Ida died in a barn fire in 1977 when Danny was just a baby. She and Eli were Amish. Eli left, taking Danny with him, and moved around a lot. When Olsen started investigating Danny's death, he realized there were a lot of questions about Ida's demise as well. Supposedly (according to Eli, not the most reliable narrator) she woke him up at midnight when she saw the fire through the window. She was already fully dressed in her traditional Amish dress, which includes straight or safety pins, not buttons or zippers. She went outside before him. He told her to go to the nearest neighbor who had a phone and call for help, she asked if she could save some things out of the milk house first and he said all right. That's where her body was found. Eli said she must have had a heart attack due to a weak heart. There are some problems with this: her childhood doctor said her heart was fine and the coroner's autopsy report was doctored. Olsen wrote "Abandoned Prayers" about it in the 90s (I've never read it), but the case always bothered him, so he decided to revisit it, despite most of the main players being dead. Eli died by suicide in 2007.
It was very sad. All he had was rumors and gossip. The Amish don't believe in talking bad about anyone, so no one would come out and say they thought Eli killed Ida and Danny, they just hinted and pointed him to other people who might talk. There was no satisfying conclusion to it, like many things in life.
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