The Evelyn Grace Hartley Case (True Crime Storytelling)

On the evening of October 24, 1953. 

Evelyn Grace Hartley, a 15-year-old junior at Central High School, was babysitting a twenty-month-old girl at the home of La Crosse State College professor Viggo Rasmusen.

Evelyn grew up in a big family as the youngest of four siblings. Despite being the youngest, she was known for her intelligence, maintaining straight A’s in school.

She also had a love for music, she played piano and sang in the church choir.

Evelyn loved trying new things and was very active, she was known to enjoy tennis, hiking, swimming, golfing, and skiing.

She was always trying to be involved in as many activities as she could.

That evening, Professor Rasmusen and his wife, like most of La Crosse’s residents, were attending the town’s homecoming game.

Their usual babysitter also planned to go that night, so Rasmusen asked Evelyn’s father, Dr. Hartley, a biology professor, if she could fill in.

Evelyn agreed, so she was hired as a replacement for that day.

Dr. Hartley made just one small request: he asked her to call home at 8:30 p.m. — a simple, routine check-in that would become crucial as the night wore on.

Around 06:20 PM, Prof. Viggo Rasmusen picked Evelyn up from her home and brought her to the family’s house on Hoeschler Drive.

It was a secluded, newly built neighborhood at the edge of La Crosse. The streets were dark, with not much street lighting.

Upon arriving, Evelyn put down her schoolbooks — she planned to study while the baby slept.

The Rasmusens went over the baby’s routine with her and left for the game around 6:45 p.m., taking their seven-year-old daughter with them.

As the evening went on, and after putting little Janice to bed at around 7 pm, Evelyn had an hour to herself; the game kicked off, and everything seemed to be going smoothly.

Later, the 8:30 check-in time came and went without a call from Evelyn. Dr. Hartley wasn’t alarmed at first—perhaps she was caught up in her homework, he thought.

Almost an hour later — this would be by 9:20 p.m.- concern had taken hold. 

Evelyn's absence weighed heavily on Dr. Hartley as he called her; despite numerous attempts to reach her, her phone remained silent.

She was supposed to check in an hour before but never did.

That’s when Dr. Hartley — trusting his instincts, decided to drive over to the Rasmusen's house and check on Evelyn himself.

When he arrived, he could see all the lights on inside the house, everything looked as it should. 

Yet, there was a strange stillness, a silence that didn’t sit right.

As he got closer to the main door, he could hear the faint sound of the radio playing inside.

Dr. Hartley knocked, rang the doorbell and called out for Evelyn. But there was no answer.

Feeling uneasy, he tried the front door — it was locked. Then he tried the windows — They, too, were close.

Peering through, he saw something that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Through the window, he had a clear visual of the living room, there he spotted Evelyn’s glasses on the floor, one of her shoes tossed nearby, and her books scattered across the room.

It was obvious something was wrong.

Dr. Hartley could feel it, but he kept his composure while his worry deepened and looked for a way in.

Circling the house, he reached the back, where he found the basement window wide open. The screen was removed and it was placed neatly on the grass.

This wasn’t just an open window—it was an entry point.

He looked in the window and saw Evelyn’s other shoe lying on the basement floor.

A gaping clue that something was very wrong.

He then entered the house through the basement window, using the small step ladder just inside, ran upstairs, and searched for his daughter.

Dr. Hartley scoured every inch of that house, fast but methodical, room by room. 

Upstairs, he found Janice. She was asleep in her crib, untouched, with no signs of anything unusual. Everything there was… normal.

But Evelyn was nowhere.

In the living room, the scene looked chaotic, as if something had erupted there and then vanished. 

Whatever had happened, it wasn’t random, and Evelyn had been part of it – Dr. Hartley knew that.

With no sign of Evelyn in the house, Dr. Hartley forced himself to shut down any feelings that might distract him. He needed his mind sharp, his senses on high alert.

Dr. Hartley stepped out into the backyard again, eyes scanning every shadow. Had he missed something? Was there a corner he hadn’t checked? 

Maybe she was out here somewhere — he thought.

One of the neighbors had seen Dr. Hartley pull up to the house, so the neighbor headed over to investigate. 

At this point, Dr. Hartley had already left the house and was searching around it for signs of his daughter. 

The neighbor helped him briefly before returning to his neighboring house and calling the police at 9:49 pm.

By the time police arrived, they began searching the house and piecing together what might have happened.

Shortly after, investigators would find a pool of blood just inside the basement and sneaker prints by the basement window box and the living room.

They also saw pry marks on three other windows, showing that the intruder had tried multiple entry points.

In the yard, they found two pools of blood. It was as if Evelyn had been taken against her will, dragged through the yard.

These were signs that whoever took Evelyn had rested her on the ground at one point, leaving small pools of blood that painted a haunting picture of her last moments in that yard.

They also found trails of blood leading away from the house along with a bloody handprint on a neighbor's garage 100 ft from the Rasmusen’s home. 

This was later confirmed as Evelyn's blood type.

Tracker dogs picked up Evelyn's scent and followed it for two blocks. The trail ended at Coulee Drive, northeast of the Rasmusen’s home.

This led police to believe she was then put in a car and taken away.

The evidence was clear: Evelyn had been kidnapped.

Shortly after the neighbors realized there had been an alleged kidnap, they came forward with any information they had.

One neighbor reported seeing a light-colored car circling the area around 8:00 pm. 

Another couple heard 2-3 high-pitched screams that night at approximately 7 p.m. The husband heard them while sitting on the porch of their house, and the wife was in the kitchen. 

They both agreed that they did not sound “normal” but thought it was just kids playing, or a rowdy game-goer.

Authorities believe Evelyn was taken around that time.

Two days later, a local man named Ed Hofer came forward. He said that around 7:15 p.m. on the night Evelyn disappeared, he almost hit a two-toned green 1941 or 1942 Buick speeding westward. He saw two men and a girl inside.

One man was driving, and the other was in the backseat with the girl. She was slumped forward, her head against the front seat.

Hofer had seen the same two men with the young girl staggering down the street near where the blood was found as he was pulling outside his brother-in-law's house located around the corner from the Rasmussen’s house.

Hofer had stated that the girl was wedged between the two men and had thought that she was drunk as the two men were holding her by her arms as they were walking down the street.

He assumed they were heading to the homecoming game like 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 made public, but his name was kept secret for nearly 50 years after Evelyn's disappearance.

Several days after her disappearance, two miles South of La Crosse, various items of clothing, many of which were stained with blood, were found at different locations.

Also in the Southeast of La Crosse, a pair of size 11 bloodstained Goodrich sneakers were found. The soles had a very similar pattern to the footprints found near where Evelyn was last seen and the blood was her type; investigators believe they were worn by her abductor. 

Inside one of the shoes was a single human hair, possibly from an African-American person.

Within 800 feet of the shoes was a size 36 blue denim jacket with metallic buttons and bloodstains on the front, back, and sleeves. 

The blood on the jacket was Evelyn's type and blood smears found at the house she was taken from were made of cloth with the characteristics of denim; authorities believe the jacket was worn by her kidnapper. 

However, it appeared too small for a person big enough to wear size 11 shoes.

Many suspects were questioned over the years, but investigators weren't ever able to connect the evidence to any of them. Dozens of people falsely confessed, and during the first year over 3,500 individuals were interviewed.

This investigation was carried out for years with no further leads.

Some people suspect now notorious killer Edward Theodore Gein may have been involved in Evelyn’s case. 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 found human remains all over his house. He had killed two women and had dug up other women's bodies in the cemetery and mutilated 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 involvement in her case.

Evelyn's kidnapping sparked one of the biggest searches in Wisconsin history. Her case has been classified as a homicide, despite her body not being located.

If alive, she would be 83 years old.

Evelyn’s parents eventually came to terms with the fact they’d likely never find out what happened to their daughter. 

In the 1970s, they relocated to Portland, Oregon. They have both since passed away. One of her siblings still lives in Oregon, while the other moved to Australia, where they died in 2016.

As for Janice, the 20-month-old baby Evelyn was babysitting that night, years later spoke to the media and told them she’d learned about the case by reading the local newspaper. 

Her family never spoke of it much, given its horrific nature, and they moved from the home not long after Evelyn disappeared. According to Janice, her father installed bars on the basement windows, and her parents would not allow her, nor her sister, to babysit growing up.