman who left home in Selma for what should have been a normal Saturday trip and never came back. She was 17, known by the affectionate nickname “Pooh,” and remembered through details that make the case deeply human: the clothes she was wearing, the tattoo on her shoulder, the routine flea-market plans, the vehicle found without her, and the unanswered questions left behind. The known facts form a troubling but incomplete path from her home, to a possible stop at a yard sale, toward the flea market, and then to an abandoned vehicle and silence. In overview, Tarasha Benjamin was last seen on June 26, 2010, in Selma, Alabama; she was a 17-year-old female whose disappearance has remained unresolved in public records, with investigators and loved ones still left without a confirmed explanation for where she went or what happened to her.Last Seen: Jun 26, 2010
