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We assumed it was a ransom note, and we wanted to comply. We wanted to do everything we could to get mother back. School Pictures was a company that handled photographs of school children for yearbooks, which had been taken over by Robert in the 1980s. In order to collect debts. Between 1981 and 1983, School Pictures sued 12 franchise owners, in eight states, including Florida. The letter listed these 12 franchises of the nationwide business. All of whom Robert was to pay a ransom for the return of his wife.

In September 1988, Robert made a public appeal for his wife's return. My name is Robert Hearin. My wife Annie Laurie was taken from my home over ten days ago. My children and I have done everything humanly possible to obtain her release. Like any businessman, I've made decisions which may appear to others as unfeeling, but those appearances are just not true. Moreover, those business decisions were mine, not my wife's. She had absolutely nothing to do with it. My children and I appeal to whomever has my wife that they may say that she may be safely returned to us. Thank you. There's no real way to quantify how enormous a tragedy and ordeal this has been to him and to the rest of the family.

Eight days later, Robert received a letter that was determined to be in Annie's handwriting. The letter urged Robert to pay the ransom to save Annie's life and was postmarked from Atlanta. We received a letter in mother's handwriting, and it basically pled with daddy again to comply with the demands and to please save her.

Robert mailed nearly $1,000,000 to the 12 franchisees listed, but the kidnapper never contacted him again. Since the lawsuits against these franchises were public records, authorities determined one of the people listed may have been involved in the abduction.

Witnesses reported seeing a suspicious white van with Florida plates in the neighborhood around the time of Annie's abduction. Newton Alfred Winn, a civil attorney in St. Petersburg, Florida, was the owner of a Florida based school pictures franchise and was one of the 12 names listed on the ransom note. About four years before Annie's abduction, Winn had been sued by the company. A month before the kidnapping, Winn had purchased a white van that matched the description of the one Annie's neighbors saw around her house. The day she was kidnapped, witnesses also identified Winn as a man they had seen in the van in front of the Hearin home weeks prior to the abduction.

Authorities learned that Wynn had asked his paralegal to help him fabricate an alibi for the day of the kidnapping. A woman contacted the FBI and told them that Wynn had promised her $500 to travel from Florida to Atlanta, Georgia, and mail a letter for him. This occurred sixteen days after the kidnapping. She identified the letter as the one Robert had received from his wife.

In March 1989, Winn was apprehended, and in 1990, he was convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, extortion, and perjury. He was sentenced to prison.

In 1990, Robert Hearin died of a heart attack, and a year later, Annie was declared legally dead. As of this upload, no one has ever been formally charged with the actual kidnapping of Annie. Annie has yet to be found and the case remains unresolved.

le resides at the Peterson Automobile museum in Los Angeles, California.