In July 1962, 20-year-old Audrey Backeberg went missing from Reedsburg, Wisconsin. The family's babysitter said she and Backeberg hitchhiked to Madison on July 7 before they took a Greyhound bus to Indianapolis, according to her missing person report.
The babysitter said she last saw Backeberg walking away from the bus stop, around a corner. Investigators pursued different leads on her whereabouts for years, but the case eventually went cold.
That is until Thursday, when the Sauk County Sheriff's Office announced Backeberg had been located — "alive and well."
Backeberg disappeared of her own volition, with no criminal activity or foul play involved, authorities said. The woman who spent more than 60 years listed as a missing person in Wisconsin is now living in another state.
The case was assigned to a Sauk County detective early this year as part of an ongoing review of all cold case files, Sheriff Chip Meister said in the release. Witnesses were reinterviewed, all evidence was re-evaluated, and new insights were revealed.
But the secret to cracking the case was her sister's Ancestry family history profile, Detective Isaac Hanson told WISN-TV of Milwaukee.
"That was pretty key in locating death records, census reports, all kinds of data,” Hanson told WISN. “Ultimately, we came up with an address."
Hanson phoned the local sheriff's department and asked someone to stop by at the address he found, WISN reported. Ten minutes later, Backeberg, now in her 80s, gave Hanson a call.
An abusive husband may have been a factor in her disappearance, Hanson said, but he promised their conversation would remain private. The sheriff's office also did not disclose what state Backeberg is living in.
According to The Chippewa Herald, Backeberg had two children with a former husband, Ronald, who died in 2006. Hanson confirmed to the Herald that Backeberg did remarry and has a new last name that he declined to share.
Hanson told the Herald he notified Backeberg's family members, who had mixed emotions but were "elated."
“She sounded happy,” he told WISN. "Confident in her decision. No regrets.”
