The Girl in the Barrel: The Murder of Mary Ann Higginbotham

In the summer of 1979, a rusted barrel bobbing in a shallow Indiana creek revealed a secret the town had almost forgotten: the skeletal remains of 21-year-old Mary Ann Higginbotham. She had vanished without a trace a year earlier. No missing persons report. No search parties. No headlines.

As police began unraveling the threads of her disappearance, they uncovered a web of stolen cars, criminal informants, and a second victim—her boyfriend, Timothy Willoughby—who also vanished without a trace.

This is a story of betrayal, silence, and justice that slipped away. And it still hasn’t been solved.