On August 1, 1974, 11-year-old Lillian Annette Anderson and her 6-year-old sister Mylette disappeared from their Jacksonville home while their mother and older sister were visiting a sick relative. The mother phoned an hour after leaving and everything seemed normal; the father returned at 7:20 p.m. to find the house empty. Doors were closed but unlocked, the family dog was locked in a bedroom, and the only item reported missing was Mylette’s baby doll. Annette required daily thyroid medication.

Neighbors reported seeing a white car in the driveway between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m. but observed nothing suspicious and did not see the girls leave. Their disappearance was one of several involving young girls in Jacksonville that summer and fall of 1974. Paul John Knowles later confessed on tapes to abducting and murdering two girls matching the sisters’ descriptions and directed searches to a remote site; investigators expressed doubts about his claims and no remains were found at the indicated location. The sisters’ case remains unsolved.