Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
One of the most mysterious cases in American criminal history was the disappearance of 15-year-old teenager Eyelyn Hartley. She disappeared from La Crosse County on October 24, 1953, leading to the largest manhunt in the history of the state of Wisconsin. On that day, Viggo Rasmusen, who was a biology professor at La Crosse State College, wanted to attend the college football game with his wife, so their babysitter was supposed to look after their 20-month-old daughter Janice. However, she also wanted to watch the homecoming football game and recommended their 15-year-old friend Evelyn Hartley as a replacement babysitter. The Rasmussens agreed. Evelyn Grace Hartley was born on November 21, 1937, the youngest of four children of Richard and Ethyl Hartley. Evelyn’s older brother died of polio in 1946. The family moved from Charleston to La Crosse in 1949. Evelyn had transferred to high school at the time of her disappearance. She attended Central High School, where she was considered a model student. Evelyn was also considered a sports enthusiast who played tennis and golf, skied, hiked, and swam. Evelyn also played the piano and sang in the choir at First Presbyterian Church. She was also involved in the Presbyterian Youth Program and Westminster Fellowship. Evelyn had a few dates with boys, but no steady boyfriend. Evelyn was a 5’7″ girl who weighed about 125 pounds. She had light brown, medium-length hair, blue eyes, and wore glasses. Evelyn was wearing red jeans and a white blouse that evening. She was considered a quiet and reliable girl who didn’t have any crazy ideas in her head. Evelyn was picked up from her home by Viggo at 6:20 p.m. A short time later, they arrived at the Rasmusens’ house in the 2400 block of Hoescher Drive. The single-family home was located in a new development on the outskirts of La Crosse. Just 15 minutes later, the couple left for the football game, which almost the entire town was expected to attend, as it was held annually in honor of former university members. It was the sporting event in La Crosse. Evelyn had taken five schoolbooks with her to do her homework while she looked after Janice. Evelyn had promised to call her parents around 8:30 p.m. so they wouldn’t worry. But Evelyn’s parents waited in vain for their daughter’s call. When her father Richard repeatedly failed to reach Evelyn because no one answered the phone, he decided to drive to the Rasmusens’ house. When he arrived, he found the front door locked. The lights were on inside and the radio was playing. He rang the doorbell several times, but no one answered. He walked around the house and was able to look inside through the living room window. He saw one of his daughter’s shoes on the floor. Robert then tried to gain access to the house. But all the windows and doors were locked until he discovered a basement window at the back of the house whose screen had been removed and was leaning against the outside wall. A small stepladder was leaning against the basement window, as the Rasmusens had recently painted the basement. Robert discovered blood splatters on the window frame. He entered the house through the basement window, where he found his daughter’s other shoe. He went upstairs and found Janice sleeping peacefully in her crib. Evelyn’s schoolbooks were scattered around the living room, along with her broken glasses. There was blood everywhere, and Richard panicked. A neighbor had seen Richard coming to the house to check on things. Richard told him everything, and he helped search for Evelyn, who was nowhere to be found. Richard drove home and alerted the police. They drove straight to the Rasmusens’ house. On the basement stairs and on the sill of the basement window, they found footprints from sneakers. In addition, pry marks were discovered on three other windows. These suggested that the perpetrator or perpetrators had tried several times to break into the house. There was blood everywhere in the house, which matched Evelyn’s blood type and indicated massive blood loss. Two large pools of blood with a diameter of 45 centimeters were discovered in the front yard, which had been caused by Evelyn being briefly laid down twice after being carried or dragged out of the basement. The investigators therefore assumed there were two perpetrators, as one alone would not have been able to lift Evelyn out of the basement window. A blood-smeared handprint had been left on the garage wall at a height of 1.20 meters. Several blood splatters were also found on the neighbor’s house. The police immediately deployed sniffer dogs, which lost Evelyn’s scent at the end of Coulec Drive, where the perpetrators had presumably parked their car. According to neighbors, they had seen a car driving slowly through the neighborhood at around 8 p.m. Another neighbor testified that he had heard screams shortly before 7 p.m. He thought it was children playing. The police were able to determine that the crime took place between 7 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. The Rasmusens had asked Evelyn to put their daughter in her crib at 7 p.m. and cover her up after 15 minutes. But the blanket was still lying unused next to the crib. Two days after Evelyn’s disappearance, Ed Hofer contacted the police. On the evening of the crime, at around 7:15 p.m., he had almost collided with another car. It was a two-tone Buick built in 1941 or 1942, with two men and a girl inside. One man was behind the wheel, while the other sat next to the girl in the back seat. The girl’s head was leaning against the front seat. The car then drove west. Ed Hofer stated that he had seen the trio a few minutes earlier, staggering down the street not far from where the blood was later found. He believed they were on their way to the football game. A few days after Evelyn’s disappearance, a pair of bloodstained panties and a bra were found near the underpass on Highway 14. The blood on the panties turned out to be Evelyn’s menstrual blood. Only 6 kilometers away, a pair of men’s pants with bloodstains on them was found, but it could not be linked to the disappearance. Later, bloodstained Goodrich sneakers in size 11 were discovered, whose suction cup pattern was identical to the footprints found in the Rasmusen home. The bloodstains were the same blood type as Evelyn’s. The sneakers turned out to be the “Hood Mogul” model, which was sold in Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Illinois. Based on the tread pattern, the police assumed that the wearer of the sneakers often worked with machines. The wear pattern was characteristic of an owner who rode a Whizzer motorcycle. In addition, a human hair was found in one of the sneakers that could have come from an African American. Due to the fact that the shoes were overstretched in one place, the police assumed that they had been worn by two different people. The police then heard that a jacket had been found on the side of the road. The police investigated this rumor and found the jacket at a farmer’s house, who had picked it up and put it in his truck. The size 46 jacket had bloodstains and primer paint, which is used on metal surfaces. The hem of the jacket had been cut off and roughly hemmed with white thread. One button was missing, and one of the pockets contained blasting fiber, which is used in scrubbing brushes. Since there was abrasion under the armpits across the entire width of the jacket, similar to that of a tower worker, the police searched the area for locals who worked in this trade. But the trail came to nothing. They wanted to use the clothing to track down the perpetrators. The police toured 31 communities with the clothing they had found. Over 10,000 people examined it, but there were no new leads on the perpetrators. Evelyn’s disappearance led to the largest search operation in Wisconsin, involving over 2,000 volunteers. There were mass searches of residents’ cars in the hope of finding traces of Evelyn’s blood. In addition, in the first few days after Evelyn’s disappearance, new graves were opened, as Evelyn could have been buried there. Clam Lake was also drained, but to no avail. In May 1954, a lie detector test was conducted on male students and teachers at Central High School. A total of 1,750 tests were planned, but only 300 were carried out due to the controversy surrounding them. Viggo Rasmusen and Evelyn’s father also underwent such a test, which they passed. Evelyn’s parents turned to the media, who then became victims of an attempted blackmail. The blackmailers turned out to be a 20-year-old man and his 13-year-old accomplice. Over 3,500 people were questioned during the investigation and a reward fund of $6,000 was set up, but there were still no clues as to Evelyn’s abductor. Serial killer Ed Gein, who killed women, dug up their remains, and then mutilated them, was also suspected of having something to do with Evelyn’s disappearance, as he had been visiting relatives nearby. However, he vehemently denied any involvement in Evelyn’s disappearance and passed two lie detector tests. He was officially cleared of any involvement in November 1957. In 2004, a man named Mel Williams presented an audio recording to the police. While recording a band in a bar in 1969, he had accidentally recorded a conversation between two men. In this recording, Clyde “Tywee” Peterson, his friend Jack Gaulphair, and a third unnamed person accused themselves of murdering Evelyn and burying her in La Farge. The recording ended after Peterson asked Williams to stop recording. Williams could not remember what happened after that. It turned out that Gaulphair had committed suicide on December 25, 1967, and Peterson had died of a heart attack in 1974. Although the police promised to follow up on this lead, no further details were ever released. Evelyn’s parents, who have since passed away, moved to Portland in the 1970s. Evelyn’s disappearance was classified as a murder. Investigators believed that the perpetrators had planned to break into the Rasmusen home. They had not expected anyone to be home on the evening of the legendary homecoming football game. Evelyn had probably caught the burglars in the act, who then kidnapped and ultimately murdered her. Whether this was the case remains a mystery. The fact is that Evelyn’s body and her kidnappers have not been found to this day. But as we all know, hope dies last.
