The couple left Catholicism to become freethinkers;[4] therefore their children were not baptized (nor were their births apparently registered with the city) so Eliška's exact birthdate is unknown.

On the morning of April 8, 1911, Elsie Paroubek left her home at 2320 S. Albany Avenue in Chicago,[c] telling her mother she was going to visit "Auntie", Karolina's sister Julia Trampota,[d] around the corner at 2325 S. Troy Street.

[12] Police initially agreed that she was likely spending the night with friends, but when she had not returned by the following morning, Captain John Mahoney took personal charge of the search.

The Chicago American repeated this story with the added detail that the girl seemed to be trying to get away and was being restrained; also, that police had reason to believe this was a "Black Hand" kidnapping.

The "stolen by gypsies" theory gained credence because Elsie's disappearance was almost identical to that of Lillian Wulff, who had been found among Romani people four years earlier.

[12] Inspector Healey also ordered that drainage canals be dragged for the child's body on April 15, and Governor Charles S. Deneen asked the public to aid in the search.

When local residents started asking "gypsies" about Elsie and attempting to search the wagons, they broke camp again and moved on to Volo, Illinois, 43 miles from Chicago.

Volo residents reported a child matching Elsie's description and said she appeared to be "stupefied" or "drugged" and partly covered with a blanket.

[19][21] In several instances, a child was found in a camp who did resemble Elsie, such that even Frank was momentarily certain it was his daughter and it would take some time to convince him it was a mistake.

As late as April 24, when a little girl somewhat answering Elsie's description was found in a "gypsy" camp near 18th and South Halsted Streets, Frank fell to his knees and prayed.

Mahoney received an anonymous phone tip that a child answering Elsie's description had been seen accompanying a man to a Western Springs, Illinois, hotel.

Upon inquiry, Frank said there had been a lot of construction on the street the day Elsie disappeared, and he had heard his parents discussing the possibility that she had fallen into a hole.

Also on April 22, John Muts, the town marshal for Trevor, Wisconsin, received a phone call regarding a blonde child in a nearby gypsy camp.

He brought detectives to begin investigating empty buildings, barns, sheds, elevators, catchbasins, and basements on or near South Albany Avenue.

Stephen Wood of the detective bureau was having all "gypsy" wagons followed and wrote to every police official in the vicinity of Belvidere, Rockford and Janesville, Wisconsin to be on the lookout for Elsie.

The following day's Chicago Daily News devoted a full column to the search, calling it "one of the most extensive and far-reaching quests ever made for a missing child."

Twenty police officers and one hundred volunteers were involved in Lt. Costello's search, covering a radius of about a mile of the Paroubek home.

[34] By April 30, the superintendent of schools, Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, had requested that all schoolchildren in the Chicago area organize neighborhood searches during spring break.

The Chicago American revealed that not only Czech speakers were involved in this "international squad", but police officers Dagulski (Polish), Arens and Richter (German), McCauley (Irish) and Alexander (English) were assigned because they each spoke several languages and would be better able to question "every man, woman and child in the camps.

"[44] Meanwhile, Detectives Zahour and Zalasky sought a man residing near Madison and Robey streets, the suspected author of the anonymous, threatening letters Frank Paroubek had received.

Lt. Costello, supported by Inspector Healey, flatly declared: "Elsie Paroubek fell into the drainage canal from the Kedzie Avenue bridge or near it.

[51] Lt. Costello later told the press that she had been "mistreated," seeming to indicate this meant her death was not the work of "gypsies,"[53] and Inspector Healy added, "there seems to be no doubt that she was abused in the most fiendish way, and that fact established, the case is much simplified for the police.

[17] He told the Chicago Inter Ocean: "I have forty detectives at work today on the theory that the criminals lived in the neighborhood of the Paroubek home.

Surrounded by friends and neighbors she told reporters, "Before the doctors found that Elsie's lungs were free from water and discovered reasons for believing she had been strangled, I knew she had been murdered.

[60] Elsie's white coffin rested on two brass stands, surrounded by lilies of the valley, roses and carnations sent by Mayor Harrison, Judge Sabath and other city officials.

Eight little girls dressed all in white, including Josie Trampota and her sister Mary, brought out huge sprays of lilies and roses and encircled the bier.

As the Paroubeks were not Catholics but freethinkers,[4] there were no prayers, and the service was read by Rudolf Jaromír Pšenka, editor of the Bohemian Chicago Daily Svornost.

"[l] Searching the shack, detectives found a green hair ribbon which they intended to take to Karolina for identification, along with "indications of a small hole dug in the ground" and "an old hemp sack, which might have contained the body.

[70] Detectives surrounded a house near Madison and Robey streets, and threw a dragnet over the southwestern side of town for a former boarder in the Paroubek home.

In the novel, Darger describes children who are kidnapped and mistreated by adults, while the heroic little Vivians, Annie Aronburg and others form "rescue squads" to save them.