Disappearance Of Evelyn

Evelyn was baby-sitting a twenty-month-old girl at the home of La Crosse State College professor Viggo Rasmusen on the evening of October 24, 1953. Rasmusen and his wife, along with many other La Crosse citizens, were attending the town homecoming game. The Rasmusen house was found in the 2400 block of Hoeschler Drive.

The family had a regular babysitter, but she also schemed to attend the homecoming game that night, so Evelyn was hired as a replacement. She brought four or five schoolbooks with her and planned to study while the baby slept.

 

She was presumed to call her parents at 8:30 p.m. to check-in, but she never did. Her father tried to call many times that day and never got an answer. He became worried and went to Rasmusens' house to check on his daughter.

 

Evelyn's father found the house's doors closed and the lights and radio on. The baby was safe, asleep in her crib, but there was no sign of Evelyn. The furniture inside the living room was disarranged and Evelyn's textbooks were scattered. One of her shoes and her eyeglasses, which were broken, were on the living room floor. Her other shoe was found in the basement.

All the windows in the house were locked except a basement window in the back of the house. The screen for that window had been taken out and was leaning against the outside wall. A short stepladder was placed at the window in the basement; it belonged to the Rasmussen and they'd been using it to help paint the basement. Three other windows had pry marks. There were footprints from a pair of sneakers in the basement window box and the living room.

 

In addition to the indications of forced entry, was a substantial amount of blood of Evelyn's type both inside the home near the basement window, and outside. There were two pools of blood in the yard; one stain was 18 inches in diameter. There was a bloody handprint about four feet off the ground on the wall of a garage 100 feet from the Rasmusens' home, and stains on the home of a neighbor's house.

 

Authorities believe Evelyn's abductor carried or dragged her through the yard, and blood pooled twice when the kidnapper stopped and rested her on the ground. Tracker dogs traced Evelyn's scent for two blocks, then lost the trail at Coulee Drive northeast of the Rasmusen home. Authorities think whoever took her to put her in a car.

 

One neighbor reported watching a light-colored car circling the neighborhood at nearly 8:00 p.m. Another resident said they heard screams at about 7:00 p.m., but they assumed it was children playing. Authorities believe Evelyn was kidnaped around that time.

Two days after her disappearance, a local man named Ed Hofer came forward to say that at about 7:15 p.m. that night, he almost hit a two-toned green 1941 or 1942 Buick which was speeding westward. He saw two men and a girl inside.

 

One man was driving and the other was in the backseat with the girl, who was slumped forwards with her head leaning against the front seat. Hofer said he'd seen the car's inmates a few minutes earlier, staggering down the street near where the blood was later found.

 

Hofer had presumed the three people were en route to the homecoming game, as he was. He didn't realize the importance of what he saw because, at that time, no one knew Evelyn was missing. Hofer's information was publicized, but his name was withheld from the media for nearly 50 years after Evelyn's disappearance.

 

Many days after her disappearance, a pair of underpants and a brassiere that could have been Evelyn's were found near the underpass on Highway 14, two miles south of La Crosse. They too were stained with blood. A bloodstained pair of men's pants were found along the same road four miles away; it is unknown if the pants are connected to Evelyn's case.

 

A pair of size 11 bloodstained Goodrich sneakers were found in the Coon Valley area southeast of La Crosse. They were e only a short time before they were discovered. The soles had a suction-cup pattern very similar to the footprints found near where Evelyn was last seen and the blood was her type; detectives believe they were worn by her abductor. Inside one of them was a single human hair, maybe from an African-American.

 

Authorities discussed the Goodrich company and learned that that particular model of shoe was called "Hood Mogul" and was sold in Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Illinois. Based on the pattern of wear on the shoes, detectives believe their owner worked with machinery. The shoes also had a distinctive circular wear pattern on the soles, suggesting that their owner continually operated a Whizzer motorbike. Detectives determined that two various people had worn the shoes; the second wearer's feet were too big for them.

 

Within 800 feet of the shoes was a well-worn, size 36 blue denim jacket with metallic buttons and bloodstains on the front, back, and sleeves. The jacket had some base metal paint flecks on it. It had been cut off at the bottom and roughly re-hemmed with white thread, and one of the four buttons was missing. There was a worn mark running the entire width of the jacket under the armpits, maybe on a safety harness. There were bast grains, like the kind used in scrubbing brushes, in the left-hand pocket.

 

The blood on the jacket was Evelyn's type and blood smears were found at the house she was taken from wherever made by cloth with was characteristics of denim; authorities believe the jacket was worn by her kidnapper. However, it appeared to be too small for a person big enough to wear size 11 shoes. One detective concluded, based on the pattern of wear on the jacket and the way it was cut off, that whoever owned it worked as a steeplejack.

 

Evelyn's abduction sparked one of the biggest searches in Wisconsin history. Among other extreme measures, investigators conducted mass searches of local vehicles and gave lie detector tests to all the students and teachers at Evelyn's school. They took the shoes and the jacket to 31 different communities in the area and displayed them to a figured 10,000 people, but no one recognized them. Many suspects were interviewed over the years, but there was no evidence to implicate anyone.

Some people believe Edward Theodore Gein may have been involved in Evelyn's case. A photograph of him is posted with this case summary. He was visiting relatives in La Crosse, just blocks from the home where she was babysitting, on the night of her disappearance.

 

In 1957, police went to question Gein about the disappearance of a local barmaid and found human remains all over his house. He had killed two women and had dug up other women's bodies in the cemetery and injured them.

 

Gein was declared insane and died in a mental institution in 1984. No trace of Evelyn was found on his property and he denied any involvement in her case. He has still not been completely cleared, however, and is also being considered in the 1947 kidnapping of Georgia Weckler.

 

Evelyn was a junior at Central High School at the time of her apparent abduction; she had a straight-A average and was involved in many school activities. She also played the piano and sang in the choir at the First Presbyterian Church. She had had few dates with boys and had never had a steady boyfriend.

 

Hartley's abduction led to one of the biggest searches in the history of Wisconsin. Public efforts to find her have included the Charley Project and the Soddy-Daisy-Roots Project. A reward fund established in the immediate aftermath of the event reached $6,600 ($60.4 thousand today). Hartley's parents moved to Portland, Oregon in the 1970s, and are now both deceased.

 

In 2004, a man named Mel Williams came forward with a tape of a conversation he recorded at a bar years previously. Although Williams' goal was to record the band that was playing, the conversation between the two men was unintentionally recorded as well. One of the men implicated himself of the Hartley disappearance on the tape. Also implicated was another man who Williams gathered committed suicide shortly after the crime. On the tape, the man implicated reported that he took Hartley to La Farge, Wisconsin, where she was murdered and buried. The tape ended when the implicated man told Williams to stop recording. Williams reported that he could not remember what happened after the recorder was shut off. The two men implicated on the tape are now deceased. Captain Mitch Brohmer of the La Crosse Police Department responded to these tapes by saying, "We'll look into it". No further developments were ever made. As of 2018, no traces of Evelyn was ever found...

Timeline

 

6:20 PM - Evelyn is picked up from her home by Prof. Viggo Rasmusen.

 

~6:30 PM - They arrive at the Rasmusen house. Evelyn is instructed on where things are, what time to feed the baby (7 PM), and when to put her to bed (7:15).

 

6:45 PM - Prof. Rasmusen, his wife, and older daughter leave to go to the game.

 

It is believed by police that Evelyn was abducted between the time of 7 PM-7:30 PM

 

7 PM- A neighborhood couple hears many piercing screams but does not call the police.

 

7:15 PM - a man who lived down the street saw three people walking down the road: two men with a girl between them. A few minutes later while heading to the game he sees them again, this time speeding westward with one man driving, and the other man in the backseat with a girl who is slumped over.

 

At 8 PM, neighbors see that an unfamiliar light-colored car had been circling the neighborhood, but was no longer seen.

 

8:30 PM - Evelyn was presumed to contact her parents, but did not.

 

9:20 PM - Evelyn's father, Dr. Hartley, leaves the Hartley home and drives to the Rasmusen home.

 

9:30 PM - Dr. Hartley comes to the Rasmusen home, sees lights on, hears the radio, but no one answers the door. He interrogates and finds a window screen missing in the basement. He enters the house and finds the baby in the crib, but no Evelyn.

 

~9:40 PM - a neighbor sees Dr. Hartley around his neighbor's house. He goes over to see what is going on, and after talking with Dr. Hartley helps him circle the house looking for Evelyn.

 

9:49 PM - the neighbor returns to his home and phones the police.