The afternoon and evening of September 6, Jane was on an extended bike ride with her friends. She returned home to her mobile home, where she moved pending her divorce. That night, a neighbor allegedly heard screams coming from the directions of Jane's home, but didn't call police because he wasn't sure if he had actually heard trouble. Later that night, someone in a local motel reported hearing a conversation through a wall; something along the lines of "We'll get rid of her the same way we did back in Iowa City, in a sewage lagoon.". Officials drained a nearby pond to search for evidence, but found nothing. When she failed to report for work Monday, police investigated her home and saw her bike tethered securely, her car parked in its spot, and all of her personal effects in the residence.

Jane's last known location

A confidential informant later told police that her soon to be ex husband John had rented a car similar to her current boyfriend's and arrived at Jane's home in the evening. He abducted her and put her in the trunk of his rental car, and then used an industrial-scale incinerator to cremate her body. He had access to this equipment through one of his businesses, something that he and Jane were actively settling how to divide during the divorce. He then allegedly spread her ashes over I-40 during the middle of the night, depositing most of them in a rest stop trashcan. Because of this tip, police then obtained a search warrant for the Wakefields' businesses, and found bone chips, as well as a gold filling in the base of the incinerator. Tests on the bone fragments were inconclusive and greatly limited due to a lack of forensic technologies in the 70's. John Wakefield was never convicted due to a lack of evidence, but he has always been suspected by Jane's friends and family.