A man noticed a tattered tent on the side of the road, the horrific crime scene inside would be the start of a decades long mystery

In 1968 a man by the name of Wilbur Riddle was walking alongside the U.S. 25, collecting glass insulators when he noticed a tarp like that of a tent just off the Sadieville exit in Lexington. Deciding to investigate, Riddle would discover a grisly crime scene with the body of a woman who would go unidentified for years, only being known as the “Tent Girl.”

Riddle had intended to salvage the tarp and sell it, but when he discovered the naked and bound body of a woman inside he immediately called authorities to the scene of the crime. According to the Lexington Herald Leader it was quickly concluded that the decomposing body had been lying beside the road for approximately two to three weeks before its discovery, however, the investigation soon hit a dead end.

Nobody could identify Tent Girl

Missing person’s reports were checked to try and give a name to the body but no matches were found. Without being able to identify the victim it left investigators with few leads and after a few years Tent Girl’s remains were buried in a Georgetown cemetery in 1971. Her headstone still reads “Tent Girl” to this day, although it has since been amended to include her real name as well.

Years passed with very little of note with regards to the story of Tent Girl, people came to the cemetery to pay their respects to the stranger but nobody who knew her ever came looking. Surely there must have been somebody out there who knew who she was? A parent, sibling or friend wondering where she was?

A breakthrough in the case

It wasn’t until the late 1980s when a man named Todd Matthews married Wilbur Riddle’s daughter and learned how the case had haunted his father in law. Matthews decided to take it upon himself to investigate, using the internet and combing through missing persons message boards to try and find a match.

Over thirty years after her body was discovered Matthews stumbled upon a description shared on a missing persons site that matched. It was posted by the Hackmann family and described a 24-year-old woman who had gone missing in 1967. Her name was Barbara Ann Hackmann Taylor, Matthews contacted the family who confirmed the details matched up. With help of the police and through use of DNA testing it was proven that this was the true identity of Tent Girl.

She had been living in Lexington with her husband and daughter when she disappeared. Police identified her husband, George Earl Taylor as the prime suspect in her murder, he had not reported her missing but he did tell her family she had run off with another man. Unfortunately George had died in 1987, meaning the truth would never be uncovered.

At the very least Barbara Ann Hackmann was given a name which was later added to her headstone. Her husband’s last name, “Taylor” was left off of the engraving likely due to his being the prime suspect in her murder.