April Rose Zane was 17 when she vanished from her family home in Frankfort, Illinois, in the spring of what is believed to be 1977. Records and family recollections disagree on the exact date; some official files list April 18, 1977, while family members have suggested Easter Sunday in 1976. She told her family she was going into town to visit a friend, left the house wearing a brown flannel jacket, and never arrived or contacted anyone again.

April was a student at Lincoln-Way High School who had moved with her family from Chicago at age eleven and reportedly struggled to adjust to the rural setting. That struggle led to a history of running away; on prior occasions she was found in the Chicagoland area and once arrested for curfew violations, but she always returned or was located—until this disappearance. She is described as a white female with red or auburn hair, blue eyes, an appendectomy scar, and scars on her right knee and chin.

Her parents died in 2003 without learning what happened, and her younger sister has continued searching. The case cooled over the decades and remains unsolved in Will County. If anyone knew April, saw her on or shortly after the dates mentioned, or has information about her movements or friends from Frankfort or the Chicagoland area at that time, please come forward.