Frank Welzbacher was 36 and living in Sylvania, Ohio, when he was abducted and killed in 1972. His death was one of three in a string of robberies and abductions that also claimed 68-year-old Earl Ludlow of Temperance, Michigan, and 23-year-old Joseph Satcher of Toledo, Ohio. The victims were taken north of the Ohio line into Monroe County, Michigan, where they were killed.

Authorities later tied the crimes to Laurence Lamont and an accomplice who carried out robberies of gas stations and party stores during which the abductions occurred. Lamont was incarcerated in Ohio for other crimes for many years before being charged in these murders; in December 2013 he pleaded no contest to three counts of second-degree murder. On February 6, 2014, a Monroe County judge sentenced Lamont to life in prison. The accomplice died in prison before facing justice for these killings.