Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Tent Girl

Episode Date: February 19, 2018

On May 17, 1968, a woman was found in the woods, murdered and wrapped in tent fabric. For over 30 years she remained unidentified in a Kentucky grave with a donated headstone that bore the name "Tent Girl". But 90s internet and a superhero named Todd come together to give this girl a name and give her family the answers they waited so many decades for. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-tent-girl/    

Music Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Crime Junkie. I am your host, Ashley Flowers, joined by Britt. Hi, everyone. And just a couple of housekeeping things. If you haven't signed up for our newsletter, then you missed the fact that we're doing our first meetup about a month from now on March 10th in Indianapolis, Indiana. So if you're interested in coming out, hanging out with us and talking to your crime, make sure you go to our Facebook page and RSVP for the event. Can't wait to see you guys. This episode of Crime Junkie is brought to you by Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana.

So now that you know a little bit about Crime Stoppers, if you had to guess, where do you think they get their funding? Since they work so closely with police, I would have to assume that they're either state-funded or they get some money back from a police program. No, they actually are 100% a non-profit and they get no money from the police and no money from the state. Wow. And they can still function with that? Yeah. So they get actually all their money. Even though Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana works closely with police and is literally responsible for thousands of arrests, they receive no government funding. All of their funding comes

from listeners like you. They're a 501c3, so all donations are tax-deductible. And as we're rolling in to 2018 and you're deciding where you're going to donate your time and money, consider getting involved with your local Crime Stoppers. And if you want more information on volunteering or donating to Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana, go to CrimeTips.org. Okay, Britt, this week I have a really good story that kind of gives us answers at the end, which is so not a Crime Junkie thing, but you're going to love it. So it starts with a Jane Doe and the story begins on May 17th of 1968. A man named Wilbur Riddle is out in Georgetown, Kentucky off of Route 25. He was there to work as a water well driller, but he had some time to kill. So he went around collecting these glass

insulators off of the ground that the telephone workers were discarding. He had like a friend that could use them in some kind of collection art weird thing he was doing. But as he's working, he's off the main road kind of in like a wooded area. And he's walking around and he comes across this large object wrapped in a green canvas tarp and rope. And as soon as he gets close, there was this horrible odor of decay. He nudges it with his foot because obviously he's terrified. I mean, I think like anyone who comes across a body shape tarp, they know what they're getting into. But he nudges this object and it rolls down this slope. And as soon as it hits the end, it exposes the body of a white female who's decomposing and totally nude. Wilbur immediately

drove to the sheriff's office to report what he found. When they got to the scene, they found that they didn't have a lot to work with. She was curled up into the fetal position, very decomposed to the point where her eyes had already rotted away. Oh my goodness. I know. And her skin was dark and deteriorating. She was totally nude, nothing to identify her, no purse, no jewelry, absolutely nothing. The police only had two things to go off of. The first were her fingerprints. But she was so decomposed that they had to actually rehydrate her skin with chemicals to produce a proper print. But even then a print is only helpful if you have something to compare it to. Exactly. And they didn't have anything to compare it to. The only

other thing they had to go off of were her dental records. And her teeth had a slight gap in the middle and showed some signs of decay. So at least they were a little distinctive. And again, there's no like dental database, but they had this to go off of when maybe they could find like a missing person that would compare to it. When they finally get an autopsy done, they find that she's about five one, a little over 100 pounds, likely between ages 16 and 18 years old. And she's been dead about two weeks to two months by the time they found her. Her decomposition actually had kept them from finding the cause of death. There weren't any obvious wounds like a gunshot or a knife. And I would assume that they would be able to tell if she had died from like blunt force trauma

by examining her skull. But with whatever means they were working with back in 1968, they couldn't make any kind of determination. The sheriff realizes pretty soon that they're in no way equipped to handle this case. This is a really small town in Kentucky. And they normally deal with like petty theft, sometimes domestic violence, or dispute. And in a small town, they have literally not even had any death investigations. So they don't feel like they're equipped to handle one of this size. So they call in the state police, which was like, Bravo, good call. Yeah, definitely. State police try to track down some evidence based on what she was wrapped in. But they come up with nothing. The rope that they found can be found at any local hardware store. And the tarp that she was

wrapped in was actually this cloth material that's often used in like tents back in the day, like at carnivals or fairs or whatever. And this is how she actually got the name tent girl. And this unidentified girl will go on for years and years and years to be known as tent girl. They start trying to match this girl to missing persons reports. And I know it's common knowledge like in my head, I know that in 1968, they didn't have computers much less like any kind of database to work through. But for whatever reason, it like rocked me when I was reading and realized they're actually going through this index card Rolodex one by one. And each one has like a missing person's name, their height, their weight, like a kind of a description. And if they were really

lucky, it included a picture. But most of the time, it was literally just these index cards. It's like flashcards. Yeah. And they had thousands of them and just for the state of Kentucky. So keep in mind, I mean, if this girl's from out of state, they would have to call each individual state, give them a picture of the autopsy, describe this girl to them, and then have each state go through their Rolodex. It's just mind blowing. When you think about today, it's I mean, it's so hard to identify someone today. But in 1968, it was literally literally manpower and time to flip through and read all these cards. That's insane. Exactly. So they dump a ton of time into trying to match this girl to a missing person report. But they come up with nothing. They eventually

have her buried in an unmarked grave while they continue their investigation. And they ask a local policeman, who's kind of like an artist in his free time, it's like a hobby, to look at the autopsy photos and try and make a sketch of what she could have looked like when she was alive. So they can distribute this nationally because at this point, they're like, we really don't believe she's from Kentucky. So this guy is like an artist in his free time. Now he's got this girl's like life in his hands after death. So like no pressure. I've got a picture of his sketch on our website. And while it's good, the problem is she just looks very common. But they send it out anyways. And these posters are put up and made like nationwide. They get a ton of calls and tips,

but nothing really solid until some detectives call from Maryland. And they say, I think we know who your tent girl is. Not too long before tent girl was found, a mother had reported her daughter missing. She was 15 years old and was last seen getting into a car with her 17 year old boyfriend. But she hadn't been seen in months. Her description is closely matched to the one of tent girl and probably the closest they had seen so far. So they asked the family to drive 10 hours from Maryland to Kentucky to meet with them. They show them the autopsy photos and the girl's mom is obviously devastated. And she's like, yeah, I think it looks like her, but you have to remember like her skin is darkened, her, she doesn't even have her eyes anymore. She doesn't

look like a human anymore. Right. So between the decomposition of the victim and what photography was in the 1960s, she feels like she can't be sure. But through all the tips police have gotten, they're so sure that this is it, that they basically declared that tent girl is this woman's daughter. And they send her home to plan her funeral. Her mom gets back to Maryland, she starts making funeral arrangements. And 10 days later, everyone is totally blindsided. When an anonymous call comes in to police, that a person is saying the girl you have, tent girl is not the girl you think she is. That girl is still alive. Police take what information they can from this caller and they actually do a full investigation that leads them

to a small town outside of Philadelphia. They actually find this girl and her boyfriend. The two of them had run away together and planned to get married, but were totally alive and well. Like, can you imagine being that mom who's planning your daughter's funeral and then all of a sudden you find out she's alive and well? Can I take a moment to say that teenagers are the worst? Yeah, they're the absolute worst. Like it's why I don't have kids. I think me and a toddler would be cool. The day I have a kid that says they hate me and runs away, like I can't handle it. God bless our parents because I don't know how they did it. I know. And can you even imagine like what I think about even more is can you imagine if

that person had not called in? Like how long would everyone have gone on thinking tent girl was this girl? Oh my God. Yeah, would she I mean, would she be like living today thinking her daughter was dead? Would she have ever come forward? Like it's just crazy to think about. That's insane. That's ridiculous. So while this family had a happy ending, the state police in Kentucky were back to square one with tent girl. The next break that they get in the case comes a while later. Kentucky police get a call from Pennsylvania this time because they saw this poster and on the poster they put out with the sketch also included a story of how she was found and the Pennsylvania police tell the Kentucky police this crazy story. Just a few weeks before tent girl was found 650 miles away

in Pennsylvania, another body was found wrapped in a canvas tarp and tied up with rope. Also badly decomposed to the point where they can't determine the cause of death. She was found totally nude with no identifiers. But in this case, they were actually able to identify the girl later because they matched her to a missing person report. And she was identified as Candace Clothier. Rolodex for the win. Rolodex for the win. She actually looks really similar to the sketch of tent girl. And they're about the same weight and the same height. So it looks like they could be the same victim profile. Candace was last seen leaving her house. She was going to catch a bus to go meet a friend, but she actually never even made it on the bus. And her body was found five

weeks later wrapped in the tarp, tied in rope, totally nude in the woods, near water, just like tent girl. So now the police are freaking out because they think they have a serial killer before serial killer was even a word at this point. I mean, this is pre-mind hunter y'all. So they doubled down on their investigation efforts and they even get really popular magazine at the time called master detective to run a story. And it was like the crime junkie podcast before crime. I would say subscribe me. I'd look to see if they were still doing things. They're not, it's fine. And while the story gets national attention and renewed interest, no new leads are generated from this story and it gets them nowhere. The case goes totally cold. Eventually a local funeral

home actually donates a headstone with the words tent girl and her sketch on it. And that's how the story remains for years and years and years. And she becomes a local legend in Kentucky. And Wilbur, the guy that found her body, would often talk about the case. And he happened to talk about the case with his daughter's high school boyfriend, Todd. And Todd becomes obsessed with this case. Like, you know, there's always those cases you hear about and you cannot get off your brain. And it will even if you like move on, like everyone somehow just pops in your brain like me, like what happened to Moira Murray? Like girl, where did you go? So Todd is like a pre-crime junkie, crime junkie. Totally. And after he and Wilbur's daughter get married, he makes it his mission to start

collecting any information he can find on tent girl because he knows someone out there has to know who she is or at least what happened to her. Well, in the 1990s, all of a sudden we get the internet. And side note, 90s internet was like the best internet. If I even think about those old AIM sounds, it's like an endorphin shot to my brain. Yeah, give me Geocities and Angel Fire and AIM. All the time. Yes. Yes. Yes. So he's regularly on forums for missing people. And he comes across a message from a lady who says she's looking for her sister who went missing in 1968. And she was last seen in Kentucky. They get connected over the phone and she tells him this crazy story. Here's what she tells him. There's a woman named Barbara Ann Hackman and everyone calls her Bobby. When

she was in her teens, she met a man named George Earl Taylor. He was a carnival worker with a two-year-old daughter. And he said that his wife had left him and the daughter for another man. And Bobby starts out as just like his babysitter, but she ends up falling for him and they get married after only a couple of months. Whoa. She's totally smitten with him and thinks his life as a carnival barker is like very glamorous and exciting. Bobby and I have different views on carnival barkers, but I will not hold it against her. Like it was the 60s. I don't know what life was like. So they get married and she begins to travel around with him and actually starts working at the carnival herself. But they eventually have a couple of kids and settle down together and they move

to Florida, which is like the home base for this carnival. So he would travel in the summers with the carnival and in the winters he would drive trucks and her mother and her sister actually end up moving to Florida to be near them and help Bobby out with the kids. One day Bobby and George pull up to Bobby's sister's work and Bobby gets out and tells her sister like, hey, do you want to buy this TV from us? And her sister says, no, I have a TV. Like, why are you selling me your TV? This is so weird. And she says, well, we actually have to skip town for a while. It turns out George had skipped out on his army duty and the FBI was looking for him and word was they were in town. So Bobby said they were going to take the family leave for a while and then they'd likely be back

in the fall. She doesn't tell her where they're going, but she mentioned something about Texas and then says she'll call once they're settled. Well then weeks go by and months go by and there's no call from Bobby. Bobby's family has no idea where she is. And one day Bobby's sister gets a visit from a friend who tells her that they've seen George, her husband. He was back in Florida, living in a town called Davy, which is like rural farmland, like in Florida. She asked that Bobby was with him and he says no. And he goes on to tell her that what George told him was that Bobby had up and left him and the kids for another man. Sound familiar? A little bit. Yeah, exactly what he had told Bobby when they first met. So her sister immediately gets suspicious. She doesn't

necessarily put together that that's what his story was before, but she knows that her sister would never just up and leave her kids. She was such a good caregiver. So she gets in her car and starts driving to Davy, Florida. She doesn't even have an address. So the first stop she makes when she gets to Davy is to the police department and she kind of recounts to them this whole story and they're super nice and want to help her. And wouldn't you know it? They had just pulled over George for some kind of traffic violation. So they had his address like right at the tip of their fingers. Beautiful. They give her his address and she drives straight over to his house to confront him. At this point, he's alone and he gives her the same story about Bobby leaving him

and the kids for another man and he refuses to tell her where the kids are. Bobby's sister feels super uneasy about this. So she files a missing persons report and then goes home to tell her mom. Her mom wants to go up and talk to George herself and try and see the kids, try and get some answers. But by the time they're able to get back up to Davy, Florida, he's gone totally packed up and gone, which is like red flags, red flags, red flags. Yeah, definitely. And they never see him again. No. Like and never see the kids again years and years and 30 years go by with nothing until one day, Bobby's sister gets contacted by Bobby's kids. They were all grown adults by now and had been looking for their mother and their mother's family for their entire lives.

At this point, I know at this point, when they found the family, Earl had already died of cancer. But once they're all together, they start to piece together a story a little bit of what might have happened to Bobby. The kids tell Bobby's sister that from what they can remember when they left Florida, they actually went up to Kentucky, where they were living in a one bedroom apartment over a restaurant. And why she never called her family is totally a mystery to me. But all three kids and their parents shared this like one bedroom apartment. And the oldest girl was about seven at the time. And one night, she said that she woke up and saw her mom and her dad struggling. But she thought she would get in trouble for being awake. So she just like turned over and went back

to sleep. And she said when she woke up in the morning, her mom was gone, and she never saw her again. Like they were just, they were just kids at the time. And they were told the same story that you know, your mom left us, she didn't like she's left us for another man, she don't anything to do with you. And they grew up believing this, but always kept looking for her thinking maybe like she didn't want them when they were young, but they at least wanted to find her. Right, definitely. I get that. So Bobby's family is ecstatic when they get reconnected. So not only are they like connected to Bobby's children, but this is also the best lead that they've had in years of finding out where she might be. So they contact the police in Kentucky looking for answers.

But police tell them that there are no people matching her description that are dead or have been missing in Kentucky. So now they don't know what to do because they know that's the last place she was that anyone saw her. But they're calling the police police are saying we have no one that matches her description, dead or alive. So what now? At this point, they turn again, it's the 90s, they turn to the internet as well. And Bobby's sister is the one that posted on the forum that Todd found. And then when they got to talking, he said, Listen, I don't care what the police say, I just have this feeling. They're probably disregarding her as 10 girl because she was 24 at the time she disappeared. And they thought 10 girl was 16 to 18. Right. But he says, Listen, call the

police, bring up 10 girl and make them listen to you. I just have this feeling. They spent a lot of time talking back and forth with the police. And they get a forensic anthropologist to compare Bobby's pictures to the autopsy photos. And the bone structure is so similar. And the teeth are so similar that they decide it's worth having 10 girls body exhumed. And sure enough, they do a DNA test. And it is a match they have found Barbara Ann Hackman and she is 10 girl. Like, thank God for Todd, right? Yeah, crime junkies for the win again. I know, like they probably would have never gone back to the Kentucky police. Like as if I called and was like, Hey, my sister went missing. Like, is there anyone that even like, but looks like her that you found or anything. And they say,

like, no, nothing. I mean, again, there's no database you can go through. So they would have closed the chapter on that. And if he wouldn't have been so obsessed at this case, like it was just a miracle that they came together. He's like a real superhero. And he's an extra superhero, because he is actually one of the co founders of the dough network. No way. Yeah. So the dough network for anyone who doesn't know is like an online database of all these missing people and like composites, drawings, clay molds of all of these unidentified Jane Doe's and John Doe's. And the dough network actually attempts to make matches. So they're making this database that didn't exist when tent girl existed. And I spent 10 girl from ever happening again. Right. I spent

many a late night on this site. And it's like the web sleuth Bible, like you can get lost. Like, it's almost like it's almost like overwhelming and spooky at the same time. It is like I keep looking at the site. Like, I don't know. There's so many. Like, I feel like I had this breakdown during the Sean Gray episode when like, I can't imagine how one person isn't known. Like, you have a family. Like, how does your family not know you're missing? When you see the hundreds of people on this site that are unidentified, it's devastating. It's overwhelming. Like, I can't, I can't figure it out. But I'm obsessed with it. Everyone needs to check it out. It's absolutely incredible. The work they're doing is amazing. If you want to donate to another nonprofit,

they're everything they're doing is totally worth it. And that's a national organization as well. Correct. Okay, so we know what happened to her then, right? We found her. We know who tent girl is Barbara Ann gets found. This is it. Like, it's a resolved case. Well, yes and no, like, okay, so I know it wouldn't be crime junkie if you like ended with answers. So they figure that this, I mean, they know this is Barbara Ann Hackman, they figure that her husband murdered her, but they actually can't close the case because he's already passed away. But like, that's not even the question I have. I'm 99% sure he did it. There's so many other things that popped up in the story that we have no answers to. Like, so the girl in Pennsylvania, Candice, what happened to her?

Okay, so here I did some digging. And her case was actually closed a few years ago. So like, recently? Yeah, recently, they did this big press conference and they basically said that they know who did it. But the person or persons who did it died sometime between 1975 and 2000. So they wouldn't like, and they won't name the names because I don't know why they I guess they can't prove it. Defamation or whatever. So they but they basically closed the case. I have no idea if one of those persons of interest was George Earl Taylor. But it was super strange that had how similar the cases were. I have no idea if George Taylor was like in Pennsylvania at the time obviously traveled a lot. Yeah, he's traveling a lot whether he's at his carney job or over the

road off season, like he's traveling through the states frequently. I know. So that absolutely eats at me and kills me not to know if they're related. But even more than that, and like what and I see Candice's name come up with 10 girl all the time. But what I couldn't find on web sleuths or like on any other forum that's eating at my brain is who was George Earl Taylor's first wife. Yeah, because he gave Bobby the story that his first wife left him and his kid for another man. And then after he killed Bobby, it was the same story. So it's likely that whoever his first wife was met the same kind of fate. Is she missing somewhere? Is she dead somewhere? Is she another Jane Doe? Like I have a thousand questions about his first wife

and nobody else seems to be asking these questions or even concerns. So maybe I'm missing something. No, it's a huge question mark. And also, if Candice and Barbara Ann's cases or bodies were found in such similar situations that they were able to be connected, did the first wife exist? Was it like did she die under different circumstances? Was the story legit? There's you're right. There are so many more questions. So many questions. Well, I will tell you what I found about Candice is she, I mean, the crime scene photos look identical, granted, they're black and white. But I guess they found out that she it wasn't a tent she was wrapped in. She was wrapped in a laundry sack, a laundry bag. So one of the ways they found out who they think killed her is

they actually tracked down a person who lent this laundry bag to the supposed killer. Again, there's like zero information who did they lend it to? Who was the lender? Where the hell was George Taylor? But so it was a little bit different, I guess, like the material they were acting, but still really similar in the way that they could have died, the way that they were found. And the fact that both bodies had decomposed for so long. How many more could there be if George Taylor was the guy? I know. So another week, no answers. I will be back next week to give you more questions to keep you up at night. Hey guys, don't forget to go to whatever platform you listen to and leave us a five star rating

and review. It's the only way other people can find the show. And don't forget for those Apple podcast listeners, we are still doing our giveaway. So leave us a review and hopefully you'll win some crime Genki swag. Be sure to check out our website crime.thepodcast.com and subscribe to our quarterly newsletter. Oh, you guys, and if you haven't gone to our Facebook page, we have a page that keeps you updated on our events and you can RSDP for our first meetup. But also there's a great discussion group where we're always talking after the episodes about what could have happened to people and theories. It's amazing. You guys need to jump in there. Crime Genki is written and hosted by me. All of our sound production and editing comes from

Britt Prewott and all of our music, including our theme comes from Justin Daniel. Crime Genki is an audio check production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?