For 30 years, all anyone had was a police sketch and a tarp. It took one determined son-in-law and the early internet to finally give her a name.
Barbara Ann "Bobbie" Hackmann Taylor, known for decades only as "Tent Girl," was found murdered near Georgetown, Kentucky, on May 17, 1968. She remained unidentified for nearly 30 years until amateur researcher Todd Matthews identified her in 1998 — a case widely credited with helping inspire the modern online missing-persons and unidentified-remains movement. Her murder remains unsolved.
A Discovery Along the Highway
Wilbur Riddle was scavenging for glass insulators along U.S. Route 25 when he found a decomposing body wrapped in a heavy green canvas tarpaulin, the kind that might be used for a tent. An autopsy determined she had died of asphyxiation and showed signs of a severe beating. Investigators couldn't identify her or develop any suspects despite publicizing her description, and after three years without leads, she was buried in Georgetown Cemetery in 1971 under a donated headstone bearing a police sketch of what she might have looked like in life, inscribed simply "TENT GIRL."
A Son-in-Law's Long Search
Riddle's discovery haunted him for decades, and his son-in-law, Todd Matthews, became fascinated with the case after marrying into the family in the late 1980s. As the internet developed through the 1990s, Matthews began searching missing-persons postings, eventually creating his own website dedicated to the Tent Girl case in 1997.
Identification
In 1998, Matthews came across an online posting from a family searching for a relative who had gone missing from Lexington, Kentucky, in late 1967 — roughly 15 miles from where the Tent Girl had been found. He contacted the family, whose description matched closely enough that authorities arranged to exhume the body. DNA testing confirmed the remains belonged to Barbara Ann Hackmann Taylor, 24 at the time of her death, a mother of an 8-month-old daughter who had been living in Lexington with her husband.
A Prime Suspect Who Was Never Charged
Barbara's husband, George Earl Taylor, a carnival worker, never filed a missing person report after she vanished, instead telling her family she had left him for another man. He became the prime suspect once her identity was confirmed, but he had died of cancer in October 1987, more than a decade before she was identified, and was never charged. Because of the family's suspicion of him, his name was deliberately left off the new memorial stone placed at Barbara's grave, which instead reads "Loving Mother, Grandmother & Sister."
A Lasting Legacy
Matthews's work identifying the Tent Girl helped inspire the creation of the Doe Network, an early volunteer-run online database matching missing persons with unidentified remains, which he co-founded. The case has since been credited as a foundational moment in the broader movement toward using online databases and DNA technology to identify unidentified victims, and was later featured on the Investigation Discovery series "Who Killed Jane Doe?"
Where Things Stand Now
Barbara's murder remains an active cold case with the Scott County Sheriff's Office, periodically reviewed as forensic technology advances, though no arrests have ever been made.
Frequently Asked Questions
Was Barbara Ann Hackmann Taylor's murder ever solved?
No. Her husband was considered the prime suspect but died before she was identified and was never charged. Her case remains an open cold case.
How was she finally identified?
Todd Matthews, son-in-law of the man who found her body, spent years researching the case online and matched her description to a missing-persons posting from her family in 1998, confirmed through DNA testing.
Did this case have a lasting impact beyond itself?
Yes. It helped inspire the founding of the Doe Network, an early online resource connecting missing-persons and unidentified-remains cases.