The tiny village of Montrose, with a population of 210 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020), is located in south-central Illinois, about 100 miles southeast of the state capitol, Springfield. It sits mostly in Effingham County, with a small portion in Cumberland County. Montrose is believed to have once been a sundown town.
Sundown towns were communities that did not allow nonwhites to stay after sunset through the 1960s and some into the 1980s. They could only work or travel during the day and faced harsh punishment if caught in town after the sun fell.
According to historian James Loewen in his book Sundown Towns (2005), in 39 states where sundown towns were created, 31 states showed an increase in the number of counties with fewer than 10 Black residents from 1890 to 1930. This is all the more striking because it overlaps with the Great Migration (1916–70), in which millions of African Americans moved from the South to Northern cities. In Illinois, for example, the state’s overall Black population increased, but rural counties with sundown towns saw their Black populations decline. (Britannica)
Effingham County had several sundown towns, including Altamont, Effingham, and Teutopolis. And while Montrose is not listed as an official sundown town, there is little doubt that it was one.
“My grandmother can recall a sign as you go into Montrose, IL, on Route 40 that said something similar to “Ne*roes be out by sundown,” said one commenter at https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundowntown/montrose-il/
Montrose is still predominantly white, with whites making up 92.67% of the population. (World Population Review)
- White: 92.67%
- Two or more races: 5.6%
- Other race: 1.29%
- Black or African American: 0.43%
- Native American: 0%
- Asian: 0%
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 0%
In the early 1970s, racial tensions were still high following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and some residents of Montrose were opposed to nonwhites being in their community. Even more, some did not like any of their own dating them.
In Montrose, Barbara Ann Hilton and her young daughter resided with her parents at 202 East Oak Avenue, near St. Rose Catholic Church, where the family attended.
Barbara was known to have interracial relationships with local men, which likely pissed off a lot of people in this former sundown town.
Who Was Barbara Ann Hilton?
Albert and Marcella “Sally” Hilton married in the 1940s and subsequently had five children — Wanda, Barbara, James, Ruby, and Timothy.
Barbara was a stunning young woman with brown hair, baby-blue eyes, and a beautiful smile who never had a problem getting a date.She had a reputation around town for being a wild woman who loved to party and was often the source of town gossip. In 1970, at age 21, she gave birth to her daughter, Jody, but never revealed the child’s father’s name to her parents.
Albert and Sally Hilton said their daughter led a secret life that included interracial dating. (Crosby, 1998) While it’s unclear where her parents stood on her choice of men, they objected to her party lifestyle but had little control over their grown daughter’s activities.
In 1972, Barbara was studying to be a nurse at Lake Land College in nearby Mattoon in Coles County. She held a nursing assistant job at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Effingham, working 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. and leaving her daughter in the care of her parents. Barbara also had plans to further her nursing education at Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville (SIUE) in the fall of 1972.
But Barbara never made it to SIUE. One warm summer night, she was gone, never to be seen again, leaving her family with emptiness, loss, regret, and a lot of questions.
Disappearance of Barbara Ann Hilton
On Friday, August 4, 1972, Barbara kissed her daughter goodbye at 7 p.m. and headed to Mattoon in her sister’s green Chevy Nova to meet some friends and catch a movie at the local theater. At least, that’s what she told her parents. They never saw her again.
Albert also worked the second shift at St. Anthony’s. On August 5, Barbara failed to show up for work, but he didn’t think much of it. However, he knew something was wrong when she did not return home the next day.
Barbara had a boyfriend who was a business and accounting major at Lake Land. Old reports state that Barbara went to his house in Mattoon from 8 p.m. until 1 a.m. However, Ron Kilman has worked on the case since 2008. His daughter, Abby Neal, reported on her Facebook page in February of this year that Barbara only went to his house for a couple of hours. She then drove to High Point Tavern for a drink before heading back to Montrose.
According to Abby and Ron, “She was seen leaving with two men (Richard and Butch-for legal purposes, a last name will not be released), most likely against her will, around midnight.”
The next day, police found Barbara’s car parked near the “Y” intersection of Montrose Road and along Illinois 121 in Cumberland County, about seven miles north of the Hilton home. Per Abby and Ron, “The car was not disabled, but had been moved a few hundred feet from its original position.”
Albert drove out to inspect the car.
“There were flies buzzing around the trunk,” Albert said in 1998. “I was just sure she was in there. I was just sure.” (Crosby)
The driver’s seat was pushed all the way back, and “Barbara’s purse was later found along the ditch on County Road 600 N in Montrose.” (Neal, 2024)
The original investigators discovered that Barbara had dated several members of Lake Land’s basketball team and became pregnant at least one other time but delivered a stillborn child. Witnesses said Barbara loved to party and carried a knife for protection in the weeks before her disappearance. (Crosby)
But that was about all the police uncovered during the 1972 investigation, and there were no apparent signs of foul play in Barbara’s car or at the boyfriend’s house.
The biggest problem the Hiltons faced was the police believing Barbara voluntarily left the area. But her parents knew she would never leave little Jody behind.
“The police kept putting us off,” Sally said in 1998. “They told us she was 23 and could do what she wanted. But I just know she wouldn’t have left her child.”
John W. Minton
More than two decades had passed without any arrests or updates in the investigation. John W. Minton, now deceased, was a former Marine and Indiana Deputy Sheriff and a distant relative of the Hiltons when Minton offered to work the case for free in October 1994.
Minton learned the Illinois State Police (ISP) closed Barbara’s case in 1973, and destroyed all the records a few years later because of a paperwork reduction law. Nevertheless, he was able to get his hands on copies of the reports at the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, and those allowed ISP to reopen the investigation.
Minton conducted several interviews and accused the police of not following up on leads in the original investigation.He believed that Barbara left because of her unhappy situation at home.
“Everybody was telling her it wasn’t right.” Minton said in 1998. “She had this wild side to her. To me, she wasn’t a stable person. She had this secret life she was trying to maintain.”
Sightings
During Minton’s investigation, he discovered that a woman and her husband reportedly saw a car parked at 8:45 p.m. and 9 p.m. on the night Barbara disappeared at the same spot where her car was found. That sighting contradicts Barbara’s boyfriend’s statement that she was at his house for a couple of hours. She would have arrived at his house around 7:30 p.m.
There was also a possible sighting of Barbara about a week after she vanished. Karla Huddlestun was 18 and newly married in 1972. She knew the Hilton family as she attended the same church. She told Minton she swore she saw Barbara in a Greenup laundromat, about 14 miles from Montrose.
In a 1998 telephone interview with Tim Crosby of the Herald and Review newspaper, Karla said, “I turned around and saw a woman with her hair in one of those old hair dryers. The woman looked up at me, and it was Barbara Ann.”
Once the woman realized Karla recognized her, she gave a surprised look. Karla turned around to put something down, but the woman was gone when she turned back around.
“I didn’t know she was missing the time,” said Karla. Later that night, she saw Sally Hilton, who told her that Barbara was missing.
“I said, ‘No, she’s not. I just saw her this afternoon.'” Karla also believed that Barbara voluntarily left home.
Karla further stated: “I think she left herself. That’s always been my theory over the years. There was a lot of tension at home over it all. I can see a girl that age leaving home and never wanting to be traced. To this day, I know it was her.”
The Hiltons were doubtful. They thought that a racist murdered Barbara because of her interracial dating. Nevertheless, one day, a few weeks after Barbara disappeared, the Hiltons had a strange encounter that made them question their theory.
A young woman the Hiltons had never seen before came to their house, saying she was told to go there and pick up the baby. This woman was never identified.
“I didn’t know her, so she wasn’t taking her,” Albert said. Shortly after, the Hiltons petitioned the court, and a judge awarded them legal custody of Barbara’s daughter.
Current Investigation
Ron Kilman of the Effingham County Sheriff’s Department took over Barbara’s case in 2008 and retired in 2020. According to his daughter, he still works the case independently. “Based on evidence gathered and interviews done,” Ron believes Barbara’s killers placed her body in an old well that was then “filled up.”
As of February 20, 2024, “several cadaver dogs hit in the area we are focusing on along 600 N where her purse was found.”
Ron stated through his daughter that at least two men were believed to be responsible for Barbara’s disappearance. Still, one has since died in prison, and “the other was given a full immunity deal but refuses to share with the police his knowledge regarding Barbara.” Ron has posted on Facebook that police have ruled out Barbara’s boyfriend.
Aftermath
Sally Hilton outlived her husband and four of her children. Her beloved husband of six decades died in 2001. Sally died at age 87 in 2014. Barbara’s daughter is now 54 and lives in Effingham County. Barbara’s sole surviving sibling, Ruby, lives in neighboring Clay County. She is now in her 70s.
John W. Minton died in 2017, and it is unclear how long he worked on Barbara’s case after 1998.
TCD’s Thoughts
I acknowledge that some of the info here may be incorrect, so if any of Barbara’s relatives sees this, I am open to hearing what you have to say, or you can comment below with corrections. The older a case is, the less info available to the public.
Because Ron Kilman has extensively investigated this case, I do not need to theorize who killed Barbara. All we know about the two white men she left the bar with are their first names, Richard and Butch. Butch might be a nickname. One of them died in prison, but we don’t know which one or when. I did find a Butch on FB in the area, and the age would be about right, but I cannot say for sure it is him, of course.
Because the crime occurred in 1972, these men likely killed her because of her interracial dating, although Ron has not said a possible motive on social media. I would wager those two men sexually assaulted her before killing her, but that might not have been their motive for murder.
Barbara took a considerable risk with interracial dating and knew it. So, I commend her bravery because she put herself in tremendous danger. But she likely thought nothing would ever happen to her. You know how young people were and still are – fearless.
Today, Mattoon has a population of nearly 17,000. I do not know how big it was in 1972. However, only a tiny percentage of nonwhites lived in Coles County in the early 1970s.
I found this through Eastern Illinois University’s website, which was pretty interesting. The article discusses Black history in Coles County.
The Foster and Williams families of Mattoon have had their own share of racial tensions in their neighborhood. For instance, “Four times during an especially hateful time in the 1970’s, young white men drove by Eli and Nellie Foster’s house and fired at it. Nellie Foster believes it was done in retaliation for some interracial dating in Mattoon.”
I could find absolutely nothing on High Point Tavern, which I find strange. I even went into a Mattoon group on FB, but no one posted anything about it. I’m assuming it was in Mattoon, and it probably had some interesting history.
But what I really want to know is: who the hell was the woman who showed up at the Hiltons wanting to take Barbara’s daughter? If Barbara did not leave voluntarily and these two men killed her, why was that woman there at all? Was she only trying to steal the baby? Was she related to the child’s father or the two white men? That was really strange.
Anyone with information regarding Barbara Ann Hilton’s disappearance can call Ron Kilman at (217) 343-6700.
Sources
Hilton, Barb Ann. Image. Facebook, August 9, 2012. https://www.facebook.com/barb.a.hilton
Crosby, Tim. “Cold Trail, Warm Tears.” Herald and Review (Decatur, Illinois), August 23, 1998.
Good, Meaghan. “Barbara Ann Hilton.” The Charley Project. https://charleyproject.org/case/barbara-ann-hilton
“Marcella “Sally” A. Hilton.” Obituary. Bauer Funeral Home. https://www.bauerfh.com/obituary/2451439
Neal, Abby. “On Friday, August 4, 1972, Barbara Ann left her home around 7 pm and headed for Mattoon alone, driving a green Chevy Nova.” Facebook, February 20, 2024. https://www.facebook.com/abby.neal17
1970-1979United States
