155: Barbara Kelley: A Murder on the California Coast

On a June night in 1950, seventeen-year-old Barbara Kelley left home for a date with Henry Baird, a 28-year-old World War II veteran she had been seeing for several months. Barbara told her parents she would spend the night at a friend’s house in nearby Eureka. There was no reason for them to worry. The next morning, Henry was found nude on a remote beach along the Northern California coast. He had been shot to death. His companion, Barbara, was nowhere to be found.Henry had been shot in the back of the head. Nearby, his clothes were found neatly stacked. With them were Barbara’s clothes. But there was no sign of Barbara. Within hours, police began to investigate the theory the teenager had been involved in Henry’s death. In the years since the murder and disappearance, speculation has run rampant including false confessions, searches through the woods, and a connection to an eerily similar case in another county.But at the heart of it all is Barbara Kelley, a seventeen-year-old girl who went on a date and never came home.📍 Humboldt County, California | June 17, 1950

📖 Featuring an original poem written and read in her honor by Kylie McNeil. ➡️ Help bring attention to missing and unidentified women—subscribe and share this episode.

📍 Find us on Instagram & Facebook and Patreon.

📚 Get Aimee’s book, Doe, now available via University of Akron Press, Bookshop.org, and Amazon.

📰 For more women-centered true crime content, subscribe to Aimee’s newsletter, GIRLHUNT.

More about Kate Hewlett:

Kylie McNeill is an actor and singer-songwriter based in New York City and Los Angeles. Most recently she can be seen as Kelly on the Emmy Winning Apple TV series, Widow's Bay. Keep an eye out for her original music. You can find her on socials like Instagram and TikTok @KylieMcNeill 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices