Late on the afternoon of October 24, 1961, police went to a house in Lincoln, Massachusetts, United States, after a neighbor reported seeing blood leading from the house to the driveway. She had made the discovery after a young girl living in the house had returned from a playdate to find her mother, Joan Carolyn Risch absent. Several unconfirmed sightings of an apparently disoriented Risch walking on nearby roads later that day were reported.