Oct 6, 2026 · 54 min · 17 segments
The Oregon cold case that haunted investigators for 44 years was finally cracked by a surprising piece of chewing gum. This true crime investigation explores the evidence, forensic breakthrough, and…
She was the youngest of eight children in the Tucker household, the baby of a big family in a city that was still decades away from the tech boom and the hipster reputation it would eventually develop.
Portland in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies was a working class town, a timber and shipping city, and the Tucker family was rooted in that world.
Barbara grew up surrounded by older siblings, and the people who knew her said she had the kind of personality you'd expect from the youngest kid in a packed house.
She was loud.
She was funny.
She was determined to be noticed.
Her family called her Barbie.
She played basketball at Cleveland High School, and she was good at it.
Standing five feet eleven and a half inches tall, she was a natural on the court.
She had the height, the reach, and the competitiveness to go further with it.
She was good enough to compete at the national level in basketball through her school's athletic program.
But sports weren't the only thing she cared about.
She was also a member of DECA, the Distributive Education Clubs of America, a national organization that prepared high school and college students for careers in marketing, finance, management, and entrepreneurship.
It was the beginning of a plan.
She wanted to own her own business someday.
She wanted to open a craft supply shop.
That dream tells you something about who she was.
This was a young woman who loved making things with her hands.
She sewed her own clothes.
She knitted.
She crocheted.
She wrote poetry and filled notebooks with it.
She was the youngest of eight children in the Tucker household, the baby of a big family in a city that was still decades away from the tech boom and the hipster reputation it would eventually develop.
Portland in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies was a working class town, a timber and shipping city, and the Tucker family was rooted in that world.
Barbara grew up surrounded by older siblings, and the people who knew her said she had the kind of personality you'd expect from the youngest kid in a packed house.
She was loud.
She was funny.
She was determined to be noticed.
Her family called her Barbie.
She played basketball at Cleveland High School, and she was good at it.
Standing five feet eleven and a half inches tall, she was a natural on the court.
She had the height, the reach, and the competitiveness to go further with it.
She was good enough to compete at the national level in basketball through her school's athletic program.
But sports weren't the only thing she cared about.
She was also a member of DECA, the Distributive Education Clubs of America, a national organization that prepared high school and college students for careers in marketing, finance, management, and entrepreneurship.
It was the beginning of a plan.
She wanted to own her own business someday.
She wanted to open a craft supply shop.
That dream tells you something about who she was.
This was a young woman who loved making things with her hands.
She sewed her own clothes.
She knitted.
She crocheted.
She wrote poetry and filled notebooks with it.
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