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welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and
00:01:48
with me as always ladies and gentlemen the team captain of team captain he is of course our captain well we had an
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incident this week I was booted off the team but it's good to be seen and it's good to see you I'll start another team
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and we'll take over this [Music] world tonight we are drinking Julius we needed a little sunshine captain and I
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Treehouse Brewing Company garage grade 4 and 1/2 bottle caps out of five wow that's some high that's some high Markus
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my friend High Praise from a high guy what does that mean I don't know what that means all right Julius was
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iTunes and please leave us a five-star review that's enough of the business Captain everybody gather around grab a
00:03:51
chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime Kentucky Friday May 17th 1968 Wilbur
00:04:08
riddle he's a waterw driller found the dead body of a young woman while walking around at a job site just off of
00:04:16
Interstate 25 near Georgetown Kentucky he immediately reported his findings to the local authorities what they found is
00:04:24
startling someone had killed the young woman and wrapped her in some kind of canvas bag or tarp and tying up the
00:04:31
bundle with rope inside the young woman was nude cause of death most likely ex fixation with a murdered victim and a
00:04:40
homicide investigation underway the most troubling part for the investigators they don't know who the woman is they
00:04:47
have received many tips and leads in dozens of missing women reports yet the victim remains nameless MH newspapers
00:04:55
dubbed her tent girl because of the material she was wrapped up in several had pointed out that it looked
00:05:02
like the type of material one would use for a tent or a bag that would carry a tent well Wilbur riddle retired about 20
00:05:11
years after finding the body and still 20 years later they had not identified the woman known as tent girl Wilbur like
00:05:20
the local sheriff and detectives that had worked so hard on the case still was not satisfied that she had never been
00:05:28
identified refusing to let the case go cold in his life Wilbur told his children about him finding the girl and
00:05:36
showed them the newspaper and magazine articles when they were old enough to hear of such a tale one day he told his
00:05:45
son-in-law Todd Matthews Todd was fascinated by the case Todd started spending much of his time researching
00:05:52
the tent girl case and Captain you know this feeling you know how how this works
00:05:58
it turned into an obset ession for him yeah you go down a rabbit hole and you can't get out my friend digging deeper
00:06:05
and deeper he located and studied the FBI's lab report on the white towel found wrapped up with the body in the
00:06:14
report it stated that the tow could have been used as a baby's diaper mhm this prompted Todd to believe that the tent
00:06:22
girl was older than the investigators had thought and she could have been a mother he wrote to the authorities
00:06:29
explaining his reasoning about the tent girl's age he also wrote to the County coroner seeking to have the tent girl's
00:06:36
remains exhumed so that her pelvic area could be re-examined to see whether she had been a mother well the tough thing
00:06:44
here is he's just a armchair detective yeah so he's not going to get anywhere I mean you can make all the requests you
00:06:51
want they don't have to do anything yeah I mean these things cost money they take
00:06:55
up time um this is a very old investigation by this Point um it's at least 20 years old eventually he would
00:07:04
make uh Todd Matthews would make the 200 M trip from his home to see the tent girl's grave site at around the same
00:07:13
time uh he visited the Undertaker of the cemetery who had handled her burial and
00:07:21
the local newspaper as well where he had learned that there had been no new developments in this case in the entire
00:07:29
you know 20 years ever since it went cold in the '90s Todd got a little help with his research with the you know now
00:07:37
what we take for granted the internet right uh he began searching missing persons websites for Clues to tent girls
00:07:46
identity well yeah I mean there was no schools for computer back then well can you imagine how much time
00:07:55
this would take um you have all these especially back then in the in the '90s you got all these kind of random missing
00:08:03
persons websites that are popping up right and you also have to in my opinion uh maybe not so much at the time or not
00:08:11
so much for Todd but you also have to question some of the things that you're seeing on these sites um question how
00:08:19
well they were cataloged appropriately with the correct information I still think you have to do that yeah and I
00:08:27
think uh maybe it's a little easy for his situation because he's looking for some maybe some very specific things
00:08:34
amongst a crowd of many well Todd eventually you know after searching all these sites you know he doesn't really
00:08:42
get anywhere with this so he decides that he wanted to create a website devoted to the tent girl MH where people
00:08:50
could learn about the case or for the many that still wanted to know who she was um and you know a lot of times
00:08:58
people hear these cases and and this is the case even to this this day a lot of people remember a case
00:09:04
from when they were a kid or from an area where they grew up maybe they move away they never know if the case was
00:09:10
ever solved or what took place since the time that they were out living life and
00:09:16
so he thought you know what a great place for people to come in and check in on this case to see if it was ever
00:09:21
solved uh or just check in to kind of relive what they already knew yeah or somebody could stumble upon the case and
00:09:28
go wait a second I know that person mhm or or see if any positive movement was made on this now very cold case well
00:09:36
Todd got great he got really good traffic uh to this site and he got a lot of emails but none of these turned out
00:09:44
to be the lead that he was looking for then late one night this is January of 1998 Todd was scouring the web for Clues
00:09:54
like he had done so many nights before on this night he was on another missing person's website he had poured over and
00:10:02
tore through hundreds of descriptions of missing people that evening when one caught his attention and it was simply
00:10:10
titled Lexington Kentucky 1967 missing okay so not too far yeah so 1998 remember the tent girl was found in
00:10:21
1968 so now 30 years later captain and we still don't know who tent girl is but on on this website someone named
00:10:30
Rosemary Westbrook had posted details of what they say is the following my sister
00:10:36
Barbara has been missing from our family since the latter part of 1967 she has brown hair brown eyes and
00:10:45
is around 5' 2 in tall and was last seen in Lexington Kentucky or the Lexington Kentucky area okay if you have any
00:10:55
information please contact me at the address posted so this post is for Barbara an Hackman
00:11:03
Taylor or DH Taylor I should say right um she was born December 1943 last seen Sometime Late
00:11:13
1967 well Todd Matthews he contacted this Rosemary Westbrook who posted the missing person's
00:11:20
description she she a post a picture I don't think there was a picture on this website but I mean look
00:11:28
I mean for listeners that don't know back in the day to put like a picture on the interwebs I mean that was kind of a
00:11:36
tricky thing you could crash the whole internet [Laughter] right um well and I can only tell you that
00:11:45
because I studied computer right right for 14 years you know he had he the colonel has jokes people he has dad
00:11:53
jokes well so Todd Matthews contacted this Rosemary Westbrook she told him that uh that Barbara an Hackman Taylor
00:12:02
was her sister and she was about 20 she was 24 years old and the mother of a baby girl when she had vanished in
00:12:10
December of 1967 well and his hunch was that this person was older than you know
00:12:15
the tent girl was older than the police thought she was yeah I mean this that's not going to deter Todd Matthews where
00:12:23
we saw back in ' 68 and' 69 the detectives were turning leads away because of obvious factors it w wasn't
00:12:31
the right height wasn't the right weight maybe not the right age right Todd doesn't care about age because as you
00:12:37
pointed out he believes the victim to have been older than the the police suspected okay so this is a solid lead
00:12:42
for Todd but again this this is a lead that police could have came across you know in' 68 or 69 uh but so Todd has
00:12:50
this lead and he's going to hold on to it we have the sister saying that um her sister Barbara had been working at some
00:12:58
type of Le inton Kentucky restaurant okay uh she was married to a guy named George Earl Taylor at that time now
00:13:06
George was a carnival worker uh so he's a Carney you know as Mike Myers would say small hands smells like
00:13:16
cabage but but here's the strange thing if that wasn't strange enough you what is in your beer you don't remember that
00:13:24
part from uh what was that Austin Powers must be because you rated a 4 five it's
00:13:29
Austin Powers he's afraid of Carnival of Carneys okay they have small hands and they smell like cabbage I love Carneys
00:13:36
so all the cares out there listening Captain's on your side me not a fan but here's here's the strange thing
00:13:45
so I guess at the time you know back in in ' 67 and ' 68 uh none of her family knew that that
00:13:53
Barbara was in Kentucky at that time okay where's she originally from uh she was from Florida
00:13:59
and you say well how does this happen apparently Barbara who actually went by the nickname Bobby to her family she was
00:14:09
seen by her family down in Florida in December of 67 when she visited her family I'm not exactly sure of who in
00:14:17
her family she visited with and and we'll get to that in a moment but according to her little sister Rosemary
00:14:25
who spoke with Todd when she was last seen it was with George Earl Taylor her husband right and with her 8-month-old
00:14:34
daughter and of course no one reported her as missing at that time either at some
00:14:41
point another sister of Barbara's had later reported her missing in the State of Florida because this is where this
00:14:48
was the last state that she was known to have lived in the family was told that Barbara and George were going to North
00:14:55
Carolina to live yeah not too far from Florida and going there to for a job I'm assuming going there yep to for a job
00:15:05
and to create a whole life there you know lived their days there rais their child there neither George nor Barbara
00:15:12
ever mentioned anything about Kentucky to any of her family members um and the reason why I wanted
00:15:20
to say I we would get into that in a moment regarding of I don't know who she was there to visit as far as her family
00:15:26
goes she she came from a rather large family Barbara's mom and father had six kids no I'm sorry they had seven
00:15:35
children wow so they had seven children but but at some point there was a flood and there was a tragic um accident or or
00:15:44
or you know some tragedy that took place because of this flood her husband Barbara's father and Barbara's brother
00:15:53
had passed away in this flood well unfortunately Barbara's mom with the remaining six kids she couldn't
00:16:02
afford them she couldn't she couldn't take care of them after losing her husband right So eventually she had to
00:16:07
give up her children you know the family I don't know if they were if they were placed
00:16:13
separately but it sounds to me like the family did their best to try to stay close obviously we can understand the
00:16:21
the obvious obstacle that that is going on here so I don't know how close the family remained at the point where she
00:16:28
was last seen in 1967 well it's pretty interesting cuz you wonder why the change of plans or was the plan to go to
00:16:36
North Carolina just a a front to begin with because one the only way you're going to be able to communicate really
00:16:43
is a very expensive phone call M uh expensive trip to go see them okay well we're going to just tell the family that
00:16:52
we're move into North Carolina but that doesn't mean we have to move there well the tricky thing though too is I mean
00:16:58
think about George's you know Barbara's husband's job so you know and I'm it's a
00:17:06
little unclear if you know when we say he worked for carnivals well you know usually these
00:17:12
things travel around and so he would be essentially you would think traveling around with these with this Carnival
00:17:19
that he worked for now was this a a you know the only job in his career that he ever had probably not um maybe he was
00:17:28
looking to do something where he could just live in a city and work in that City and not have to travel around yeah
00:17:35
we don't we don't know the reason for there to be this thought that we would go to North Carolina and then she seems
00:17:42
to end up barbar's sister seems to end up with some kind of evidence that at some point she was in Kentucky right we
00:17:50
have let's go back to Barbara's husband George the he told Barbara's family that
00:17:56
he didn't know where Barbara could be he simply told them that where is he telling them this from is he in Kentucky
00:18:03
at this point I don't know when this conversation took place in full disclosure here all we know is that
00:18:10
Barbara says that I'm sorry Rosemary says that she last Saw Barbara in December of 1967 that that's when her
00:18:18
family last saw her in the State of Florida in Florida they're planning they tell them they're going to North
00:18:23
Carolina somehow years later she ends up with information that her sister was in
00:18:28
inton Kentucky at some point right so at some point she has becomes an arm share
00:18:34
detective she's looking for her uh sister and she gets evidence that hey she ended up we don't know if she ended
00:18:43
up with her husband in Kentucky but we know that she ended up in Kentucky right and we have the husband that speaks with
00:18:51
Barbara's family at some point again we don't know when this conversation took place right I get the impression that
00:18:58
though that this conversation took place because of Barbara's family that somehow
00:19:03
they reached out to this um reached out to George so he tells them that he didn't know where Barbara was and that
00:19:11
she had run off with another man okay so now we talked yesterday about that strange you know these strange little
00:19:18
stories that you come across when you start looking into these old crimes in these old cases we talked about the the
00:19:25
poem in the uhu in the yearbook in the yearbook yes that's a bit of a strange story here's one for you for today
00:19:31
regarding this incident remember we said that Barbara's sister Rosemary had been
00:19:35
looking for her for some time right she actually reported Barbara as missing to the Lexington Police Department this
00:19:46
took place on October 31st of 1995 h this is like 25 almost 30 years later she's calling this in pay
00:19:56
attention to that date that I gave you too because the later repeat it for us please it was October 31st
00:20:04
1995 okay the the the Lexington Police actually have no record of this phone call with rosemary reporting her sister
00:20:13
is missing they have no missing person's report none that was taken on that day that she said that she called in none
00:20:20
that was ever taken for this Barbara Hackman Taylor ever okay um well how does that make any sense because
00:20:28
when when this person Rosemary Westbrook called in from another state all these years later to report her sister is
00:20:36
being missing from 20 20 some years ago on Halloween the Lexington Police thought
00:20:45
that it was a prank so they never took the report when she called in that day why would they that's a dumb prank
00:20:55
well it makes you Goa it it makes you angry you know it makes you question them and and wonder why um and I'm not
00:21:03
trying to have their back here I'm just wondering how many weird phone calls they get on Halloween well I'm sure they
00:21:09
get a bunch and I'm sure they're all hopped up on candy corn but come on take down the report I mean it's not like you
00:21:16
know they came up and said hey we have a missing person from Lexington Kentucky what's their name seore butts got you no
00:21:24
we're talking about just like a normal name well maybe who ever answered that phone that day in '95 should be
00:21:31
relocated from the police department to work for the carnival maybe step right up yes so now Rosemary told Todd
00:21:40
Matthews remember Todd he's the armchair detective she told Todd that she was only 10 years old when her sister
00:21:47
Barbara had disappeared and she agreed with Todd that there were enough similarities between Barbara's case and
00:21:54
the tent girl case to Warrant further investigation Todd tried to get the proper authorities involved but he but
00:22:01
you know they have other cases so okay so let's go back because I think you glazed over something so Barbara was
00:22:09
missing basically since she was 10 no Rosemary is Barbara's little sister okay so when Rosemary was 10
00:22:18
Rosemary was a lot younger she was 14 years younger than her Barbara was 24 and rosemary was only 10 last time she
00:22:25
saw her sister in 1967 that makes more sense sorry yeah he you know he's trying to get the the KY Authority authorities
00:22:33
involved in this case again of course they have newer cases they have fresher leads on these new cases uh initially
00:22:40
they weren't going to be jumping through hoops to help out Todd so Todd Matthews
00:22:45
he did the detective some detective work himself as much as he could and after he
00:22:50
put together a proper presentation which after hearing would leave anyone with just a you know one thought it's it's
00:22:58
time to exume the body of the tent girl and conduct DNA test right and they're going to test the DNA of uh tent girl
00:23:08
with Barbara's sister correct it was it took a little over a month but in uh March of 1998 tent girl was exhumed and
00:23:17
her remains were sent to a laboratory in Frankfurt Kentucky the first thing they
00:23:22
were able to conclude was that the tent girl was between the ages of 20 and 30 years old okay so you know you keep
00:23:31
pointing out new technology and you're exactly right Captain with our technology now we're saying well we we
00:23:37
had the the age wrong it wasn't she wasn't 16 to 19 we believe her now to be 20 to 30 years old so older than
00:23:45
originally thought and good for Todd cuz he was right with his what he suspected
00:23:50
and still possible that Rosemary is right that this could be her 24-year-old sister after finding that out it was
00:23:58
time to see if Rosemary was related to the tent girl so they collected DNA for comparison it was in April of
00:24:07
1998 they got the results back the test found that Rosemary's DNA genetically matched that of the tent girl yeah who
00:24:16
therefore had to be Barbara and Hackman Taylor wow that's awesome yeah and once again and it's so crazy too that the the
00:24:25
the guy that found her his son-in-law goes on to identify her yeah I don't want to sound too hippie you know but
00:24:33
it's almost like maybe her spirit was there helping guide them along or something well yeah and there's there's
00:24:41
a lot of neat things here going on because you have Wilbur who refused to forget about this case you know he finds
00:24:48
this girl he retires 20 years later he refuses to forget about oh I found this girl and they never they never named her
00:24:56
right he let that bother him him he let it bother him for 20 years to the point where once his kids were old enough he
00:25:02
told them this is what happened this was this was a big part of my life this is a
00:25:06
this is the weight that I've been walking around with on my shoulders for 20 years well and when the kids didn't
00:25:11
listen and they didn't do anything about it he said he he started talking to his
00:25:16
son-in-law the person that had to listen you know he had to listen like oh yeah this is my father-in-law I have to no
00:25:23
but it's pretty remarkable now we have a name uh now we can start search for motive and suspects let's get right back
00:25:31
to the case of a body in Kentucky after this quick beer [Music] break this show is sponsored by better
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00:27:50
sound I'll switching from beer to bir clinky clinky it's my new Addiction all right get a hold get a hold of yourself
00:27:59
I just love it well okay so Captain we have we have finally 30 years later and finally we
00:28:06
have the identity of the tent girl okay now the authorities well we got some tough questions that need to be answered
00:28:15
well we only really have one lead really yes uh because this would be that of her
00:28:20
husband you know maybe hopefully Char hopefully they could ask him some questions straighten out this whole
00:28:27
matter if need be maybe bring him up on some kind of charges mhm but that would not be possible because George Earl
00:28:37
Taylor died of cancer in October of 1987 so he passed away you know 12 years before they even figured out who the
00:28:48
tent girl was right and so they can't ask him questions so all we can go off of is that he claims that she left him
00:28:56
for another man yeah and it seems to be the belief of Barbara's family and some of the the
00:29:05
authorities involved that Barbara's husband George Earl Taylor was most likely the person who had killed 22
00:29:13
24-year-old Barbara Hackman Taylor back in 68 um if this is true he then wrapped up
00:29:20
her body in one of his canvas tarps or bags used for carrying his Carnival tents from town to town and dumped her
00:29:27
in an outof the way spot off of the interstate hoping that she would decompose as much as possible before
00:29:33
anyone found her um I guess he did do a little bit of moving around from time to
00:29:39
time so I guess make it more difficult yeah I guess the thought is if they couldn't ID her that this would never
00:29:45
catch up with him um and well and then that then her daughter might not even know that her her mother is tent girl
00:29:55
yeah you know yeah and and the other thought too is like you said you know he simply tells her family Barbara's family
00:30:02
that she ran off with some other guy and he's got to believe that they would accept this Theory because heck she had
00:30:10
run off with him when they claimed to have been going to North Carolina right yeah and a couple weird things here I
00:30:17
mean if there was no sexual assault and that's not really really reported that there was that would make sense you know
00:30:25
her husband killing her yeah I mean here's the thing I think it's safe to say that someone had killed her and I
00:30:33
start off by saying that because there were you know there were no signs to the cause of death so that makes you wonder
00:30:40
immediately but this according to the autopsy report no signs of cause of death but because she was dis
00:30:48
discarded uh it's obvious to me that someone had killed her and tried to cover this up it it could have been an
00:30:54
accident uh it certainly could have been an accident death um where whoever killed her didn't mean to uh that some
00:31:01
kind of fight broke out between the two of them we know that there's that discoloration that was on the skull um
00:31:08
right it's very possible because of the sign of the times and also they're you know they're traveling around in a
00:31:16
carnival show I mean how many drugs are going through those people's systems that has to be a lot right could be so
00:31:24
there's a good possibility like I said that may maybe it was a OD I mean because we've seen that like in the
00:31:31
vanishing girls the girls in chiley there was a couple times where bodies were discarded but it was more likely
00:31:40
that because because of the science there was no sign of uh strangulation or blunt force trauma or anything like that
00:31:48
so you know the belief is that maybe that they were ODed and that they were dumped it could be possible here as well
00:31:56
well let's keep in mind two things that we know happened all right when it comes to the husband when
00:32:03
it comes to George Earl Taylor first off he never reported his wife missing to anyone anywhere at any time that we know
00:32:11
of you know he he's never called the police and said my wife is missing now you it's easy to say well why would he
00:32:19
if she did run off with some other man right you know if I had a girlfriend she ran off with another man I wouldn't
00:32:25
wouldn't call call that she's hey she's missing well not if you're not missing and if you find her charge her with
00:32:32
breaking my heart right so anyway I get that all right she's not reported missing because she ran off with some
00:32:40
other man but here's the thing at no point over the course of 20 some years before the guy died he never bothers to
00:32:48
tell her family at any time oh we did live in Kentucky for a little bit before she ran off with this guy you know so so
00:32:57
yeah but who right but at that point if you just don't care like this lady left me you know I'm raising our kid by
00:33:04
ourselves by myself um it'd be interesting to locate the daughter and to find out what she knew no but what I
00:33:12
mean is we know that a conversation happened between somebody in Barbara's family and George Earl
00:33:19
Taylor because he tells that family member she ran off with another guy nowhere in that conversation does he
00:33:27
mention the the name of Kentucky to anybody and I think that enough I mean what if the story of them going to North
00:33:35
Carolina was actually true and then when they were doing their armchair detective
00:33:39
they went okay well we know that Barbara went to Kentucky at some point like I said before we don't know if she went to
00:33:46
Kentucky with him or without him right I no I can agree with that because I don't have 100% proof in front
00:33:54
of me that that anyone one can prove that the two of them went there together I believe that there are people that
00:34:02
have they have some inkling that that's what happened that there there may be something that ties the two of them
00:34:10
still together and being in the state of Kentucky early in 1968 which that that makes the that
00:34:17
makes the um the likelihood that somebody else was the killer very small yeah but the eyewitness and we kind of
00:34:27
talked about this before but the the eyewitness that claims that he saw Barbara with some guy and he was driving
00:34:35
them and they argued and he dropped them off if he correctly identified the person as Barbara then who's this other
00:34:44
guy M and maybe that you know leans to George's side of the story as well right um so I mean basically at this point in
00:34:54
this much time um you're not going to get any answers I mean barring barring some deathbed confession by somebody
00:35:02
that um that comes forward you're you're not going to get a solid answer as to who killed Barbara Hackman Taylor you
00:35:11
you just won't my suspicion as far as those as the motorist and those eyewitnesses go my suspicion is that
00:35:20
they were that they saw somebody that night did that whatever they said happen absolutely happened the problem I have
00:35:29
with it is at the time that they're calling in that tip they're going under the impression that the tent girl is 16
00:35:37
to 19 years of age right where we later learn that she's 24 just like so many people had called
00:35:45
in before these two tipsters and said you know what that's my daughter that's missing that's my niece that's my
00:35:52
girlfriend whomever right I mean there were dozens and dozens of these people calling in saying that that's my loved
00:35:59
one and none of those turned out to be correct so my thought is that those two tipsters were just wrong just like all
00:36:08
those other people that had called in before them and I think that had they known well they're not wrong they're
00:36:15
just wrong on the person that they saw right right you're thank you for clearing that up they're they're right
00:36:21
in what happened happened and what they're reporting is true they've just misidentified this person as being the
00:36:28
tent girl a lot more hitchhikers back then and here's my thing too I think that that had they known in in
00:36:39
1968 that this woman was 23 or 24 25 if they had the age more correct on this then it may have been it probably would
00:36:52
have been solved a lot earlier I mean every record of her that was on paper and on on you know databases and on
00:37:01
websites and computers for all these years had her listed as 16 to 19 yeah I wonder where the investigation would
00:37:10
have went if they would have been able to identify her that quickly too because then like we said we have a link back to
00:37:16
George her her husband mhm and that also makes you wonder about some other things
00:37:20
too if they were off on the age which we've seen this in other cases before you know we talked about this a
00:37:27
lot when we were going through the Texas Killing Field mhm because there were so
00:37:31
many girls and women being found that had decomposed that had laid there in the field for a while some that are
00:37:39
still unidentified to this day age can be a very tough thing to determine however I think that that also leads you
00:37:48
to believe that there were probably other misconceptions about what they had found about the remains that they had
00:37:54
found there's a possib ility that the cause of death that they have listed is wrong as well right you know and I think
00:38:03
I think that pointing out that her age is wrong probably points out that there are a few a few other things wrong with
00:38:09
that whole report I'm glad that they were able to identify her but it just raises more
00:38:15
questions well I I do want to point out that you know like we said Barbara's family and the local authorities went on
00:38:23
record uh publicly stating that they believe her husband to have been the one that killed her and dumped her body now
00:38:30
that doesn't prove anything but here's what that leads me to believe it leads me to believe that Som how and somewhere
00:38:39
you know they didn't just make the identification on tent girl and then go oh her husband's dead oh well that's it
00:38:47
we can't do anything with this they would have still spoke to people they would have now they would have looked
00:38:52
and said does this give us any leads is there anybody that we can go out to and talk to now that we're armed with this
00:38:59
information so they would have done that and then they may have been able to determine if they could determine that
00:39:06
the two of them were both present in the state of Kentucky in early 1968 right I
00:39:12
think that's where you just go okay in in in the court of law could you get a conviction here no but in the garage it
00:39:21
looks like well from Nick it looks like yeah but he hands out convictions all the time that's right um it looks to me
00:39:28
like the the probability of George Earl Taylor having killed his wife is so much
00:39:34
higher than the the possibility of it being a stranger and don't Google him because when you do you're going to get
00:39:41
a different George Earl Taylor and he actually murdered two of his wives well I think what what you end up finding is
00:39:49
just Earl Taylor I don't think you get a George Earl Taylor which we were not able to
00:39:55
confirm that it's it's the same person it actually it's not the same it can't be the same person we know that the guy
00:40:00
I think was sentenced in like 19 but this guy was a wife killer he killed like two wives so right when you look it
00:40:07
up you go oh well of course it was this guy but he just killed his first wife that that nobody even knew about it but
00:40:13
yeah that's not the case so what happens with the other people in this case well
00:40:17
let's Okay so we have um we have Todd Matthews good for him cheers to you Todd yes cheers yes because here's the thing
00:40:27
after all of Todd Matthews hard work and determination he believes too that George Earl Taylor was the killer he
00:40:35
believes that George Earl Taylor's tale that Barbara had left him for another man was just simply a way to cover up
00:40:41
and to hide his crime he does state that Barbara's death could indeed have been an accident and that he you know the
00:40:49
husband dumped the body but I tell you what Captain you want to talk about web sleuthing this here Todd Todd Matthews
00:40:56
is the man I mean while we don't have a conviction he still solved a 30-year mystery right so Wilbur's son-in-law uh
00:41:05
Wilbur Riddle's son-in-law you know he put a name to the woman that he had found 30 years before now Todd Matthew
00:41:13
Matthews he says I kind of like this he says Riddle's riddle had been solved um and Wilbur riddle paid tribute
00:41:21
to his son-in-law saying that he Todd Matthews has put in more than a thousand hours on this case there is no one in
00:41:29
law enforcement there's no law enforcement office that had worked harder on any case than he did on this
00:41:35
one very good for him so giving him very high praise the story of the tent Girl inspired the creation of the Kentucky
00:41:43
State medical examiner office back in 1968 and in more recent years Todd Matthews uh he got involved with a
00:41:50
project called Eden which I guess is just Ed an which stands for everyone deser deserves a name Todd has also done
00:41:59
quite a bit of work for the do Network which we have discussed several times uh but for those of you who have not heard
00:42:05
of the do Network it is an International Volunteer group attempting to organize many missing persons and identifies cold
00:42:14
cases but we still have a few more questions right Captain because what became of this 8mon old daughter that
00:42:21
was last seen now I couldn't find any news stories I was looking for News St stories that would be like you
00:42:29
know woman woman in this area finally finds out who her mother really was right right uh I couldn't find any news
00:42:37
stories like that if anybody is local to this case and knows of those and wants to send them our way please do so at
00:42:43
true Crim garage.com but what I did find was I went and I looked at the current headstone for the tent girl which we now
00:42:53
know as Barbara Hackman Taylor mhm and on that headstone it says loving mother grandmother and sister so I'm guessing
00:43:04
that the that the 8-year-old daughter grew up to have a normal life as normal as you can without having your mother
00:43:11
around and you're right she ended up knowing who her mother was yeah and went on to have kids of her own so there's a
00:43:18
bit of a silver lining and and happy ending to that you also have to wonder well whatever happened with the Candice
00:43:25
Clothier case this was the case that we talked about was a possible connection that maybe these two murders were linked
00:43:33
the girl from Pennsylvania well if you believe that George Earl Taylor killed his wife then you got to kind of jump to
00:43:42
the conclusion that they weren't killed by the same person right right so you have to wonder so now this case too
00:43:50
basically took a lot of years to crack in fact it took 42 years into until there was a development in this case so
00:43:58
yeah 42 years later authorities say that they have cracked and closed the cold case they say the they say that Candace
00:44:06
Clothier fell victim to drugged out acquaintances who forcibly injected her with some sort of controlled substance
00:44:14
when the injection killed her the attacker stuffed clothier's body into a laundry bag tying it around her neck and
00:44:23
using her yellow turtleneck sweat to cover her head and then they tied her up and put her into what they're now
00:44:31
calling a laundry bag rather than just a canvas bag they then left her body in a
00:44:36
secluded section of the Twisted Creek she lay partially submerged undetected for nearly 5 weeks until fishermen found
00:44:45
her this all came about from a tip this was in 2005 a woman called police she said she believed she had owned the bag
00:44:55
that Candice was was found in this was a laundry bag authorities said that they believe three men were involved in cloth
00:45:03
ear's death and are now all dead themselves so for this police to the so because of this the police refused to
00:45:13
identify the men uh but also saying if any of those men had been alive when police received this information even if
00:45:21
they were clinging to life support in a nursing home we would be working to gather evidence with which to achieve a
00:45:28
murder conviction and like I said before that was my one of my suspicions right when we started investigating the case
00:45:35
with tent girl was overdose yeah so so I I guess the way that this came about uh
00:45:43
to to kind of put an end to the Candace Clothier case was that they featured her
00:45:49
Cold Case on the NBC 10 channel locally and after the news C A viewer some a woman that had seen the broadcast
00:45:59
called police and reported that she believed that the sack that the fisherman found her in was her laundry
00:46:06
bag missing since she had gave it to her husband shortly after Clothier had disappeared and now this is what they
00:46:14
believe happened that Clothier left her home intending to visit her boyfriend instead
00:46:20
uncharacteristically she accepted a ride with someone that she somewhat knew mhm
00:46:25
who was in a car with at least one other man at the time instead of taking her to
00:46:31
her boyfriend's the men took cloth to a wooded area off of decanter Street in Northeast Philadelphia Philadelphia
00:46:40
sorry the men had a history of drug use and one of them was known to inject drugs in this is a strange thing
00:46:49
I I sometimes when they just put a sentence in a story you wish they would back it up with some kind of story or
00:46:56
evidence because this is a strange sentence to read mhm one of the men was known to inject drugs into animals and
00:47:03
people without their consent a retired detective said they believe detectives believe
00:47:10
that Clothier died after she was involuntarily injected or given an unknown controlled substance the men
00:47:17
then called a third man to help them dump the corpse off of Chain Bridge which is on Route 232 and like we said
00:47:26
the authorities would not name the three individuals that they believ to have been responsible for Candace's death and
00:47:33
dumping her there now they did the same thing they did further investigation if there were people that were still around
00:47:40
that they could talk to with that new information they did and they had bits and pieces of it enough to believe that
00:47:48
they've they've been able to put together the three who committed this crime the interesting thing though here
00:47:54
Captain is while we don't have have a con conviction and while they won't name these guys because they died they did go
00:48:00
on to say that the trio that they blamed for clothier's death they were among those that were interviewed decades ago
00:48:09
when the case was still very active yeah that's very interesting I'm glad for both of those cases that there is some
00:48:15
closure for the family and for the victims as well well and it's a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel
00:48:21
kind of situation in both those cases right and here's here's a little inspiration to this case should be
00:48:28
inspiration to anybody that's out there looking for a lost one you know we have we have Rosemary Westbrook who was able
00:48:38
to finally locate her sister even it being a sad truth a sad ending but it's probably what she or somewhat she had
00:48:46
expected all this time but she's able to get answers 30 years later and then you
00:48:52
also have the armchair detective who get it's obsessed completely obsessed with a
00:48:57
case and he's one of the lucky ones that gets some resolve and some answer to his
00:49:04
his mystery that he was working on right so the morrow of the story is if you're
00:49:08
sitting there at work and you're diving down rabbit holes and you think to yourself U maybe I can solve it and then
00:49:14
one day you think to yourself why am I doing this keep going maybe you're the one that's going to crack a case it's
00:49:20
the old don't give up don't ever give up right Captain yeah or take a lot of naps
00:49:25
do we have a recommended reading for this week this week we are recommending Garden State Gangland the rise of the
00:49:32
mob in New Jersey by Scott dii the mafia in the United States might be a shadow of its former self but in the New York
00:49:39
and New Jersey metro area there are still Wise Guys in wannabes working scams extorting businesses running
00:49:46
gambling selling drugs and branching out into white collar crimes and they are continuing a tradition that's over a
00:49:54
hundred years old some of the most most powerful Mobsters on the national level were from New Jersey and they've spread
00:50:00
their tentacles down to Florida across the Atlantic and out to California and many of the stories that have never been
00:50:06
told are in this book The Garden State Gangland the rise of the mob in New Jersey and you can find that title with
00:50:14
the rest of our recommended titles at true Crim garage.com click on the recommended page yeah we're not doing
00:50:20
the Amazon Banner anymore they uh kicked us out so so just go to Amazon on your own time or go
00:50:28
wherever you want U wherever books are sold all right thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend you crazy
00:50:35
people all right we'll see everybody back here in the garage next week until then be good be kind and don't
00:50:42
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