On a warm spring day in May 1968, a man named Wilbur Riddle was wandering the wooded roadside near U.S. Route 25 in Georgetown, Kentucky. Searching for discarded glass telephone pole insulators, he stumbled upon a heavy green canvas tarp tied with twine. At first glance, it looked like rubbish. But curiosity made him nudge it with his foot. The bundle tumbled down an embankment, unrolling just enough to reveal a horrifying sight—the decomposing body of a young woman.
The police were called immediately. What they uncovered was tragic but baffling. The victim was believed to be a white female, perhaps between sixteen and nineteen, with short brown hair and weighing little more than 110 pounds. Forensic experts estimated she had been dead for two to three weeks. But her name, her life, and the circumstances of her death remained shrouded in mystery.
Without any missing persons reports to match her to, investigators hit a wall. For the public and the press, she became “Tent Girl,” named for the tarp she was found in. Three years later, she was buried under that name in Georgetown Cemetery, her grave marked by a headstone donated by a local company. For decades, people visited the site to leave flowers and candles, but no one could answer the most important question: Who was she?
The case might have remained unsolved forever—if not for one man.
Enter Todd Matthews, a young man from Tennessee who first heard about Tent Girl in 1987, when his future father-in-law, Wilbur Riddle, told him the story of the body he had discovered nearly 20 years earlier. The strange tale stayed with Todd, haunting him in ways he couldn’t explain. After marrying into Riddle’s family, Todd began digging into the mystery in earnest.
What began as curiosity soon became an obsession. Todd devoured every scrap of information he could find. He combed through newspapers, visited Tent Girl’s grave, interviewed witnesses, and tracked down rumors. When the internet arrived in the early 1990s, it became his most powerful tool. In 1997, he even launched his own website, dedicated solely to Tent Girl, hoping that by sharing her story online, someone out there might recognize her.
The breakthrough came in 1998. Late one night, Todd came across a post on a missing persons message board. A woman in Arkansas was searching for her sister, Barbara Anne Hackman, who had disappeared in Lexington, Kentucky, in late 1967. The details matched almost too perfectly—the location, the timeline, even the description of Barbara’s appearance.
Todd reached out, and the family was stunned by the similarities. Barbara, a 24-year-old mother, had vanished suddenly, leaving behind her infant daughter. Her husband, George Earl Taylor, a carnival worker, had claimed she ran away with another man, never filing a missing person’s report.
Authorities were contacted, and Tent Girl’s body was exhumed. DNA testing confirmed the truth: Tent Girl was Barbara Anne Hackman. After 30 years of silence, she finally had her name back.
Barbara’s family reburied her in Georgetown Cemetery, this time under her real name, deliberately leaving her husband’s surname off the headstone. Though never formally charged, George Taylor remains the prime suspect in Barbara’s death. He passed away in 1987, taking whatever secrets he held with him.
For Todd Matthews, the case was both a triumph and a turning point. “I had a lot of people, even police, say it would never be solved,” he recalled. His persistence not only restored Barbara’s identity but also changed how the internet could be used to solve cold cases. He went on to co-found the Doe Network and helped develop the first online databases for missing and unidentified persons.
Tragically, Todd himself passed away in January 2024 at the age of 53. But his legacy lives on. Through his determination, he gave one woman her name back and gave countless other families hope that their loved ones, too, might one day be found.
The story of Tent Girl is more than just a true-crime mystery. It is a testament to the power of human persistence, the importance of identity, and the impact one ordinary person can have when they refuse to give up.
