A woman who disappeared without a trace in the 1960s has recently been discovered alive, breaking her long silence.
In July 1962, Audrey Backeberg, who was 20 at the time, disappeared from Reedsburg, Wisconsin. She was a young mother with two children, and her sudden disappearance left her family and community in shock.
For six decades, hope that she was still alive faded, until a significant development occurred on Thursday, May 1.
The Sauk County Sheriff’s Office revealed that Backeberg was found “alive and well” living in a different state. They explained: “Through diligent investigative work, which included a thorough re-evaluation of all case files and evidence, combined with re-interviewing witnesses and uncovering new insights, the Sheriff’s Office is now able to report that Audrey Backeberg is alive and well and currently resides out of State.”
Detective Isaac Hanson, who was in charge of the investigation, explained how they ultimately located Audrey.
He shared with WMTV: “I ended up locating an arrest record that I suspected was likely Audrey, so I contacted her family. She has a living sister in the area.”
Her sister provided crucial information that helped connect the dots and locate her.
According to the Wisconsin Missing Persons Advocacy (WMPA), Audrey had married Ronald Backeberg at just 15 years old, and there were allegations of abuse in their relationship.
Audrey filed a criminal complaint accusing her husband of beating her and threatening her life just days before her disappearance.
Although her husband was questioned and passed a polygraph test asserting his innocence, Audrey remained missing for decades.
At the time of her disappearance, the couple’s 14-year-old babysitter told police that she had traveled with Audrey by hitchhiking to Madison and then took a bus to Indianapolis but returned home alone.
Detective Lt. Chris Zunker mentioned, “The juvenile was interviewed again as an adult, maybe 15 years ago.”
“She stated Audrey had taken a bunch of pills, put them in a Coke can, and drank it before taking the bus down to Indianapolis.
“She reported Audrey potentially hooked up with some construction workers that may have been in the area.”
Despite these leads, no new information arose until Hanson re-opened the case and re-interviewed witnesses, eventually finding her.
“The sister actually had an Ancestry.com account, and I was able to use that. That was pretty key in locating death records, census reports, all kinds of data,” Hanson told WISN. “Ultimately, we came up with an address.
“So I called the local sheriff’s department, said ‘Hey, there’s this lady living at this address. Do you guys have somebody, you can just go pop in?’ Ten minutes later, she called me, and we talked for 45 minutes.”
During that conversation, a surprising revelation was made.
She reportedly left of her own accord and expressed ‘no regrets’ about leaving her children with her husband.
“I told Audrey that I would keep it private,” Hanson said. “She had her reasons for leaving and we discussed a lot of things.
“I think she just was removed and, you know, moved on from things and kind of did her own thing and lead her life. She sounded happy. Confident in her decision. No regrets.”