Her family had moved from Charleston, IL so perhaps we need to look into any ties that town may have to the farmers as well.
Also - It says
here that Mr and Mrs Hartley also had a son that died while in the navy before Evelyn was taken. How much tragedy can one family be submitted to?
No real point in sharing this but her middle name was Grace. Evelyn Grace Hartley.
Anyway, some interesting facts I found on the FBI investigation of the items found.
Here.
Type A blood was on the jacket, but the blood was not from an injury to the wearer of the jacket. Evelyn's blood type as A.
The shoes were size 11D, the wear marks seem to be caused by the drive pulley of a mother bike - the shoes always are heavily worn in the sole portion around the big toe.
The jacket has a mark across the entire width of its back, the mark is exactly 1 and 3/4 inches wide. There were paint specks on the jacket that were analyzed and found to contain chemicals common to medal paints. Fibers in the pocket were identified as those commonly used in scrubbing brushes.
It is assumed that the mark is that of a steeplejack, and that the mark was made by a safety harness worn under the jacket - a La Crosse shop owner recalls to have made two such belts (of that size) for two young men in the La Crosse area in 1952. It is assumed that the man is a 'frugal' man as the jacket was very tattered - worn and repaired many times.
They believed it was a 'family' man that owned the jacket as they said it was very clean (they assume only a wife would wash items so well) In the pockets there were white, black, pink, dark purple, green, yellow, brown and red fibers. They felt this came from a 'family' wash.
A harness was made and and tried out with a man as the model - when sitting in the chair the intention in the jacket perfectly matched the steeplejack saftey harness and when braced against a building for balance the model wearing the shoes showed the wear marks would be in the same place as the shoes.
The jacket is size 36, which they said perfectly would fit a man about 5'6 and 135 pounds. The shoes were size 11D which they felt the person wearing the jacket couldnt have feet big enough to feel the shoes. (This seems weird to me, the jacket AND the shoes match the harness thing - the shoes show wear in the same spot the steeplejack would have to put his feet to brace himself, so wouldnt it seem logical the man would be wearing both?)
They feel that its possible two men are involved - they say the items found (her items and male items) indicate that the person that threw them out of the window was sitting in the passenger side of the car.
I know we dont really think Gein had anything to do with it but I find it odd that the stats they give for the jacket are nearly exactly a match for Gein. He was 5'6 and 5-10 pounds less than that.
