Wisconsin mom of two found safe after vanishing more than 60 years ago — but never wanted to be found
A Wisconsin mother who vanished over 60 years ago has been located “alive and well” — but she never wanted to be found in the first place.
Audrey Backeberg was just 20 years old when she disappeared from her Reedsburg home in July 1962, leaving behind a husband and two children.
Now 82, Backeberg was found “happy” and living in another state with “no regrets” after apparently running off from an allegedly abusive relationship, the Sauk County Sheriff’s Office announced Thursday.
“She sounded happy. Confident in her decision,” Detective Isaac Hanson — who reopened the cold case in March — after he spoke with Backeberg.
The mother’s disappearance stumped investigators for years after family insisted she would never leave her kids behind, while her husband, Ronald — whom she married when she was just 15 — claimed he had nothing to do with it and passed subsequent polygraph tests.
But just days before she vanished, Backeberg filed a criminal complaint against Ronald, alleging he’d beaten her so badly she was left with head injuries — and that he’d even threatened to kill her, according to .
She was last seen leaving home to pick up her paycheck from work, while her family’s 14-year-old babysitter told cops she thought Backeberg had hitchhiked to about 55 miles to Madison before catching a bus to Indiana.
“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,” police said.
The case eventually went cold after years of chasing leads.
But it was reassigned to Detective Hanson in March after the sheriff’s office launched a review of its cold cases, and an Ancestry.com account belonging to Backeberg’s sister helped open new leads.
“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.”
Backeberg and Hanson spoke for just under an hour, and she told him how she took off to escape her husband.
“I think she just was removed and, you know, moved on from things and kind of did her own thing and led her life,” he said.
Backeberg was never unsafe during the six decades she was labeled as missing, Hanson confirmed.
Police have not disclosed where she is located now, or where she has been living.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1.800.799.SAFE (7233) or text START to 88788.
