Barbara Anne Bauer, 16, was abducted from a shopping mall in Holly Hill, Florida, and her body was found strangled in Bradford County on September 6, 1973. The killing is recorded as a homicide; she was described as a Caucasian female.

In 1982 Gerald Eugene Stano confessed to Bauer’s murder along with numerous other killings. Stano, born in 1951 in Schenectady and raised in Florida, claimed to have killed dozens of women between 1969 and 1980 and was convicted of multiple murders and later executed in Florida on March 23, 1998. His confessions have been disputed: questions were raised about Detective Sergeant Paul B. Crow’s role in eliciting admissions, and a jailhouse informant later acknowledged fabricating testimony with prosecutors’ assistance.

The factual link between Stano’s confession and Bauer’s case has been contested. Anyone who knew Barbara, saw her in Holly Hill in 1973, or has information about her abduction or death is asked to come forward.