Jennifer Schweiger was a 12-year-old white girl from Staten Island who vanished on July 9, 1987, after leaving home for a walk. Contemporary accounts described her as a child with Down syndrome. Witnesses reported seeing her walking hand-in-hand with a man identified as Andre Rand, and investigators concentrated searches in the brushy woods and abandoned buildings around the former Willowbrook facility.

Rand was arrested and arraigned on August 4, 1987, then sent for psychiatric evaluation at Kings County Hospital. On August 12, 1987, about 35 days after Jennifer disappeared, her body was found buried in a shallow grave roughly 150 yards from a campsite reportedly used by Rand; a retired firefighter, George Kramer, spotted something in the earth that led police to the remains. Prosecutors later charged Rand with kidnapping and murder; a jury convicted him of first-degree kidnapping but could not reach a verdict on the murder count.