Ida Dean Anderson, also recorded under her maiden name Ida Dean Richardson, was 21 when she was last seen in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on September 18, 1958. A young White mother about 5 feet 2 inches and 110 pounds, with shoulder-length light brown or dishwater-blonde hair and green eyes, she had spent much of 1958 fighting to regain custody of her three children after separating from her husband, Kenneth Gerald Anderson.

Ida fell ill earlier that year with rheumatic fever and ulcers and was hospitalized; during her illness her husband placed the children in a boarding home and they became wards of the state. Plane tickets were purchased for a planned move to Jacksonville, Florida, after a custody hearing, but the tickets were never used. Conflicting accounts leave it unclear whether Ida ever appeared at the mid-September court date she was due to attend.

No confirmed contact from Ida is documented after September 18, 1958, and searches of hospital records have not turned up evidence she was admitted under another name. Her three children were reunited in 1995 and began searching for her then. Did anyone who knew Ida in Ann Arbor in 1958 see or hear anything that could help explain what happened to her?