Barbara Ann Hilton was 23 when she left her parents’ home in Montrose, Illinois on the evening of August 4, 1972, saying she was going to a movie with friends. That night she wore a purple, floor-length grannie or hippie style sundress, sandals, and carried an oversized purse. She was a young mother who worked as a nursing aide at St. Anthony’s Hospital and was enrolled at Lake Land College; her infant daughter was raised by Barbara’s parents after she disappeared.

Accounts of Barbara’s last known movements conflict. She reportedly left home around 7:00 p.m.; her then-boyfriend said she arrived at his house about 8:00 p.m. and left at 1:00 a.m. the next morning, while other reports place her leaving his home earlier and going to the Highpoint Tavern, where two men may have approached her. The sister’s green 1968 Chevrolet Nova that Barbara was driving was found abandoned on the side of Illinois Route 121 about seven miles from her home, operable but missing its keys; a rainstorm had washed away any fingerprints on the car’s exterior.

Did anyone in the Montrose or Effingham County area know Barbara, her routine, or the people she spent time with that summer?