Burke was last seen in her home on east 13th Street in Port Angeles, Washington on February 20, 1970. She has never been heard from again. She left her three children, aged between two and six years old, alone in the house, and she also left her purse behind. Burke was in the process of a divorce at the time of her 1970 disappearance and was seeing another man. Police have named her husband as a person of interest in her disappearance.

In 2003, 33 years after Burke disappeared, investigators searched for her body with ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs. They concentrated on the driveway of her former home, and a parking lot behind her husband's former place of work on east 8th Street. Tests indicated that something was buried underneath a concrete slab, but when authorities dug underneath it they found no evidence. Nothing was located during the search and investigators do not plan to search further.

Foul play is suspected in Burke's disappearance. Her case is unsolved.