Franks was last seen in Toledo, Ohio sometime during the month of April, 1965. She was married to a twenty-year-old man at the time of her disappearance. They had a young daughter and lived in the 1500 block of Western Avenue in Toledo.

Franks's husband said they had an argument after her caught Franks with another man, and she packed her belongings and left. In 2004, investigators reopened her case and stated that they believed Franks had been murdered. She has not contacted any of her loved ones since 1965, there has been no activity on her Social Security number (SSN), and police could not find any signs of trouble in her life that would lead her to drop out of sight so completely and for so long.

Franks's mother last saw her just before Easter in 1965. She went to her home a few days later to drop off Easter baskets. No one was at the residence but the landlady let her in. Franks's mother says the apartment was in disarray, with the drapes torn and clothes strewn everywhere. The baby's bed had no bedding on it. The landlady told Franks's mother she had heard a lot of commotion coming from the apartment the previous night. Franks's mother reported her daughter missing after receiving this information and seeing the state the apartment was in, and also hired a private detective to search for her daughter.

Investigators consider Franks's husband to be a "person of interest" in her disappearance. The reinterviewed him in 2004. He had since divorced Franks and remarried twice. Their daughter lived with her father's relatives after her mother's disappearance, then with her father for a few years, then moved to a children's home. She did not get to know her mother's family until she was an adult.

Franks attended Genoa High School and was a member of the chess club but did not graduate. She was also a Girl Scout and a member of a local church. She got married about a year prior to her disappearance, after she became pregnant. Her case remains unsolved and foul play is suspected.