Evelyn Hartley
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. It remains one of La Crosse's greatest unsolved mysteries.
Police suspect Edward Theodore Gein may have been involved in Hartley's case. He was visiting relatives in La Crosse, just blocks from the home where she was babysitting, on the night of her disappearance. In 1957, authorities in Plainfield, Wisconsin arrested Gein for murdering a local female tavern keeper. Gein confessed only to the murders of two tavern keepers. He was declared insane and sent to a mental hospital, where he died in 1984. Gein is also considered a possible suspect in the disappearance of Georgia Jean Weckler , who was abducted from from Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin in 1947. Neither of them have ever been found. They do not fit the profile for Gein's known victims; both of the people he killed were middle-aged women.
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
Case Updated on: May 28, 2005