Disappearance of Evelyn Hartley

On October 24, 1953, Viggo Rasmussen, a professor at La Crosse State College, now University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, hired Evelyn Hartley, the daughter of a fellow professor, to take care of his 20-month old daughter. Richard found every room in the house locked, except one in the basement at the back of the house. An opened window was missing a screen, and the screen was found leaning against an outside wall. He found a short stepladder belonging to the homeowner positioned at the opened window. Pry marks were found on some windows, and footprints were found in areas of the house. Blood was found both inside the house and in the yard, with bloody hand prints about 100 feet away in a garage and in a nearby house. The child Evelyn had been caring for was found asleep and unharmed. == Investigation ==

Police believe someone took Evelyn through the yard, but dropped her on the ground before carrying her further. The police used dogs to pick up her scent trail, which ended at Coulee Drive two blocks away. Police thought Evelyn was most likely put into a vehicle there and driven away. They were told by one neighbor they had seen a car repeatedly driving around the neighborhood, and another person who lived nearby claimed they had heard screams an hour earlier. The witness thought it was just children playing. Inside the Buick, Hofer reported seeing one man was driving the vehicle, with a second man in the backseat with a girl. Blood found on the jacket matched Evelyn's blood type. The Civil Air Patrol and U.S. Air Force took part in the search. A vehicle inspection program was undertaken with the intent of searching every vehicle in La Crosse County. Gas station attendants were asked to check cars for blood stains. Recent graves were reopened to determine if Evelyn's remains were placed with a recent burial. Local authorities planned to test 1,750 students and faculty. The testing was controversial, and was halted after around 300 were tested. In November 1957, Ed Gein was arrested on murder charges in Plainfield, Wisconsin, about 100 miles from the site of Evelyn's kidnapping. He was considered a suspect in Evelyn's disappearance due in part to his visiting a relative near the site of the girl's kidnapping at the time she vanished. Gein denied involvement in the disappearance and passed two lie detector tests. Police found no trace of Evelyn's remains during a search of Gein's Plainfield property. In November 1957, authorities announced that Gein had been cleared of any connection with the disappearances of both Evelyn and Georgia Weckler, an 8-year-old who disappeared in 1947. Despite this, some still consider Gein a suspect. == Aftermath ==

Evelyn's kidnapping led to one of the biggest searches in Wisconsin history. 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, equivalent to $ in . and are now both deceased. == Later developments ==

In 2004, a man named Mel Williams came forward with a conversation he recorded at a bar in 1969. On the tape, one of the men— identifying himself as Clyde "Tywee" Peterson— implicated himself, along with Jack Gaulphair (or Gaulthair), and an unnamed third party in the disappearance of Eveyln Hartley, also claiming that Evelyn was murdered and buried in La Farge, Wisconsin, after her kidnapping. The unnamed party is now deceased. Gaulphair died of suicide on December 25, 1967, and Peterson died of a heart attack in 1974. Although authorities promised to investigate the lead, no further developments were ever made. ==In popular culture==

Evelyn Hartley appears in Monster: The Ed Gein Story, the third season in the Netflix anthology series Monster portrayed by Addison Rae. Ed Gein is portrayed as her murderer and he beats her over the head with a hammer, similar to a scene in 1974's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. In 2016, her case was profiled on an episode of The Vanished. In September 2022, Evelyn Hartley's disappearance was featured as Case 224 of the Casefile podcast. == See also ==