She disappeared from Manly Hospital on 17 March 2004, and, in February 2005, it was revealed that she had been unlawfully detained at Brisbane Women's Correctional Centre, a prison, and later at Baxter Detention Centre, after being classified as a suspected illegal immigrant or non-citizen by the Immigration Department when she refused to reveal her true identity.
On several occasions, she disappeared for a few days, and sometimes she travelled overseas, but she had always returned or made contact with her family, usually with her sister, Christine Rau.
The following day, Manly Hospital reported Rau to the New South Wales Police as a "missing patient", although they did not consider her to be in any serious danger.
[8] On 31 March, Queensland Police contacted the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) and gave it the details that Rau had provided.
The police again contacted DIMIA, which advised them to detain Rau as a suspected unlawful non-citizen under the provisions of the Migration Act 1958.
[14] Indorato said that her command of the language was fluent but "child-like" in terms of vocabulary, and that Rau could not remember basic information such as her parents' names, and where she had been born.
On 29 April, a DIMIA officer contacted the Missing Persons Unit of the Queensland Police, and sent them the information they had collected about Anna.
[16] On 11 May, Rau asked if she could apply for a German passport, and DIMIA officials prepared a form filled in with her details, giving her name as Anna Schmidt.
[16] Throughout June 2004, as Rau's condition deteriorated, other prisoners began to suspect that she was ill, because she would pace all day and would slam doors.
During the taped interview, Anna recalled an incident in which she was sent to solitary confinement in the Detention Unit (DU), for attempting to obtain a newspaper from another room in the prison.
On 30 July, after several BWCC inmates and staff expressed concerns about Anna's welfare, the prison's psychologist recommended that she have a psychiatric evaluation, so that her mental health could be assessed.
One week later, on 6 August, a BWCC officer also asked for an evaluation, to determine whether Anna could be placed in the community, rather than remain in the prison.
The police contacted DIMIA again six weeks later, on 24 September, in an attempt to discover whether Rau had left or tried to leave Australia.
[18] By the end of September 2004, DIMIA officials were planning to move Rau to the Baxter Immigration Reception and Processing Centre (commonly known as the Baxter Detention Centre), a DIMIA facility (operated by Global Solutions Limited, or GSL) near the town of Port Augusta in South Australia.
The Rural and Remote Mental Health Service (RRMHS) offered a videoconference, but Baxter officials instead wanted Anna to be admitted to a hospital, because they believed that she would not cooperate with a video assessment.
On 17 November, the RRMHS took Anna off the waiting list for hospital treatment, without informing officials at Baxter, who believed that their request was still being considered.
Meanwhile, on 22 December, police in Manly, New South Wales contacted DIMIA, without providing photographs or other information, to see if Rau had used her Australian passport to leave the country.
In late December, a group of Christian ministers, including Sister Claudette Cusack, who worked at Baxter, wrote to DIMIA about Anna and other detainees who appeared to have mental-health issues.
Father Arno Vermeeren, who also works at Baxter, raised his concerns about Anna and the Red 1 compound with the Immigration Detention Advisory Group (IDAG), shortly before a scheduled inspection.
On 7 January, a doctor from International Health and Medical Services (IHMS), a DIMIA sub-contractor, examined Anna again and suggested that she might have schizophrenia, or at least a schizophrenia-related condition.
[22] On 31 January 2005, The Age newspaper in Melbourne published a story by Andra Jackson, entitled "Mystery woman at Baxter may be ill".
The family, in turn, contacted the New South Wales Police, who emailed DIMIA officials at Baxter with details and photographs of Rau.
[23] On 9 February 2005, the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, Senator Hon, Amanda Vanstone, announced that former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer would be conducting an inquiry into the circumstances around the detention of Rau.
Senator Vanstone tabled the report in Parliament and held a press conference along with Prime Minister John Howard, in which they apologised to Rau and Solon.
[24] Labor Immigration spokesperson Tony Burke criticised the Inquiry, saying that only a Royal Commission would have the necessary powers to investigate the situation properly.
[27] In May 2008, Rau was cleared to travel by a psychiatrist in Adelaide, but was subsequently "held in isolation at a Hamburg hospital" in a closed ward for 7 weeks until late October 2008.