Evelyn Hartley

Case background and investigation

On the evening of October 24, 1953, fifteen-year-old Evelyn Grace Hartley went to babysit for the young daughter of Viggo Rasmusson, a professor at La Crosse State College in La Crosse, Wisconsin. When Evelyn did not answer her father's phone calls later that evening, her father drove to the Rasmusson home and found signs of a violent struggle.

A basement window had been forced open, and there was blood on the floor and basement stairs. Evelyn's shoes and eyeglasses were found at the scene, one lens of the glasses broken. The professor's daughter was found unharmed and asleep in an upstairs bedroom. It appeared that Evelyn had been taken by force through the basement.

A massive search was launched, involving hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement from across the region. Bloodstained clothing—not belonging to Evelyn—was found along a highway south of La Crosse. Dogs tracked a scent to a nearby road where it ended, suggesting Evelyn had been placed in a vehicle.

When serial killer Ed Gein was arrested in nearby Plainfield, Wisconsin in 1957, he was investigated as a possible suspect in Evelyn's disappearance, but he was cleared. The case generated numerous theories and suspects over the decades but has never been solved. Evelyn Hartley's disappearance remains La Crosse's most famous cold case.