Audrey Jean “Good” Backeberg, 82, is a former resident of Reedsburg, Sauk County, Wisconsin, United States. She was found 62 years after running away from her residence in the city.
Backeberg was only 15 years old when she got married in 1957 to Reedsburg native Ronald “Ron” L. Backeberg, who was then 17 years old. They have two children together including James L. Backeberg, who was born on March 19, 1958.
On July 4, 1962, Audrey went to the police and filed a complaint against Ronald. She accused him of battering her, leaving her with head injuries and threatening to kill her.
On July 6, 1962, Audrey turned 20. On July 7, 1962, she went missing.
Ronald insisted he had nothing to do with Audrey’s disappearance. He passed a polygraph test.
A girl, then 14, who worked as a babysitter for Ronald and Audrey told police she had hitchhiked to Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin with the missing mother of two. Audrey took a bus to Indianapolis, Indiana, USA with the babysitter, according to the latter.
The girl said she decided to return home and she last saw Audrey at a bus stop. When the babysitter was interviewed again as an adult, she said Audrey put a bunch of pills in a Coke can, drank it and took the bus down to Indianapolis.
Over the years, investigators pursued many leads. However, the case went cold.
James Backeberg
James lived in Kendall, Monroe County, Wisconsin. He worked at Ronald’s trucking company.
On March 19, 1990, James turned 32. On August 19, 1990, he went missing.
On August 20, 1990, James died. At around 9:00 a.m. that day, Ronald found James’s body along a creek that runs through Kendall.
On August 21, 1990, then Monroe County medical examiner Toni E. Eddy said an autopsy confirmed her initial ruling that James drowned in a creek near Kendall. He was buried in Glendale Cemetery in Kendall.
Ronald Backeberg
Ronald lived not only in Reedsburg but also in Kendall and Elroy, Juneau County, Wisconsin. On May 3, 2005, he turned 65.
On April 2, 2006, Ronald died at University Hospital in Madison. Like James, Ronald was buried in Glendale Cemetery.
Neither Ronald nor James knew what happened to Audrey. Unbeknownst to her family, she intentionally left Reedsburg and ran away.
After leaving the city, Audrey assumed a new identity and remarried. She never contacted Ronald and their two sons.
Isaac Hanson
In March 20245, Sauk County Sheriff’s Office detective Isaac Hanson reopened Audrey’s case. He reevaluated evidence, reinterviewed witnesses and found her sister’s Ancestry.com account.
That was how Hanson found Audrey’s current address. They had a phone conversation for 45 minutes.
Audrey “sounded happy” and “confident in her decision”, Hanson told WISN. He said she had “no regrets”.
On May 1, 2025, the Sauk County Sheriff’s Office announced that Audrey had been found alive and well in outside the state of Wisconsin. As Hanson promised to Audrey, neither her current residence nor the name she is using was revealed.
CONAN Daily 