A Wisconsin woman who went missing more than six decades ago was found “alive and well” after cold-case detectives went over the case once again.
Backeberg, now an octogenarian, was 20 at the time of her disappearance from her home in Reedsburg, in south-central Wisconsin.
According to the babysitter, "she last saw Audrey walking around the corner away from the bus stop. Audrey never returned home and has not been heard from again."
Investigators from the Sauk County Sheriff's Office pursued numerous leads over the years to determine Backeberg’s whereabouts, but the case eventually went cold.
Earlier this year, the case was assigned again as part of the Sheriff’s Office’s efforts to sift through its archive of unresolved cases. The file was assigned to Detective Isaac Hanson, who managed to find and contact the 82-year-old Backeberg within less than two months.
Hanson began by reevaluating all the case files and existing evidence, and proceeded to interview witnesses again. The missing woman's sister also had an ancestry.com account, which helped in the location of further data. Eventually, his research produced an address.
Hanson then called the local sheriff’s department with a request to check on that address to see if the missing lady indeed lived there.
The missing woman called him herself minutes later.
It was a complete surprise, he said. “I was expecting the deputy to call me back and say, 'Oh nobody answered the door,'” he told The Associated Press. Hanson said that discovering a missing person safe and well after more than 60 years is practically unheard of.
The Sauk County Sheriff’s Office praised the detective for his “diligent investigative work” and revealed that Backeberg’s disappearance “was by her own choice and not the result of any criminal activity or foul play.”
When asked why Backeberg left her home without a trace, Hanson said he promised her that he would keep her story private.
“She had her reasons for leaving,” he said, declining to divulge anything further—although he did clarify that Backeberg was in good spirits.
“She sounded happy, confident in her decision—no regrets.”
The Sheriff’s office explained the importance of reviewing cold cases to provide answers—or closure—to families and the community.
Strides in forensic DNA analysis have been helping detectives unravel decades-old cases that had previously been impossible to solve.