WI WI - Evelyn Hartley, 15, La Crosse, 24 Oct 1953

You're right, it really isn't Harvey's MO. It really does sound like it was these guys from LaFarge, but if I remember correctly they are all dead, and people who knew them are dying off too. Still, the secret could have been passed on and whomever may know is remaining silent. I wonder how much they did search the property of the house they believe she was taken to. I so wish for an update on all this...

Me too. Some think Ed Gein was mixed up in it.

Here is a link from the La Crosse library that has articles about the case on it

http://lplcat.lacrosse.lib.wi.us/digitalproject/hartley.htm

Evelyn Hartley Missing, 15,
Missing since October 24, 1953, from La Crosse, Wisconsin
Classification: Endangered Missing

Vital Statistics

Date Of Birth: November 21, 1937
Age at Time of Disappearance: 15 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 5'7"; 126 lbs.
Distinguishing Characteristics: White female. Blue eyes; brown, straight hair. Hartley wears eyeglasses, but did not have them on when she disappeared.
Clothing: She was last seen wearing size 16 red denim White Stag jeans, a size 34 plain white Ship n' Shore blouse, and white bobby socks.

Circumstances of Disappearance

Hartley, a 15-year-old Central High School student disappeared October 24, 1953, from the home of a La Crosse State College professor where she was baby-sitting. She was supposed to call her parents during the evening but did not. Her father tried to call several times that day and never got an answer. He became worried and went to the house to check on his daughter.

Hartley's father found all the windows in the house locked except a basement window in the back. Bloodstains were found around that window and in the grass of the yard, and there was a bloody handprint on the side of the house next door. The furniture inside the living room was disarranged.

Hartley's eyeglasses, which were broken, and one of her shoes were on the living room floor. Her other shoe was found in the basement. There was no other trace of Hartley inside the home. The twenty-month-old girl she had been baby-sitting was found unharmed, sleeping in her crib.

Tracker dogs traced Hartley's scent as far as the street, leading authorities to believe she had been taken away in a car. They believe she disappeared at approximately 7:15 p.m. She never was found though there was an intensive search. Foul play is suspected.

Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:

La Crosse Police Department
608-785-5962
Or
FindEvelynHartley.org

Source Information:

La Crosse Tribune
FindEvelynHartley.org
The Charley Project
The Doe Network: Case File 1388DFWI

LINK:

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1388dfwi.html

joellegirl said:

I guess to get blood type? Did they know about DNA then? I think that is why they still have them today.

Click to expand...

They did not know about DNA in 1963 but they could have determined her blood type through the pads and used that to match with any other blood they found on the scene to try and verify the blood was most likely Evelyn's.

They updated Evelyn's profile on Charley Project today.

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/h/hartley_evelyn.html

Thanks for posting .I don't see what is updated, but maybe it is because I have studied her disappearance inside and out. One thing all the missing sites say is that her father tried to call several times "that day". Actually it should read "that evening" as she was not babysitting until 7pm, she hadn't been there all day.. I'm being picky I know. Good to see her case moved up and on the updates, feels like it isn't lost and forgotten....

joellegirl said:

Thanks for posting .I don't see what is updated, but maybe it is because I have studied her disappearance inside and out. One thing all the missing sites say is that her father tried to call several times "that day". Actually it should read "that evening" as she was not babysitting until 7pm, she hadn't been there all day.. I'm being picky I know. Good to see her case moved up and on the updates, feels like it isn't lost and forgotten....

Click to expand...

Those little details they mess up drive me nuts too sometimes. I'm not sure what was updated either, unless it was that she added the part about Evelyn's brother dying of polio before she disappeared. I don't remember reading that before. I try to put any updates on here though because it brings her case back up to the first page of the Cold Case thread.

Um, where did they get the pads from?

I'm guessing they got the pads from her garbage, unless one was found with her underwear too. So personal.....

Ugh. Was that usual police procedure?

I was born in LaCrosse and my grandparents were close friends of the Hartley's, my grandfather being a chemistry professor at the University.
My grandparents (Mr & Mrs Lawrence Rowe), along with the Hartleys, the Campbells, and others I can't remember, formed a pot-luck "supper club" that met regularly - and this is how I know and remember the Hartleys.
I can say they were both exceptionally pleasant, charmingly funny and sweet natured.
No one in my family, or anyone, ever mentioned or discussed Evelyn in front of them. I was told they had accepted the fact that she was dead and her body would never be found. They had lost another child earlier to polio, which from other stories I have been told, was another entire nightmare affecting many families and spreading fear throughout La Crosse. So the loss of a child was something they were already unfortunately familiar with.
I also know that there was extensive investigation and searching for Evelyn (or her body) at the time, and the Hartleys were vigorously involved - and that any attempt to portray the Hartleys as being disinterested, or no longer being interested in continuing the investigation, is to discredit their need for closure in mourning the loss of their daughter and moving on with their lives. I also understand that the event generated significant fear throughout the city, which remained for sometime.
Regarding rumors of what happened that night, I have heard the following theory discussed by my family: The assailant(s) were let into the house by Evelyn under false pretense of car trouble, students looking for Prof. Rasmussen, or some other sympathetic story. Evelyn was smart enough to be aware of potential danger, but kind, and it was believed that appealing to her desire to be helpful would have worked as a way of getting inside the house. It was strongly felt that Evelyn did not know the attacker(s). At some point after this an attack occurred inside the house. Evelyn looses one shoe escaping, and unable to get out of the house (or in an effort to keep the assailant(s) away from the infant), flees (or falls) down the stairs to the basement. Another fight occurs in the basement, either before, or while, Evelyn is trying to escape through the basement window. It is at this point that she is screaming and neighbors look outside and see nothing. She escapes out the basement window (possibly with stab wounds in her back and legs), and is disoriented, rapidly losing blood, possibly about to faint or lose consciousness, she steadies herself from falling leaving a bloody handprint on a house, while she zig-zags across the yards. The attacker(s) leave the house, and pursue and capture her. She is seen by a witness being taken by two people to a car and then being driven from the area. The Gein rumors were frequent - but there were also rumors that this was an act of one or two male college students engaged in a random rape attack, fraternity hazing stunt, or some such that spun disastrously out of control and ended in murder.
Anyway, I stumbled across this discussion and thought members might be interested to hear this...

Thanks so much for this interesting insight to the case.

I said in postings that I hated to judge the family and I assumed they had to accept she was gone and move on, which I completely understand. I was just trying to point out that those of us who are interested in the case are not in it for profit or some thrill. We truely want to see it solved and feel if they would let their DNA be taken it could help. Again, I understand them just not wanting to even do that as for themselves to go on and live a normal life they had to believe she was gone would would never be found. I can see how hanging on to it and forever wondering could make themselves crazy. So if I came across the wrong way I am so sorry. I really feel for them and having to have had deal with this all these years.

Again thanks so much for posting and please post more if you can think of anything. Personal insight like this is very helpful.

Since it seems highly unlikely that anyones plan would involve attempting to pull the victim through such a tiny window in such an awkward place. The basement window is quite high and requires a ladder to get to which would be nearly impossible to get out of while attempting to also restrain or remove the victim - it you are attempting to pull yourself up and out of a window like that it would require both arms.

If the person attempted to push her out of the window first, there would be time for her to run to the neighbors house while he was trying to get out of the window. If he tried to get out of the window first not only would it leave him vulnerable for a few seconds (his top half out of the window, bottom half still in house) which would make it possible for her to run up the stairs and call the police or to run out of the home. OR she could grab something nearby and disable him by hitting his legs hard, then running to call the police.

It simply doesnt make sense that someone would attempt to remove someone in that manner, unless it was the only way out. Of course there could have been two intruders, but that seems unlikely as well because there was only one set of foot prints outside of that window - one would assume that if there were two intruders there would be two sets of foot prints somewhere outside of the home.

Some theories:

1) Did someone (she knew or didnt know) ring the doorbell and was able to come inside by being invited, or being forced?

2) Could this person have been attempting to rob a house and wasnt aware anyone was home at the time? It makes sense that he could have thought nobody was home, because the car wasnt at the home. He also could have known the owners of the home and knew that they were going out that night and assumed they were taking the baby and the home would be empty.

He could have run into the Evelyn and decided to lock her in the basement while he was trying to figure out what to do with her now that she saw what he looked like, then deciding that it was too risky to let her live because she could ID him, decided to kill her. During the original struggle her shoe came off, it makes sense that since they were slippers that the other one could fall off when she was shoved down the steps? Considering that they said that living room showed proof of intense struggle, so you would think that she would still be fighting like mad once the person came into the basement - She could have ran to where the window was attempting to get away from him, got up on the stool attempting to get out and the intruder could have fought to keep her inside, perhaps hitting her head against the window and breaking it causing significant blood loss.

A few other random thoughts -

Im not attempting to blame the father for any wrong doing, but Im unsure of a few things and hopefully maybe someone can clear them up for me.

1) The father came to check up on her and said that he looked walked around the home and saw her glasses and shoe on the floor.. He walked around and saw that the basement window was busted and decided to enter the home via that broken window, yet when asked why he didnt call the police from within the home once he got in he said he didnt want to touch the phone so that police could get fingerprints off of it. Why would he assume that there would be any worthwhile fingerprints on the phone? If he was worried about messing up fingerprints why would he enter the home via the same method the intruder had to have used? Why would he not go directly to the house next door and call the police instead of climbing into the home?

2) Newspapers say that the father didnt see the 'pool' of blood by the window because it was dark, why was there no blood on him? If there is a 'pool' of blood all by the window, wouldnt he have to have gotten at least a little blood on his clothing while climbing in the window?


http://books.google.com/books?id=j9...BTgK#v=onepage&q=evelyn hartley blood&f=false

According to this book, the baby was also found in the basement - in a crib.

How strange is it that Ed Gein was only a couple blocks away at the time of this crime???

suspect?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein

{WARNING GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF VICTIUMS}
Suspect in at at lest three other disappearances...

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/w/weckler_georgia.html

related thread
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27668&highlight=Gein

Just want to make a correction. The book that says the baby was in the basement is an error. The baby was in her crib in a bedroom on the main level of the home. I don't have the proof of this handy, but after studying this for years I have read many times the baby was not in the basement.

PFF said:

suspect?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein

{WARNING GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF VICTIUMS}
Suspect in at at lest three other disappearances...

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/w/weckler_georgia.html

related thread
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27668&highlight=Gein

Click to expand...

I know that Ed Gein was ruled out as a suspect, although I cannot recall exactly why. I think there is something earlier on in this thread about that.

This case always intrigues me, especially when I think about the basement window. It just seems like such an awkward way to take someone out of a house. If she were still conscious, she'd probably have been kicking and moving around a lot, making it hard to pull her through the window. If she were unconscious, dead weight would be hard for one person to pull through such a window. I've always felt that there had to be two people involved in this abduction.

This is a true mystery.

We began discussing Ed Gein on this thread back in August of 2005, so if any newcomers are interested you might want to check out the posts around that time.

This type of abduction really doesn't fit in with the type of crimes Ed Gein committed. But with a crazy person, I suppose you never can tell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_esp5uXuK7o

This is the first of five videos of some older news investigations about the Evelyn Hartley case. They are very detailed, and interview people who were there when it all first happened. If you are interest in Evelyn's case, and have some time, these are worth it to watch. I only wish there were some newer updates.