Monica Ann Hibbs was first known as Jane Doe until her identity was discovered almost three years after her body was discovered. Photograph taken on Monday Oct. 5, 2023.
PRESTON – Preston City Cemetery has a Potter’s field where indigent people are interned. There are a few people buried there. Ron Smellie has been in the funeral business at Webb Funeral home for the past 28 years and said during that time he had only seen a few people buried there.
Webb Funeral Home is contracted by Franklin County to take care of bodies they found that are unidentified or indigent.
“The county has a budget to cover the cost of taking care of bodies they found that are indigent or they can’t find family to take care of the burial expenses,” he said. “The bodies are cremated and given a spot in the Preston Cemetery in Potter’s Field.”
Smellie said there is an interesting story about a body that was found in Weston Canyon by Standing Rock. Standing Rock is a geological feature in the canyon mentioned in the Journals of John C. Fremont, an early explorer of the West. The 100 foot high 25 foot wide stone has a pull out used by motorists to rest and explore the ground around the rock.
In May of 1986 a truckdriver pulled his rig over to rest by Standing Rock and found the body of a young woman. When the Sheriff at the time, Don Beckstead, investigated the incident, he said it appeared to be a homicide. The young woman looked like she was in her mid-20’s.
“When community members found out about the Jane Doe they rallied and wanted to give her a proper burial,” Smellie said. “Gae Keller, Mayor Dan Keller’s mother, bought a headstone with Jane Doe engraved on it.”
She passed away in December of 2021.
Mayor Keller said his mother had a good heart and felt bad about this unknown girl who died and was dumped in the canyon.
“She took it to heart,” Keller said. “She did the burial plot and the head stone as well.”
Gae felt terrible for the situation: no family, no friends. She took a holistic view of the life of anguish.
“She put her feelings and thoughts into action,” he said. “Her empathy was pretty touching, it was a terrible situation that really touched her.”
Almost three years after Jane Doe had been found, her dental records matched a Monica Hibbs, 25, originally from Broken Arrow, OK a suburb of Tulsa. She had more recently lived in San Jose, California.
After the identification was secure, law enforcement agencies went to work finding her killer. The headstone was changed to Monica Ann Hibbs.
After 13 years of investigation James Harlston Linden admitted to a reduced charge in the 1986 death of Hibbs. He was sentenced to prison.
When Rosalie Hibbs, Monica’s mother, saw the care the people of Preston gave her daughter she decided to leave her in the Preston Cemetery.
Doug Webb, the Franklin County Coroner at the time, remembers the Jane Doe.
“We had a half dozen people in Preston who thought it was their daughter and several inquiries from outside the county wanting to know if it could be their daughter,” Webb said. “It made me wonder how many more people are out there somewhere.”