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

The two items above are puzzling - if the guy is thin and can get through a very narrow basement window, how the heck did he get a 5'7", 128 pound girl through there? Even with help, that had to be one difficult job.

Even though it originally seemed that he actually pulled Evelyn through the basement window its nearly impossible that he would have done so considering the way the window well was as well as the small window. The police reports also suggest that they left the home through one of the doors.

Just for comparison - Video of someone trying to get into a basement window that is exactly the size as the one at the home and has a window well that is very similar. Link.

Honestly after watching that video Im even more confused..

1) It seems very unlikely to me that this would be a randomly targeted house - considering the amount of work that it would take for someone to be able to get such a window after seeing the effort it took the girl in the video to attempt to get in like that and she was quite small.. why would someone pick a house that was so difficult to get in unless there was a something inside that home that they wanted? He could have gone to any number of other homes in the area. Also, why would someone randomly break into a home when its clear someone is home (lights on in the livingroom with the curtains drawn) where there were so many other houses in the area that were empty due to the game that night? Also, the longer he would struggle to get through the window the more chance he would have of someone seeing him. What was in this home that someone wanted so badly?

If this wasnt a random thing then there are three reasons I can think of for someone coming through the basement window - feel free to add any if Ive overlooked something.. A sexual motive (regardless of which girl he thought would be there that night) robbery or revenge.
 
Why? Even if the perps were inexperienced and Evelyn put up more fight than they expected, it seems they would either have run off and left her, or tried to get her out of the house the easiest way possible.

I just keep coming back to my main question - why the basement window?

Just a thought - this theory ties together a lot of the facts that are perplexing otherwise so Id like to know what everyone thinks..

The facts that confuse me:

1) Why break into that home considering that not only would it would be a struggle for someone to fit through the window but the climbing through process would leave the person vulnerable to people being able to see him.

2) Since the entry point was through the basement why was one of Evelyn's shoes at the bottom of the stairs? If the person came through the window, up the stairs and to the living room which is where the struggle took place at what point did her shoe get to the base of the stairs?

3) Since there is no blood in the home we know that she wasnt hurt until she was outside and nearly at the house next door, its apparent that a violent struggle went on in the livingroom, if that person had a knife (and seemingly no qualms about using it) why wouldnt they have used it on her during that struggle?

4) The person that fit through the window had to be quite thin in order to get through it but the man described by eye witness leaving the bloody shirts was much bigger than someone who could fit into that window.

And the most troublesome to me -

5) WHY take a dying girl with you when leaving a crime scene?

Possible theory..

She wasnt the target, something in the home was. I wonder what sort of things were in the basement? The Rasmusen's lived in a new home in a developing area so its certain that at some point there had been workers coming in and out often - between the building of the home and all the normal things were you have to let people in your home there are a lot of people that would be coming in and out and anything in the basement could be plain view..

It wasnt uncommon in that time to have a built in safe in the basement of a home, I wonder if they had something like that? I remember reading about someones home that kept getting broken into due to such a safe because people would always seethe safe and assume something good was in it.. This stopped when the person started to leave the safe open all the time so that people woul see its empty.

This theory would involve two people, one of which small enough to climb through the window and the other to keep a lookout - perhaps even watching evelyn through the window to make sure he could warn the person in the basement if she got up or went near the basement.. Their plan could have been for the smaller person to climb through the basement window, get whatever was in there they wanted, climb out of the basement window and off they go with nobody the wiser until days/weeks later when the item was found missing.

There is a bit of a drop from the window to the floor in the basement and there are many things that could have went wrong and made enough noise that Evelyn would have gotten up to look into - there could have been something under the window that made noise when he landed on it, whatever he was putting his feet on to get down from the window could have fallen over/broke or he simply could have been looking for stuff and making noise he assumed she wouldnt hear.

She hears it and gets up to have a look around (could have even assumed that it was the baby) and narrows the sound to the basement - opening the door and either seeing the person right then or going down a step or two to attempt to see what was going on then saw him, kicking her shoe at him in shock when he starts up the stairs - she runs away, he catches her around the living room and then the struggle occurs, the 'look out' person would be able to hear what was going on but wouldnt be able to get in because the doors were locked - only to be opened when evelyn runs out the home in an attempt to get away from the attacker only to directly run into the other person waiting outside, that person catches and stabs her because she clearly saw at least one of their faces.

This crime is just way too sloppy and careless for me to believe that the people/persons came into the home with the intent of taking Evelyn with them, I think its more likely that she saw something she shouldnt have (their faces) and became a liability and there didnt know what to do with her so they took wounded Evelyn with them so they had more time to figure out what to do.

Taking a heavily bleeding person with you after harming them is foolish at best, it seems more to me an 'oh my god what just happened, what are we going to do' sort of thing mixed with being paranoid that the police would be showing up any moment due to the noise made during the stabbing.
 
Interesting newspaper article, Evelyns mother made Evelyn go babysit that night. :( Evelyn didnt want to babysit (though she promised she would) and her mother made her, saying that she said she would babysit so she needed to honor her word. Link

Thats really got to make you beat yourself up, poor woman.
 
So it seems the most important question we need to figure out an answer to is: what was so unique about the house that made it worth the struggle to get in through that window?

This again brings it back to my theory that it was apparent that someone was home, the creeper saw Evelyn, and none of the neighbors had activity in their home (whether lights on, people on the main floors - lights on in the living room or family room, etc). This seems the simplest. Otherwise, the creeper was targeting that house for some specific reason. Robbery didn't seem to be the motive as nothing was taken and as many have said, it doesn't make sense to go in for a robbery and to leave with a bleeding girl.

I can't recall ever hearing this info but do we know what neighbors on that street and on her block were home at that time? If we did we could compare it to the rest of her street and the nearest one as well and I'll bet she was in one of the more isolatedly active spots. I know that isn't a real word but does it make sense?


I'm totally open to any and all theories but this is just mine and it just seems "right" to me.
 
Interesting newspaper article, Evelyns mother made Evelyn go babysit that night. :( Evelyn didnt want to babysit (though she promised she would) and her mother made her, saying that she said she would babysit so she needed to honor her word. Link

Thats really got to make you beat yourself up, poor woman.


Did you notice the article started "it's been 14 years and many have forgotten Evelyn Hartley" and yet here we are still :) Evelyn definitely has not been forgotten.

I've wondered why she wasn't there instead and this answers that question.


PS - I get a kick out of old ads. $10 for a pair of shoes? And the caricature of the fraggled wife with the crazy hair and the rolling pin, getting tips on how to get along with her man by keeping up with the news? Love it!
 
Just a thought - this theory ties together a lot of the facts that are perplexing otherwise so Id like to know what everyone thinks..

The facts that confuse me:

1) Why break into that home considering that not only would it would be a struggle for someone to fit through the window but the climbing through process would leave the person vulnerable to people being able to see him.

2) Since the entry point was through the basement why was one of Evelyn's shoes at the bottom of the stairs? If the person came through the window, up the stairs and to the living room which is where the struggle took place at what point did her shoe get to the base of the stairs?

3) Since there is no blood in the home we know that she wasnt hurt until she was outside and nearly at the house next door, its apparent that a violent struggle went on in the livingroom, if that person had a knife (and seemingly no qualms about using it) why wouldnt they have used it on her during that struggle?

4) The person that fit through the window had to be quite thin in order to get through it but the man described by eye witness leaving the bloody shirts was much bigger than someone who could fit into that window.

And the most troublesome to me -

5) WHY take a dying girl with you when leaving a crime scene?

Another thought is that maybe it was a boy she was sort of involved with. They got in a fight and she threw a shoe at him. He gets mad, attacks her (jealous abusive type most probably), hence the disarray, they run out one of the doors she tries running away but he gets her (she then screams) and then he beats her up, takes her away and then....well we can probably guess what happens next.

Ugh - but this doesn't explain the breaking in part! Maybe it hailed recently and a piece of hail broke the window? I dunno. lol

Of course, how many abusive types (or...unblossomed abusive types) have we come across on this website that would have no problem breaking into someones house to get at their girl?
 
Interesting newspaper article, Evelyns mother made Evelyn go babysit that night. :( Evelyn didnt want to babysit (though she promised she would) and her mother made her, saying that she said she would babysit so she needed to honor her word. Link

Thats really got to make you beat yourself up, poor woman.

Another interesting thing in that article is a witness saying that he saw a man and 'staggering' girl near the home the blood trail ended (200 yards from the Rasmussen home, a blood trail the entire way) then a 'little while later' he was nearly hit by a car (1942 two toned buick) leaving the driveway of the home he saw them 'staggering' to, thinking they were just a couple that was celebrating the game that night. The same man and girl were in that car. He took a lie detector test and passed, they were so sure he was telling the truth that they added this to the 'offical' list of clues.

Whos home was this? Did someone live there? Was it vacant? What time did he see them? How much time is a 'little while later'? Assuming the witness is right, Whomever took her was comfortable enough in the area to 'walk' with a heavily bleeding evelyn 200 yards away to a house, stay at that house for an unknown amount of time and to park in that houses driveway??? Why wouldnt he have parked on the street? Neighbors are nosey and a strange car parked in someone elses driveway wouldnt go unnoticed. They lived in a new sub-division, I wonder if they questioned all the people involved actually forming the sub-division, I also wonder if there were any workers that were paid under the table as that would make it impossible to question them?

Im sure I must be making this much more simple than it really is but if they were certain enough about the witness statement with the details of the car why would they not search the records and find who all 1942 two toned buicks were registered to? They could have started within their state, checking out everyone that has that car? If its not found in their state, then search the surrounding states?they could have gotten insurance records, tax records, car registration records.. even if they didnt want to do that you would think they would have put an ad in the paper with a reward for anyone that turns in anyone they know with that color/make/model car. Even if they didnt believe that she was in that car they should have found who was driving it as he could have seen something.


He says he saw what we assume to be evelyn and the person that took her (and was able to pass the lie detector test) why did nobody work with him to get a sketch of the person? Why do we have no details about this person like hair color, skin color.. anything? He nearly gets hit by the car - notices the make and even year of the car as well as that it was two toned so it seems that he should have been able to give a basic idea of what sort of person to look for.




On another note (sorry for being so wordy) attempting to not point fingers - it seems the police involved with this case really made it much more difficult to solve. 500 people were standing around outside the home once they found out what happened and the police didnt keep them from walking all over the place, even as far as the DOOR of the home. In what world does this make sense? Seems to me a perfect chance for someone that actually DID the crime to say that they were at the home that night but only after it happened, and they would be unable to prove otherwise.

They required all boys and men in the school she went to and her fathers college to take a lie detector test, why did they give NO females the same test? The window to enter the home was tiny - a female could have just as easily (or even more so) gotten into the window as a man. Its just as likely that a female crawled into that window and snuck up stairs and let someone (a male) inside the home, so why dismiss girls?

It seems like from the go the police had their mind made up - when they first got to the home (before they found blood) they apparently they felt that she had 'run off' with her boyfriend - as if broken glasses, one shoe on the floor, and obvious signs of struggle point to a teenage girl 'running off'.
 
I can't recall ever hearing this info but do we know what neighbors on that street and on her block were home at that time? If we did we could compare it to the rest of her street and the nearest one as well and I'll bet she was in one of the more isolatedly active spots. I know that isn't a real word but does it make sense?


I'm totally open to any and all theories but this is just mine and it just seems "right" to me.

Im actually not sure who was home and who wasnt but the man that said he heard three screams lived three houses away.
 
PS - I get a kick out of old ads. $10 for a pair of shoes? And the caricature of the fraggled wife with the crazy hair and the rolling pin, getting tips on how to get along with her man by keeping up with the news? Love it!

Haha, this one is my fave - I would have sworn it was fake if I hadnt found it in an old newspaper!

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/BH/BH02/BH0213-150dpi.jpeg


This newspaper link has a full size photo of Evelyns family and other interesting bits.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...56,2978059&dq=evelyn+hartley+questioned&hl=en
 
Another thought is that maybe it was a boy she was sort of involved with. They got in a fight and she threw a shoe at him. He gets mad, attacks her (jealous abusive type most probably), hence the disarray, they run out one of the doors she tries running away but he gets her (she then screams) and then he beats her up, takes her away and then....well we can probably guess what happens next.

Ugh - but this doesn't explain the breaking in part! Maybe it hailed recently and a piece of hail broke the window? I dunno. lol

Of course, how many abusive types (or...unblossomed abusive types) have we come across on this website that would have no problem breaking into someones house to get at their girl?

The breaking in thing could be explained in the above by the boyfriend attempting to make it look like someone broke in the home to send the police in the wrong direction. He could have chased her out of the house, wounded her and left her laying there while he went inside and tossed her shoe down the basement step, stomped her glasses, busted the window and then went to the neighbors home to make it look like someone attempted to break into their home as well - this could also explain the blood drops on the window well of the neighbors home, while he leaned over to break the window bit of her blood that was on him dripped onto the window well.

It would also make sense that a boy was there that night, she really wanted to go to that game/dance and was upset when her mom told her she had to keep her word and babysit because she was going to meet a boy there, when she was told she had to go through with the babysitting she could have called him to come over while she was doing so.
 
Haha, this one is my fave - I would have sworn it was fake if I hadnt found it in an old newspaper!

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/BH/BH02/BH0213-150dpi.jpeg

Bahahaha :applause::biglaugh::rolling:

Even THAT ad makes me blush. I love the "everyone smells you" comment to scare them into thinking everyone but them notices it. Wow.


Anyway back on topic lol....I have lots of replies for you but it's past my bed time so I'll try to get my thoughts out tomorrow. You always have great ideas so stop apologizing for so many posts and being "wordy" (you're not) :)
 
The boyfriend idea makes sense to me, given the facts. And if, as punklove said, the basement window WASN'T used to get Evelyn out, it makes even more sense.

Just wondering - could the baby possibly have been the target? I'm thinking of a ransom situation. The perp may have thought it would be easy to subdue Evelyn and take the baby, but then everything went wrong.

That's probably way out in left field, but I figured it was worth mentioning.
 
The boyfriend idea makes sense to me, given the facts. And if, as punklove said, the basement window WASN'T used to get Evelyn out, it makes even more sense.

Just wondering - could the baby possibly have been the target? I'm thinking of a ransom situation. The perp may have thought it would be easy to subdue Evelyn and take the baby, but then everything went wrong.

That's probably way out in left field, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

She DID tell a friend once she would fight, not run, if a person ever tried to hurt her or a baby. Or something like that.
 
Bahahaha :applause::biglaugh::rolling:

Even THAT ad makes me blush. I love the "everyone smells you" comment to scare them into thinking everyone but them notices it. Wow.
QUOTE]

Add to that the fact that it has LYSOL in it makes it even more funny.

There is something about Evelyns father that Im having a hard time understanding, not really saying that I think hes in any way suspect (im honestly not sure what I think about him) but there are a couple things Im not sure I understand.

Im really interested what those of you that are parents have to say about this - Mr rasmusen picked Eveylyn up and brought her his home, got his wife and daughter and left around 6:30. Her father was worried that she hadnt called and started to call her until around 9:05pm - getting to the Rasmusen home around 9:10pm.

This is what confused me.. he says he got there at 9:10, knocked on the doors with no answer, then walked around and could see the living room was in disarray and could clearly see her glasses smashed on the floor as well as on her shoes. He said that he then went around the home and tried to open every window but couldnt because they all had new storm windows that locked from the inside. After this he says he noticed the basement window was broken so he decided to climb through the window, then looked in the rooms and found the baby sleeping but no Evelyn - then ran out of the home to the house directly across the street and 911 was called and logged as coming in at 9:49pm.

If you put yourself in the fathers place do you think you would have done things as he did? It seems to me the natural repsonse would be quiet different than what he did.. He was worried about her and was at the home at 9:10pm. I assume that he knocked at the front door for 2 minutes or so, then went around to the other door knocked again and then looked into the living room seeing what police called a 'violent struggle' and his response was to go around the entire house and check every single window? The moment he saw that living room and her glasses busted he would have known right away that she was in a lot of danger so why not break the window he was looking through? Why not break the windows that were in the door to let himself in? Why not run right then to the neighbors, call the police then come directly back to the home - perhaps even bringing the man next door back WITH him? I just dont understand why he would enter the home through the broken window that enters the basement - how would he even know once he gained entry to the basement that the door connected it to the home wasnt locked?

Even moreso confusing - by his own account he was at the house for 39 minutes before police were called and I just find that odd. Another thing that I dont understand is why he didnt call out for help - The glasses on the floor and her shoe are what bother me most, had he just looked in and saw things all over the place in the living room I would be more unstanding of him checking the windows and all that, because you might fear that somethings wrong but you wouldnt want to break anything or call 911 in case there really wasnt anything wrong - but when you add to that scene your daughters broken glasses and one shoe it seems you would be much more in a hurry to get help.

39 minutes is a long time, can anyone think of any valid reason he would be there so long before calling police? He saw her glasses about 4 minutes into being there.
 
Another interesting thing in that article is a witness saying that he saw a man and 'staggering' girl near the home the blood trail ended (200 yards from the Rasmussen home, a blood trail the entire way) then a 'little while later' he was nearly hit by a car (1942 two toned buick) leaving the driveway of the home he saw them 'staggering' to, thinking they were just a couple that was celebrating the game that night. The same man and girl were in that car. He took a lie detector test and passed, they were so sure he was telling the truth that they added this to the 'offical' list of clues.

Whos home was this? Did someone live there? Was it vacant? What time did he see them? How much time is a 'little while later'? Assuming the witness is right, Whomever took her was comfortable enough in the area to 'walk' with a heavily bleeding evelyn 200 yards away to a house, stay at that house for an unknown amount of time and to park in that houses driveway??? Why wouldnt he have parked on the street? Neighbors are nosey and a strange car parked in someone elses driveway wouldnt go unnoticed. They lived in a new sub-division, I wonder if they questioned all the people involved actually forming the sub-division, I also wonder if there were any workers that were paid under the table as that would make it impossible to question them?


What?! Ok. There has, has, HAS to be a reason we haven't heard anything much about this. It had to have been ruled as unrelated. I remember hearing about the guy that saw the staggering people but I didn't know the rest of this. Wow. They probably figured out who those people were. I would hope.
 
On another note (sorry for being so wordy) attempting to not point fingers - it seems the police involved with this case really made it much more difficult to solve. 500 people were standing around outside the home once they found out what happened and the police didnt keep them from walking all over the place, even as far as the DOOR of the home. In what world does this make sense? Seems to me a perfect chance for someone that actually DID the crime to say that they were at the home that night but only after it happened, and they would be unable to prove otherwise.

They required all boys and men in the school she went to and her fathers college to take a lie detector test, why did they give NO females the same test? The window to enter the home was tiny - a female could have just as easily (or even more so) gotten into the window as a man. Its just as likely that a female crawled into that window and snuck up stairs and let someone (a male) inside the home, so why dismiss girls?

It seems like from the go the police had their mind made up - when they first got to the home (before they found blood) they apparently they felt that she had 'run off' with her boyfriend - as if broken glasses, one shoe on the floor, and obvious signs of struggle point to a teenage girl 'running off'.

The biggest thing worth remembering is this was the 50s. Forensics were not horrible, but they were nothing compared to today. But still I agree, even for then trampling on the scene seems really...well...stupid.

Also, the people of that time were in denial about reality and everyone tried to live a perfect Leave It To Beaver. That's probably why they didn't have the girls do the lie detector. For one, they probably didn't actually think a female could do something so heinous. Two, it would give a bad image to the town, having those "fragile" girls go through all of that. At least, this is MOO based on what I have heard about the 50s from those that grew up during that time.
 
Im actually not sure who was home and who wasnt but the man that said he heard three screams lived three houses away.

I bet this means that the immediate neighbors weren't home, otherwise the press would be all over them, not the guy living 3 doors away. I would think, at least.
 
39 minutes is a long time, can anyone think of any valid reason he would be there so long before calling police? He saw her glasses about 4 minutes into being there.

I'm not a parent so this is my best guess on what I would do and my thoughts on it.

I would probably try to get in the house too but I could see not wanting to break in as that would look really, really bad if someone heard/saw you doing so and then come to find the daughter is missing. After all, family is usually the first to be speculated about.

I do agree that 39 minutes is a really long time. I could see searching frantically and freaking out for maybe 15 minutes tops. Probably had to figure out what to do with the baby too. Maybe it took him a while to find a neighbor that was home? And then when the guy opens the door and sees this strange man having a panic attack, probably wants to know what the heck is going on, so then he rehashes the whole story before they call.

I guess I could think of reasons why it took so long but in my opinion it shouldn't have been more than 15 minutes after he found her.
 
What?! Ok. There has, has, HAS to be a reason we haven't heard anything much about this. It had to have been ruled as unrelated. I remember hearing about the guy that saw the staggering people but I didn't know the rest of this. Wow. They probably figured out who those people were. I would hope.

Thats whats so odd about it, they gave him a lie detector test hoping to disprove what he was saying and he passed it. They then gave him another lie detector which he also passed.

The car that he says almost ran over him leaving a driveway was leaving the home that had bloody finger/hand prints on it just makes no sense to me..

The thing is this - even if they thought he was lying after passing the lie detector tests I dont get why they wouldnt have put the make/model of the car and some sort of description of the man? Even if it werent true no harm done right? It seems to me that they were dead set on this being a sex crime so they discounted any other options - like only doing lie detector tests on the men. That part REALLY bugs me.. someone that can commit a crime like this could possibly pass the test even if they were lying BUT that man/boy could have a girlfriend that also knew what was going on and wouldnt be able to pass the test.

Its possible the home was empty - it was a developing area.
 
I bet this means that the immediate neighbors weren't home, otherwise the press would be all over them, not the guy living 3 doors away. I would think, at least.

One of the next door neighbors was home because I read about her saying that the police didnt question her for several days after this happened - will look for link to post.
 

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