Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Evelyn Hartley Pt. One

Transcript

Evelyn Hartley Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:29
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pathway Chili.
0:31
Speaker 2: I'm Robin, I'm Jules.
0:33
Speaker 3: And I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case.
0:38
Speaker 2: October twenty fourth, nineteen fifty three, Lacrosse, Wisconsin. The father
0:44
Speaker 2: of fifteen year old Evelyn Hartley attempts to phone her
0:47
Speaker 2: while she's babysitting an infant child, but receives no answer.
0:51
Speaker 2: After traveling to the house, he discovers that Evelyn has disappeared,
0:55
Speaker 2: and the evidence suggests that she was the victim of
0:57
Speaker 2: a violent abduction by an intruder. Days later, blood stained clothing,
1:02
Speaker 2: including women's undergarments, a denim jacket, and a pair of
1:06
Speaker 2: tennis shoes are discovered miles away and believed to be
1:09
Speaker 2: connected to the case. Over the years, there would be
1:13
Speaker 2: a number of potential suspects and the discovery of a
1:16
Speaker 2: tape recorded confession to the crime, and the discovery of
1:19
Speaker 2: a tape recorded confession to the crime, but Evelyn Hartley
1:23
Speaker 2: is never found.
1:25
Speaker 1: After that, the path went chilly. So today we'll be
1:29
Speaker 1: covering a frightening missing person's case which took place over
1:32
Speaker 1: seventy years ago. The nineteen fifty three disappearance of Evelyn Hartley.
1:37
Speaker 1: I originally covered it on The Trail Went Cold in
1:39
Speaker 1: October of twenty eighteen as one of our Halloween themed episodes.
1:43
Speaker 1: As the circumstances of how Evelyn Hartley went missing are
1:46
Speaker 1: like something out of a horror movie. The idea of
1:49
Speaker 1: a teenage girl being terrorized while babysitting is a popular
1:52
Speaker 1: trope in a number of horror stories, including John Carpenter's
1:55
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight classic Halloween, where Jamie Lee Curtis's character
1:59
Speaker 1: is talked by the mass slasher Michael Myers during a
2:02
Speaker 1: babysitting job on Halloween night. Today's episode is almost like
2:06
Speaker 1: a real life version of this, as it involves a
2:08
Speaker 1: fifteen year old girl named Evelyn Hartley disappearing from the
2:11
Speaker 1: home of a family friend while she was looking after
2:13
Speaker 1: their infant daughter. There was a lot of evidence to
2:16
Speaker 1: indicate that Evelyn was the victim of a violent abduction
2:19
Speaker 1: by an intruder, and some bloodstained clothing, some of which
2:22
Speaker 1: was believed to belong to Evelyn, would later be found
2:25
Speaker 1: miles away from the residence. Over the years, there would
2:28
Speaker 1: be a number of interesting developments in this case, including
2:31
Speaker 1: the suspected involvement of one of the most infamous murderers
2:34
Speaker 1: of all time, ed Geen, who is the alleged real
2:37
Speaker 1: life inspiration for a number of hiconic horror movie villains.
2:41
Speaker 1: But when all is said and done, Evelyn is still
2:43
Speaker 1: a missing person and we don't know who is responsible
2:46
Speaker 1: for her disappearance.
2:49
Speaker 3: Here's what's wild about this is that Evelyn was at
2:52
Speaker 3: a friend's home babysitting their child. So it's almost as
2:56
Speaker 3: if that home was either a pre arranged target in
2:59
Speaker 3: Evelyn happened to be there, or it was a crime
3:02
Speaker 3: of opportunity where someone watched Evelyn or knew that Evelyn
3:06
Speaker 3: was going to this house, happened to see a young
3:08
Speaker 3: girl walk in and the parents leave, and then they
3:11
Speaker 3: acted on whatever they did to Evelyn. It's just wild
3:14
Speaker 3: because there's a million other places she could have been
3:18
Speaker 3: that night, and yet she's at a friend's home babysitting
3:21
Speaker 3: in this little child and never comes home.
3:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, even after all these years, there's still a lot
3:26
Speaker 1: of ambiguity about whether Evelyn was specifically targeted or if
3:30
Speaker 1: someone just happened to see her babysitting alone or another
3:34
Speaker 1: babysitter usually did that job so at that house, So
3:37
Speaker 1: maybe she was targeted or something, and they have gone
3:40
Speaker 1: over a couple potential suspects over the years, but none
3:42
Speaker 1: of them seem to have a close personal connection to Evelyn,
3:46
Speaker 1: so we really don't know what the motive was for
3:48
Speaker 1: this crime and if she was just targeted at random.
3:52
Speaker 2: Our story begins in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, in nineteen fifty three.
3:57
Speaker 2: Our central figure is fifteen year old Evelyn Hartley, who
4:00
Speaker 2: lives with her parents, Richard and Ethel Hartley. Evelyn is
4:03
Speaker 2: one of four children in the family, though she lost
4:06
Speaker 2: a brother to polio years earlier. The Hartleys moved to
4:09
Speaker 2: Lacrosse from Charleston, Illinois in nineteen fifty and Richard works
4:14
Speaker 2: as a biology professor at Lacrosse State College. Evelyn is
4:18
Speaker 2: a junior at Central High School and is considered to
4:20
Speaker 2: be an excellent honor student with a straight A average.
4:24
Speaker 2: On the evening of Saturday, October twenty fourth, Evelyn was
4:27
Speaker 2: picked up at her home by Vigo Rasmussen, a coworker
4:30
Speaker 2: of her fathers who worked as a physics professor at
4:33
Speaker 2: Lacrosse State College. Vigo, his wife, and seven year old
4:37
Speaker 2: daughter were all planning to attend the college's homecoming football game,
4:41
Speaker 2: which was always a huge deal in the town, and
4:44
Speaker 2: they needed a babysitter to watch over their twenty month
4:47
Speaker 2: old infant daughter, Janice. They had a regular babysitter named
4:51
Speaker 2: Janis Cowley, which she would also be attending the game
4:54
Speaker 2: that night, so the Rasmussens asked Evelyn if she would
4:57
Speaker 2: take the job instead. Evelyn agreed, and this would be
5:00
Speaker 2: her first babysitting job in three months. After being picked
5:04
Speaker 2: up by Vigo at six thirty pm, Evelyn was taken
5:07
Speaker 2: to the Rasmusen home. The house was located in a
5:10
Speaker 2: new subdivision on Bachelor Drive and the Rasmusans had only
5:14
Speaker 2: lived there for three months. Evelyn lived about a mile
5:17
Speaker 2: and a half away and told her parents that she
5:20
Speaker 2: would phone them at eight thirty pm to check in.
5:23
Speaker 2: She was told to put Janis to bed at seven
5:25
Speaker 2: p m. And since the child was going to be
5:28
Speaker 2: sleeping most of the evening, Evelyn brought several school books
5:31
Speaker 2: along with her to spend time studying. The Rasmusans then
5:35
Speaker 2: left to attend the game while Evelyn remained alone with
5:38
Speaker 2: their daughter. However, eight thirty came and went, and the
5:41
Speaker 2: Hartleys did not receive their scheduled phone call from Evelyn.
5:45
Speaker 2: Richard Hartley tried calling the Rasmussen home multiple times but
5:49
Speaker 2: received no answer, and even tried calling neighbors of the
5:52
Speaker 2: Rasmusans to check if they had seen her. After not
5:56
Speaker 2: hearing from Evelyn, Richard decided to go check on his daughter.
6:00
Speaker 2: He arrived at the resmuse in residence at around nine
6:03
Speaker 2: to twenty and discovered the front door was locked. The
6:06
Speaker 2: lights inside of the house were still on, but even
6:09
Speaker 2: after Richard repeatedly knocked, rang the doorbell and shouted for Evelyn,
6:13
Speaker 2: no one answered. Since the living room window had no curtains,
6:18
Speaker 2: Richard decided to peek inside and was very concerned when
6:22
Speaker 2: he noticed that Evelyn's school books were scattered around the floor,
6:26
Speaker 2: along with one of her shoes at her eyeglasses, which
6:28
Speaker 2: were now broken.
6:30
Speaker 3: My god, I can't even imagine as a parent, when
6:33
Speaker 3: you're sitting there and you have an expectation that your
6:35
Speaker 3: little girl's only a mile and a half away. She's
6:38
Speaker 3: babysitting for family friends that you know, and there's a plan.
6:41
Speaker 3: She's going to put the baby down around eight point thirty.
6:44
Speaker 3: She's going to go ahead and check in with mom
6:45
Speaker 3: and dad. And it's just such a typical scenario. She's
6:50
Speaker 3: even brought her books so she can read and study.
6:54
Speaker 3: And Dad knows and has got something's wrong. My daughter
6:58
Speaker 3: would have called, she would have answered my calls, something
7:01
Speaker 3: would have occurred in the kind of her normal routine.
7:04
Speaker 3: And yet everything seems wrong in his gut, and he
7:07
Speaker 3: gets over there and sees truly a horror scene. His
7:12
Speaker 3: daughter's not there, she's not answering, and her books are
7:16
Speaker 3: scattered you said one shoes there, and her eyeglasses, which
7:20
Speaker 3: are broken, are there, So there's a clear sign that
7:23
Speaker 3: she didn't leave willingly, didn't walk outside. She's not down
7:26
Speaker 3: the street somewhere. Something happened to her. And then he's
7:30
Speaker 3: left standing in this in this house, wondering where's the
7:34
Speaker 3: child and where's my baby?
7:36
Speaker 1: And you also have to remember this is back in
7:38
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, and as far as I know, Lacrosse
7:40
Speaker 1: was not known for being a town with a lot
7:42
Speaker 1: of violent crime. So this sort of thing just didn't happen.
7:45
Speaker 1: It's not something that'd experienced. They always had this feeling
7:48
Speaker 1: this is a safe ay And if we leave, like
7:50
Speaker 1: our teenage daughter to baby sits someone alone, then nothing's
7:53
Speaker 1: going to happen to her. But then her father arrives
7:56
Speaker 1: and realizes that he has entered his worst nightmare. So
7:59
Speaker 1: Rachel desperately tried to enter the house, but found that
8:02
Speaker 1: most of the doors and windows were locked. However, when
8:05
Speaker 1: he went around back, he discovered the basement window was
8:07
Speaker 1: opened and that the screen had been removed and was
8:10
Speaker 1: now leaning up against the outside wall. Richard decided to
8:13
Speaker 1: enter the dark basement through the window and turned on
8:15
Speaker 1: the lights. A step ladder, which the ras Musans had
8:18
Speaker 1: been using to paint the basement, was next to the window,
8:21
Speaker 1: and Richard noticed that Evelyn's second shoe was at the
8:24
Speaker 1: bottom of the stairs. He went upstairs into the living
8:27
Speaker 1: room and noticed that the radio was still playing. In
8:29
Speaker 1: addition to Evelyn's items being scattered across the floor, the
8:33
Speaker 1: furniture had been disarranged, so all indications were that a
8:36
Speaker 1: violent struggle had taken place. Thankfully, baby Janis was discovered
8:40
Speaker 1: to be sleeping unharmed in her crib. The child was
8:43
Speaker 1: not covered by her blanket, even though the ras Musans
8:46
Speaker 1: had given Evelyn instructions to cover Janet at seven fifteen pm,
8:50
Speaker 1: so the scene to indicate that Evelyn went missing shortly
8:53
Speaker 1: after she put the child to bed at seven o'clock.
8:57
Speaker 1: Richard quickly went to a neighbor and asked him to
8:59
Speaker 1: phone the police. When they arrived, they found additional evidence
9:03
Speaker 1: that an intruder had entered the house in abducted Evelyn.
9:06
Speaker 1: Other windows were discovered to have pride marks from a
9:08
Speaker 1: screwdriver on them, so the intruder had likely tried to
9:11
Speaker 1: break in elsewhere before entering through the basement. A set
9:15
Speaker 1: of footprints made by a pair of sneakers were found
9:18
Speaker 1: in a flower bed near the basement window, and there
9:20
Speaker 1: were also dirty footprints in the living room rug. But
9:23
Speaker 1: most disturbingly, there were two pools of blood found outside
9:27
Speaker 1: the house. One of them was located in the Rasmussen's
9:30
Speaker 1: yard near the basement window, while the other was about
9:32
Speaker 1: one hundred feet away next to a neighbor's garage. If
9:35
Speaker 1: that wasn't enough, a bloody palm print was also on
9:38
Speaker 1: the garage's wall, and additional blood stains were discovered on
9:42
Speaker 1: the side of another neighbor's house. Testing would eventually show
9:46
Speaker 1: that all this blood was type A, which matched Evelyn's
9:48
Speaker 1: blood type. Red cloth fibers were also found in some
9:52
Speaker 1: of the blood, and Evelyn was wearing red pants at
9:55
Speaker 1: the time she disappeared. It was theorized at while being
9:58
Speaker 1: dragged through the yard by or Abdu, Evelyn had either
10:01
Speaker 1: rested or fallen on the ground to create the pools
10:04
Speaker 1: of blood. Tracking dogs would follow Evelyn sent through the
10:07
Speaker 1: backyard and pass some neighbours' homes to an adjacent street
10:10
Speaker 1: called Cooley Drive. The scent then abruptly came to an end,
10:14
Speaker 1: suggesting that Evelyn may have been placed inside a vehicle
10:17
Speaker 1: and driven away.
10:20
Speaker 3: So it seems like the whoever this intruder was apprehends
10:24
Speaker 3: her and restrains her and is forcing her out of
10:27
Speaker 3: this home, maybe through the basement where he came in.
10:30
Speaker 3: And it doesn't appear that there's been an injury necessarily
10:34
Speaker 3: that would cause her to bleed until she gets outside
10:37
Speaker 3: the house.
10:37
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yeah, they didn't really find any traces
10:40
Speaker 1: of blood indoors. It was only on the outside, so
10:42
Speaker 1: for all we know, maybe she cut herself on the
10:44
Speaker 1: window or something like that.
10:46
Speaker 3: I was going to say, either that, or right when
10:48
Speaker 3: she gets outside, she tries to flee him, or you know,
10:51
Speaker 3: causes a commotion and he hits her or you know,
10:54
Speaker 3: cuts her or something like that, and that's where the
10:57
Speaker 3: blood starts. But it's really bizarre because even like tracing
11:01
Speaker 3: her and tramping her back down through the basement and out,
11:04
Speaker 3: why not just leave through the back door or another
11:07
Speaker 3: place it would be easier to get her out of
11:09
Speaker 3: than in and out of a basement window or a
11:11
Speaker 3: basement out, you know, outage. It just seems very bizarre.
11:15
Speaker 3: And also as much as you know Type A did
11:19
Speaker 3: match Evelynce blood, it'd be interesting. It's possible the offender
11:22
Speaker 3: also was a Type A back in the fifties. How
11:26
Speaker 3: would they know how to distinguish if there were two
11:29
Speaker 3: you know sources at the time.
11:31
Speaker 2: They wouldn't if they were both Type A?
11:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, correct. There was no DNA testing in
11:36
Speaker 1: the fifties, and I know that a lot of the
11:38
Speaker 1: evidence in this case has since been lost, so I
11:40
Speaker 1: don't know if they have any of this evidence still
11:42
Speaker 1: available to do DNA testing.
11:45
Speaker 2: Do we know the layout of the house, like if
11:48
Speaker 2: the perpetrator or perpetrators would have taken Evelyn out the
11:51
Speaker 2: front door or the back door, Like was this a
11:53
Speaker 2: well lit area where they really close to neighbors? Was
11:57
Speaker 2: it sort of like the best option was to go
12:01
Speaker 2: through the basement because maybe the path out was too
12:04
Speaker 2: a backyard and it was like the least obvious to neighbors.
12:08
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking that maybe they figured there's just
12:11
Speaker 1: too much open space near the front, like a lot
12:13
Speaker 1: of houses closed together. So if we try to take
12:16
Speaker 1: Evelyn out through the front, someone is going to see her,
12:18
Speaker 1: and if she screams, then it's gonna get a lot
12:20
Speaker 1: of attention. And like we mentioned earlier, like the front
12:24
Speaker 1: window of the living room did not even have any curtains,
12:26
Speaker 1: so for all we know, maybe a lot of the
12:28
Speaker 1: other houses had open windows where they could see out
12:31
Speaker 1: into the street. And so maybe the perpetrator or perpetrators
12:35
Speaker 1: thought that we have a better chance of getting away
12:36
Speaker 1: with this if we take Evelyn out through the back.
12:40
Speaker 2: It wasn't long before a number of eyewitnesses would report
12:43
Speaker 2: strange occurrences in the neighborhood that night. Neighbors are called
12:47
Speaker 2: hearing screams sometime between seven and seven fifteen pm, but
12:51
Speaker 2: assumed it was nothing more than children playing. Given the timeframe,
12:55
Speaker 2: it seemed likely that the screams were connected to Evelyn's disappearance.
13:00
Speaker 2: Another witness also remembered seeing a light colored tan sedan
13:04
Speaker 2: circling the neighborhood at least three times at around eight
13:07
Speaker 2: p m. But the most interesting eyewitness account came from
13:11
Speaker 2: a man named Ed Hoffer, and in order to protect
13:14
Speaker 2: his identity, the original newspaper articles about the case simply
13:18
Speaker 2: refer to him as mister X. At around seven fifteen,
13:22
Speaker 2: Hoffer was picking up his brother in law at his house,
13:25
Speaker 2: which was located one block from the Rasmusen residence. He
13:29
Speaker 2: claimed he saw two men and a girl staggering down
13:31
Speaker 2: the street in the distance, next to the same house
13:34
Speaker 2: where blood stains were later found. It was too dark
13:37
Speaker 2: to get a good look at them, and Hoffer just
13:39
Speaker 2: assumed that it was people who'd been drinking to celebrate
13:42
Speaker 2: the homecoming game. A few minutes later, Hoffer and his
13:46
Speaker 2: brother in law were driving away when they almost ran
13:49
Speaker 2: into a two toned green nineteen forty one or nineteen
13:52
Speaker 2: forty two Bewick, which was speeding westward. The car was
13:55
Speaker 2: being driven by a man, and Hoffer also saw a
13:58
Speaker 2: second man sitting in the back alongside a girl who
14:01
Speaker 2: had her head slumped forward. After learning about Evelyn's abduction,
14:06
Speaker 2: these incidents suddenly took on more significance for Hoffer, and
14:10
Speaker 2: he contacted the police. As far as anyone can tell,
14:13
Speaker 2: nothing appeared to have been stolen from the Rasmusen home,
14:16
Speaker 2: which seemed to go against the idea that she was
14:18
Speaker 2: abducted during an attempted burglary. Needless to say, Evelyn's disappearance
14:23
Speaker 2: would launch one of the largest missing person's investigations in
14:27
Speaker 2: the history of Wisconsin, as over two thousand people volunteered
14:31
Speaker 2: to participate in the search for her. Her disappearance terrified
14:35
Speaker 2: the community so much that a ten pm curfew was
14:38
Speaker 2: implemented for teenagers. Investigators launched a unique vehicle inspection program
14:44
Speaker 2: in order to search every car in the county. If
14:47
Speaker 2: a car was inspected and ruled out as having any
14:50
Speaker 2: connection to Evelyn's abduction, it would be given a sticker
14:53
Speaker 2: which read my car is okay. Gas station attendants were
14:57
Speaker 2: also told to be on the lookout for any car
15:00
Speaker 2: which had bloodstains and report them. Recently, Doug Graves were
15:04
Speaker 2: also checked to see if perhaps someone had placed Evelyn's
15:06
Speaker 2: body inside there. In the years following Evelyn's disappearance, investigators
15:11
Speaker 2: would question over thirty five hundred potential suspects, but failed
15:16
Speaker 2: to turn up any promising leads. One of the most
15:19
Speaker 2: unusual aspects of the investigation occurred in May of nineteen
15:23
Speaker 2: fifty four, when the biggest massed liide detector tests in
15:27
Speaker 2: the history of criminal investigation took place. It was decided
15:31
Speaker 2: that all of the male students and faculty of each
15:34
Speaker 2: high school in the area, approximately one thousand, seven hundred
15:38
Speaker 2: and fifty people in total, would be questioned about Evelyn's
15:42
Speaker 2: disappearance while taking a polygraph. About three hundred people were
15:46
Speaker 2: tested before the school board intervened in forced law enforcement
15:49
Speaker 2: to bring the whole thing to a halt.
15:52
Speaker 3: Wow, so they pulled out all the stops to try
15:55
Speaker 3: to help find Evelyn. What's horrifying is when you listen
15:59
Speaker 3: to quote mister X or mister Hoffer's explanation, that really
16:04
Speaker 3: fits what we were talking about with where she was
16:07
Speaker 3: probably injured and having to be helped to the car.
16:12
Speaker 3: To me, it sounds like she's forced out of the house.
16:14
Speaker 3: It is very probable that two people would make that
16:17
Speaker 3: a heck of a lot easier to get her to comply,
16:20
Speaker 3: But once she's out, something occurs where one of them
16:24
Speaker 3: stabs her, hits her to a point where now she's
16:28
Speaker 3: actually struggling to walk on her own. She might be
16:33
Speaker 3: weak or I'm not alert right because of a head
16:36
Speaker 3: injury or something like that. So when you see those
16:38
Speaker 3: two men and a girl staggering down the street in
16:41
Speaker 3: that same area where we believe they could have taken her,
16:46
Speaker 3: it's horrifying. Like I can't imagine being a witness that says, Okay,
16:49
Speaker 3: I saw this incident. It's homecoming, it's a drunk party,
16:54
Speaker 3: and then very shortly later you rewind that in your
16:57
Speaker 3: head and you say, oh, my gosh, I think I
16:59
Speaker 3: saw that poor girl in the car. And the way
17:03
Speaker 3: he described them in the car, one person driving and
17:05
Speaker 3: one next to her in the back seat, you would
17:08
Speaker 3: think if you apprehended somebody and there were two of you,
17:11
Speaker 3: you would definitely keep somebody with her in the back
17:14
Speaker 3: seat and not both of you in the front. So
17:17
Speaker 3: absolutely horrifying.
17:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that eyewitness account seemed to confirm what a
17:21
Speaker 1: lot of people speculated right away that multiple people were
17:24
Speaker 1: involved in Evelyn's abduction, because it would have been really
17:26
Speaker 1: difficult for just one person to bring her down into
17:29
Speaker 1: the basement and force her outside the window into the
17:32
Speaker 1: backyard without assistance. So that's why it's been theorized that
17:36
Speaker 1: maybe one person abducted her in the house while the
17:39
Speaker 1: second person stood as a lookout outside the window and
17:42
Speaker 1: helped drag her outside. On October the twenty seventh, three
17:48
Speaker 1: days after Evelyn went missing, a pair of women's underpants
17:51
Speaker 1: and a brazier, both staying with blood, were found two
17:54
Speaker 1: miles south of Lacrosse near the underpass of Highway fourteen.
17:58
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, this particular area had been searched one day beforehand,
18:02
Speaker 1: but the undergarments were not there, leading the speculation that
18:06
Speaker 1: someone drove through the area and tossed them outside a
18:08
Speaker 1: moving vehicle. The undergarments appeared to be Evelyn's size, and
18:12
Speaker 1: the blood was type A. A blood stained pair of
18:15
Speaker 1: men's pants were also found four miles away along the
18:18
Speaker 1: same road, though it can never be established if they
18:21
Speaker 1: were connected to the case. On Halloween, a pair of
18:24
Speaker 1: size eleven good Rich brand tennis shoes were discovered alongside
18:28
Speaker 1: Highway fourteen near the village of Coon Valley, fourteen miles
18:32
Speaker 1: southeast of Lacrosse. About eight hundred feet away from the
18:35
Speaker 1: shoes was a size thirty six blue denim jacket, and
18:39
Speaker 1: both items had Type A bloodstains on them. Investigators felt
18:43
Speaker 1: there was a good chance the tennis shoes belonged to
18:45
Speaker 1: Evelyn's abductor, as their souls seemed to match the footprints
18:48
Speaker 1: found at the Rasmusen home. This prompted investigators to check
18:53
Speaker 1: with Goodrich to learn everything they could about this particular
18:56
Speaker 1: brand of shoes. The brand was called Hood Mogul and
19:00
Speaker 1: sold in Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Illinois, though they
19:04
Speaker 1: had not been sold in Wisconsin for at least three years.
19:07
Speaker 1: The shoes had a distinctive circular wear pattern on the soles,
19:11
Speaker 1: which suggested that their owner may have frequently rode a
19:14
Speaker 1: whizzard motorbike. There was also a hair found inside one
19:17
Speaker 1: of the shoes which may have belonged to an African
19:20
Speaker 1: American male, though I'm not sure if they were able
19:22
Speaker 1: to conclusively establish that. It was also believed that the
19:26
Speaker 1: Denham jacket belonged to the person who kidnapped Evelyn, as
19:29
Speaker 1: were blood smears found at the rasmuse In residence which
19:32
Speaker 1: seemed to have been made with cloth with Denham characteristics.
19:36
Speaker 1: The jacket contained The jacket contained faded spots underneath both armpits,
19:41
Speaker 1: which appeared to have been caused by a safety harness
19:44
Speaker 1: commonly worn by people who worked as steeplejacks, which involved
19:48
Speaker 1: scaling high structures such as steeples and chimneys to repair them.
19:52
Speaker 1: Investigators were able to track down a local man who
19:55
Speaker 1: had manufactured safety harnesses for two steeplejacks the previous year,
20:00
Speaker 1: but all he remembered about them is that they were
20:02
Speaker 1: young and possibly from the area. It was believed that
20:05
Speaker 1: the jacket was too small to have been worn by
20:07
Speaker 1: someone who wore size eleven shoes, but this also lent
20:11
Speaker 1: credence to the idea that two perpetrators may have been
20:13
Speaker 1: involved in Evelyn's abduction. Investigators would bring the shoes and
20:18
Speaker 1: jacket to thirty one different communities and put them on
20:20
Speaker 1: display for thousands of people, but no one recognized them
20:24
Speaker 1: and it failed to generate any leads.
20:27
Speaker 3: What's interesting is it's almost as if someone was watching
20:30
Speaker 3: the either media coverage, police movements, things like that, and
20:36
Speaker 3: that's when they start dumping these items along Highway fourteen. Because,
20:40
Speaker 3: like you said, at one point there was a particular
20:42
Speaker 3: area that had been searched already and then these bloody
20:46
Speaker 3: items appear there, and it's as if they were in
20:50
Speaker 3: the car going down Highway fourteen and one at a
20:52
Speaker 3: time or two at a time, throwing items out in
20:56
Speaker 3: order to spread the evidence down on that road. Do
21:02
Speaker 3: we know when mister X described the two individuals that
21:06
Speaker 3: he saw with this young lady when Evelyn's being walked
21:08
Speaker 3: by them, is one of them described as an African
21:10
Speaker 3: American male.
21:12
Speaker 1: He doesn't really give any specific descriptions because I think
21:15
Speaker 1: it was too dark for him to get a good luck.
21:17
Speaker 1: But I don't see him specifically saying I saw two
21:20
Speaker 1: white males inside the car, so I guess it was
21:23
Speaker 1: just too dark for him to tell for certain.
21:25
Speaker 3: Interesting I also I find it very impressive how much
21:29
Speaker 3: effort is being put in by law enforcement from the
21:33
Speaker 3: get go, where there is really no stone unturned, and
21:36
Speaker 3: they're really trying to even take these clothing items around
21:40
Speaker 3: to different communities and say do you recognize these? Do
21:43
Speaker 3: you know anyone who wears these? And for this to
21:46
Speaker 3: be the fifties, what incredible science they're doing. They're finding
21:51
Speaker 3: those shoes and the manufacturers, the wear on the shoes.
21:54
Speaker 3: It's just it's quite remarkable.
21:57
Speaker 2: I think the fact that they looked into recently Dug
22:00
Speaker 2: Graves as well, and like even thought of that as
22:03
Speaker 2: being an option for a body disposal, I think is
22:06
Speaker 2: pretty remarkable for the time period.
22:08
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Like you can't definitely can't fault the original investigators,
22:11
Speaker 1: Like they went all out trying to find Evelyn and
22:14
Speaker 1: solve this case, and which the amount of forensic evidence
22:16
Speaker 1: they have. I'm sure that if this crime took place today,
22:19
Speaker 1: they would have been able to solve it relatively quickly
22:21
Speaker 1: with DNA testing whatnot. But they're doing the best they
22:25
Speaker 1: can with the forensics they had available back in the
22:27
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties.
22:29
Speaker 2: Are either of you familiar with the Caitlin Aikins case.
22:32
Speaker 1: No, I've heard it, but I can't remember the details.
22:36
Speaker 2: She went missing, and it's believed are alleged that her
22:41
Speaker 2: stepfather is the one who's responsible for her disappearance. He
22:44
Speaker 2: was supposed to have driven her to the airport, but
22:47
Speaker 2: the flight wasn't leaving for a while, so she wanted
22:50
Speaker 2: to go to a mall, according to him, and he
22:53
Speaker 2: said that he drove her there, but then later on,
22:56
Speaker 2: while searching for she obviously never made it to her destination.
23:00
Speaker 2: Ever went to the airport. No one's seen her since,
23:02
Speaker 2: but her suitcase was discovered along the road. The parents
23:06
Speaker 2: the stepfather and mother are divorced, but apparently they were
23:09
Speaker 2: still somewhat close. People had alleged that he likely had
23:13
Speaker 2: thrown that suitcase on that highway because that's where it
23:16
Speaker 2: was later found, between his home and where the mall
23:19
Speaker 2: is that he said that he took her so super sketchy.
23:22
Speaker 2: It's just one of those instances where investigators really did
23:25
Speaker 2: their due diligence and check the area and found some
23:29
Speaker 2: pretty compelling evidence.
23:31
Speaker 1: But sometimes you just don't get that one break that
23:33
Speaker 1: will allow you to solve the.
23:34
Speaker 2: Case exactly well. Within a few years, a very infamous
23:40
Speaker 2: suspect would pop up on the radar. Many of you
23:42
Speaker 2: are probably familiar with the name ed Gean. During the intro,
23:46
Speaker 2: we mentioned how this story seemed like something that you'd
23:49
Speaker 2: find in a horror film, and ed Gean has helped
23:52
Speaker 2: inspire some of the most famous horror movie villains of
23:55
Speaker 2: all time, including Norman Bates from Psycho, Leather Faced from
23:59
Speaker 2: The Texas Chain He Saw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill from
24:02
Speaker 2: the Silence of the Lambs. Gean lived on a farm
24:05
Speaker 2: near the small town of Plainfield, Wisconsin, and earned the
24:09
Speaker 2: nickname the Butcher a Plainfield. But even though he is
24:12
Speaker 2: often referred to as a serial killer, he technically only
24:15
Speaker 2: has two confirmed victims, a tavern owner named Mary Hogan
24:19
Speaker 2: and a hardware store employee named Bernice Warden. The main
24:23
Speaker 2: reason Geen attains so much notoriety is because he liked
24:26
Speaker 2: to dig up bodies from the cemetery, take them to
24:29
Speaker 2: his farmhouse, and fashion items from their bones and skin.
24:33
Speaker 2: Gean was arrested on November sixteenth, nineteen fifty seven, the
24:37
Speaker 2: same day he murdered Bernice Warden, as her mutilated body
24:41
Speaker 2: and the remains of several deceased individuals he dug up
24:44
Speaker 2: were found at his home. He wound up pleading not
24:47
Speaker 2: guilty by reason of insanity, and after he was deemed
24:51
Speaker 2: mentally incompetent to stand trial, Gan was sent to the
24:54
Speaker 2: Central State Hospital for the criminally Insane, and he remained
24:58
Speaker 2: incarcerated in mental health ISSAS facilities until his death in
25:01
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four. Well it turned out that Keen was
25:04
Speaker 2: originally born in Lacrosse before his family moved to Plainfield
25:08
Speaker 2: during his childhood. Now many accounts of this case state
25:12
Speaker 2: that Gen was visiting relatives in Lacrosse on the night
25:15
Speaker 2: Evelyn was abducted, and that they lived only a few
25:17
Speaker 2: blocks away from the Rasmusen residence. This would definitely make
25:21
Speaker 2: Gean attempting suspect, but I'm not entirely sure how accurate
25:26
Speaker 2: this information is. During a lot of the original newspaper
25:30
Speaker 2: articles about the case, it states that when Geen was
25:33
Speaker 2: questioned about Evelyn's disappearance, he claimed that he never returned
25:36
Speaker 2: to Lacrosse since his family moved away from there when
25:40
Speaker 2: he was seven years old, and he also said that
25:43
Speaker 2: he would have been working on a neighbor's farm near
25:45
Speaker 2: Plainfield at the time Evelyn went missing. None of the
25:48
Speaker 2: remains found on Gen's farm belonged to Evelyn, and there
25:51
Speaker 2: was no evidence linking him to her abduction. After Gean
25:55
Speaker 2: passed two light detector tests, investigators ruled him out as
25:59
Speaker 2: a suspect.
26:00
Speaker 3: And what's interesting about him is he made no attempt
26:03
Speaker 3: to cover up what he was doing. He lived amongst
26:06
Speaker 3: the evidence of the crimes he committed, so I believe
26:09
Speaker 3: if he was responsible for Evelyn's they would have been
26:11
Speaker 3: able to find evidence of that and his home or
26:16
Speaker 3: at some point he would have been able to account
26:18
Speaker 3: for her. But it's very tempting, especially when you talk
26:22
Speaker 3: about the fact that he has relatives that live in
26:25
Speaker 3: Lacrosse and he might have been visiting, but obviously he
26:29
Speaker 3: got ruled out. But like I said, you would have
26:31
Speaker 3: likely have been able to find evidence of Evelyn at
26:34
Speaker 3: his home. He wasn't real shy about displaying and having
26:38
Speaker 3: those items out and about.
26:40
Speaker 2: The victimology is completely different with Evelyn and with ed
26:44
Speaker 2: Gen's victims.
26:46
Speaker 3: Very much so, yeah, very much so.
26:48
Speaker 1: He does not seem like someone would go to the
26:50
Speaker 1: trouble to dispose and get rid of a victim's body.
26:53
Speaker 1: And I think as the years have gone on, because
26:55
Speaker 1: ed Gan has attained so much notoriety, people have found
26:58
Speaker 1: this tentative Lacrosse connection between him and Evelyn's case and
27:02
Speaker 1: tried to link it together because he was questioned. But
27:05
Speaker 1: he really does not seem like a compelling suspect here.
27:09
Speaker 2: A killer as infamous as ed Geen. Just because a
27:12
Speaker 2: murder happens in the town that he was born and
27:15
Speaker 2: maybe he was visiting family doesn't mean that there can't
27:18
Speaker 2: be somebody else who isn't responsible, or that every murder
27:21
Speaker 2: that's ever attached to that town has to somehow be
27:25
Speaker 2: connected to him. But I think it's like a tempting
27:28
Speaker 2: thing to say, Oh well, especially in the nineteen fifties,
27:31
Speaker 2: there isn't social media. Things don't spread on TikTok, on Facebook,
27:36
Speaker 2: on Instagram the way that they do today. That we're
27:39
Speaker 2: so familiar with so many cases, and that we know
27:41
Speaker 2: the names of so many killers in the nineteen fifties,
27:45
Speaker 2: I think that he would have been one of the few. Like,
27:48
Speaker 2: I can't think of any others that would have been
27:50
Speaker 2: famous at the time, can either of you?
27:53
Speaker 3: No, not right, not in that area for sure.
27:56
Speaker 1: I mean maybe some from the twenties and thirties, but
27:58
Speaker 1: no active serial killers in the nineteen fifties that would
28:01
Speaker 1: have been in the news a lot.
28:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he would have loomed pretty large. It would
28:05
Speaker 2: have been really tempting to connect him, no matter how
28:08
Speaker 2: tenuous it was.
28:11
Speaker 1: So over the course of the next several decades, there
28:13
Speaker 1: would be very little movement in Evelyn's case. In nineteen
28:16
Speaker 1: eighty nine, a documentary was produced about her disappearance by
28:19
Speaker 1: Lacrosse's local television station, WKBTTV. It was titled The Evelyn
28:25
Speaker 1: Hartley Story and you can watch the whole thing on YouTube.
28:29
Speaker 1: Shortly after it aired, Steve Botham, the reporter who hosted
28:32
Speaker 1: the documentary, was contacted by two anonymous witnesses who had
28:36
Speaker 1: watched it and thought they recognized the bloodstained Denham jacket
28:40
Speaker 1: and tennis shoes which were found. The witnesses believed that
28:43
Speaker 1: it belonged to a local farmer, and apparently on the
28:46
Speaker 1: day of Evelyn's disappearance, he had been working in the
28:48
Speaker 1: fields and talking about going into town to find a woman.
28:52
Speaker 1: At the time, the farmer was wearing a denim jacket
28:55
Speaker 1: and tennis shoes, which he often wore, and driving a
28:58
Speaker 1: dark colored nineteen thirty eighth. He became agitated when the
29:02
Speaker 1: work went on longer than expected before he finally left
29:05
Speaker 1: at around six thirty pm. But after this, the witnesses
29:09
Speaker 1: claimed that they never saw him wear the jacket or
29:12
Speaker 1: the tennis shoes, or drive the Chevrolet again. By the
29:15
Speaker 1: time they came forward with this story, the farmer had
29:18
Speaker 1: been dead for over ten years. Steve Botham did make
29:21
Speaker 1: an attempt to track down the bloodstained denim jacket and
29:24
Speaker 1: tennis shoes, but none of the crime labs could find
29:26
Speaker 1: the items, so it appeared that the evidence had been lost.
29:30
Speaker 3: Oh goodness, and that's what these witnesses said, that they
29:33
Speaker 3: actually identified, right, they could identify that and could link it,
29:37
Speaker 3: they thought, to this case. And then you go to
29:39
Speaker 3: find them and they disappeared.
29:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think they showed photographs of the items on
29:44
Speaker 1: the TV special and that's when they recognized him. And
29:47
Speaker 1: then they suddenly realized, oh, we don't actually have the
29:49
Speaker 1: items themselves. So and this was when DNA testing was
29:52
Speaker 1: finally coming into criminal cases. But of course they were
29:56
Speaker 1: unable to do the testing.
29:59
Speaker 2: Theation once again came to a dead halt. But another
30:03
Speaker 2: interesting development took place shortly after a fiftieth anniversary article
30:08
Speaker 2: about Evelyn's disappearance was published in October of two thousand
30:11
Speaker 2: and three. The article jogged the memory of a man
30:14
Speaker 2: named mel Williams, who remembered a tape recording he had
30:17
Speaker 2: made decades earlier. Once Williams discovered he still had this tape,
30:22
Speaker 2: he turned it over to the police and shared a
30:24
Speaker 2: strange story. In nineteen sixty eight, Williams went to a
30:28
Speaker 2: tavern in the village of Lafarge, Wisconsin, and brought a
30:32
Speaker 2: real to reel tape recorder to record the band who
30:35
Speaker 2: was playing there that night. He decided to record a
30:38
Speaker 2: conversation with a local character who frequented the tavern named
30:41
Speaker 2: Clyde Tywee Peterson, and it wasn't long before they were
30:45
Speaker 2: joined by another man named Whitey Barclay, who suddenly said, quote,
30:49
Speaker 2: tell them about that Heartley girl you kidnapped, Tywee. Incredibly,
30:54
Speaker 2: Peterson proceeded to share a story about how he traveled
30:57
Speaker 2: to Lacrosse with an accomplice and a mutual friend of theirs,
31:01
Speaker 2: where they abducted Evelyn Hartley. Now, the original article about
31:04
Speaker 2: this story published in the Matun Journal Gazette says that
31:08
Speaker 2: the accomplice's name was Jack Golfair with a P. But
31:12
Speaker 2: I think that was a misprint and his actual last
31:14
Speaker 2: name was Golfair with a TE. We'll go into this
31:17
Speaker 2: in more detail about this discrepancy in part two of
31:20
Speaker 2: our series. Anyway, Evelyn's abduction was apparently Golfair's idea, and
31:26
Speaker 2: he knew that she was babysitting at the Rasmusen residence
31:29
Speaker 2: that night. After kidnapping Evelyn, the group took her to
31:32
Speaker 2: a mutual friend's farm, where Golfer killed her before they
31:36
Speaker 2: buried her body somewhere. The conversation eventually reached the point
31:40
Speaker 2: where Petersen told Williams to stop the tape. Williams claimed
31:44
Speaker 2: he couldn't remember what happened next, but he did wind
31:47
Speaker 2: up taking the tape home and completely forgot about it
31:50
Speaker 2: until his wife read the fiftieth anniversary article and reminded
31:53
Speaker 2: him about it. At the time the recording was made
31:56
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty eight, Jack Golfair had already died by
32:00
Speaker 2: suicide by the time Williams came forward. Peterson and the
32:04
Speaker 2: other unnamed accomplice were also deceased, and Whitey Barclay was
32:08
Speaker 2: in his nineties and suffering from dementia, so he was
32:11
Speaker 2: unable to answer any questions before his death in two
32:14
Speaker 2: thousand and seven.
32:16
Speaker 3: Okay, so question, how would if you just said the
32:19
Speaker 3: Hartley Girl, tell them about the Hartley Girl, and this
32:23
Speaker 3: man starts going into that they kidnapped this girl from
32:26
Speaker 3: Lacrosse and they knew that she was babysitting that night.
32:29
Speaker 3: If that's all on that tape, what would make anyone question,
32:33
Speaker 3: if anyone but these people, I mean, how would they
32:36
Speaker 3: know those details other than media coverage of the case.
32:39
Speaker 3: But still back at the time that this tape was made,
32:42
Speaker 3: it was the late sixties, right, so it's not like
32:45
Speaker 3: everybody has, you know, iPhones and social media and stuff
32:50
Speaker 3: like that. It's still pretty isolated where you get your
32:53
Speaker 3: news from. So there's a lot of details in that
32:57
Speaker 3: description that they gave.
32:59
Speaker 1: That is true. I mean, I know that Lafarge is
33:01
Speaker 1: probably not far from Lacrosse, so maybe people still remember
33:05
Speaker 1: the story fifteen years later. But you are right, Evelyn's
33:08
Speaker 1: case had been out of the spotlight for quite some
33:10
Speaker 1: time at that point, so for them to know so
33:12
Speaker 1: many details does suggest that they might have had inside knowledge.
33:16
Speaker 1: But as far as I can tell, like they listened
33:18
Speaker 1: to the recording of this tape, I'm not sure if
33:20
Speaker 1: they released any details that had never been released publicly
33:23
Speaker 1: to indicate that they had inside knowledge. I mean, for
33:26
Speaker 1: all we know, these guys could have just been bragging
33:28
Speaker 1: in a bar about how, oh yeah, we kidnapped that
33:30
Speaker 1: missing girl. Though I don't know why someone want to
33:33
Speaker 1: do that in a public bar if they had nothing
33:35
Speaker 1: to do with it. But you just never know. But
33:38
Speaker 1: it is kind of a shame that Williams just said, yeah,
33:40
Speaker 1: I heard this confession of these two people confessing to
33:43
Speaker 1: a murder, but then and I recorded it, but then
33:45
Speaker 1: I forgot about it for fifty years. So yeah, it
33:48
Speaker 1: does me. I know this recording does exist, but it
33:50
Speaker 1: does make you skeptical about whether these guys were telling
33:53
Speaker 1: the truth.
33:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder if they shared any holdback information or
33:57
Speaker 2: if everything was just kind of generic and there wasn't
34:00
Speaker 2: a lot of murders in the area and this one
34:02
Speaker 2: was very infamous, so they just retain the information and
34:07
Speaker 2: maybe they told this to other people trying to take
34:09
Speaker 2: credit for it over the years, so it was just
34:11
Speaker 2: kind of regurgitating the same information and it's just like
34:15
Speaker 2: details on this one case that they remembered, because sometimes
34:19
Speaker 2: criminals like to take credit for something that they didn't commit.
34:23
Speaker 2: It does seem a weird flex to talk in a
34:26
Speaker 2: bar with somebody about how you abducted a girl. I mean,
34:30
Speaker 2: it's not like you're like, oh, I rob this bank
34:32
Speaker 2: successfully and like look at me. I'm this you know,
34:36
Speaker 2: person who's like Robin Hood and I'm you know, taking
34:39
Speaker 2: from the rich and giving to the poor aka myself.
34:42
Speaker 2: But it's a little bit different when it's abducting a girl,
34:45
Speaker 2: And how are you taking the temperature of the room
34:49
Speaker 2: and seeing that like this would be received in a
34:52
Speaker 2: way that it was, because obviously these people gauged it properly,
34:57
Speaker 2: because he didn't share this information. He held this tape
35:00
Speaker 2: back and didn't go to the authorities. So I suppose
35:03
Speaker 2: they shared it with like the right type of individual,
35:06
Speaker 2: who likely was somebody else who's involved in some kind
35:09
Speaker 2: of criminality, because why else would you hold back information
35:12
Speaker 2: that could be pertinent to the abduction of Evelyn.
35:16
Speaker 3: Hartley, Like I went that night to record a band,
35:19
Speaker 3: I heard a murder confession and man forgot about that.
35:23
Speaker 1: Weird. Yeah, so bizarre. And also the fact that Peterson
35:27
Speaker 1: told Williams to stop recording. But I'm thinking if this
35:31
Speaker 1: was a legitimate confession, he probably would have fought harder
35:33
Speaker 1: to get that recording from him rather than let Williams
35:36
Speaker 1: take it home. So that's why I don't write off
35:38
Speaker 1: the possibility that they were just deciding to brag about
35:41
Speaker 1: it for their own personal amusement. The police said that
35:44
Speaker 1: they would look into these new allegations, possibly by exhumining
35:47
Speaker 1: the bodies of the suspects and extracting and comparing their
35:50
Speaker 1: DNA to the blood evidence found at the scene, but
35:53
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, it doesn't look like
35:55
Speaker 1: this was ever done. While Peterson did reveal Evelyn's alleged
35:59
Speaker 1: burial location during the recording, this information has been withheld
36:02
Speaker 1: from the public. It was revealed that this location was
36:06
Speaker 1: in a Mississippi River floodplain, so unfortunately, if Evelyn's remains
36:10
Speaker 1: were there, they likely washed away many years ago. In
36:14
Speaker 1: spite of these new revelations, the investigation seems to have
36:17
Speaker 1: come to a standstill once again. Evelyn's disappearance had a
36:21
Speaker 1: profound effect on both the Hartley and Rasmusen families. In
36:24
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, after Richard Hartley retired from Lacrosse State College,
36:29
Speaker 1: the family moved to Oregon. Both of Evelyn's parents and
36:32
Speaker 1: her older brother Thomas, have since passed away, but her
36:35
Speaker 1: younger sister, Carol is still alive. In February of nineteen
36:39
Speaker 1: ninety seven, Janis Rasmussen, who was present and sleeping during
36:43
Speaker 1: Evelyn's abduction when she was twenty months old, agreed to
36:46
Speaker 1: give an interview for the Lacrosse Tribune. By this point,
36:49
Speaker 1: Janis was forty five years old and said that the
36:52
Speaker 1: incident made her parents become extra protective of her and
36:55
Speaker 1: her sister. The ras Musens immediately sold their house and
36:59
Speaker 1: moved into a new home, where bars were installed on
37:02
Speaker 1: the basement window. In twenty seventeen, the ras Musician's eldest daughter, Roslin,
37:08
Speaker 1: who attended the homecoming game with her parents that night,
37:11
Speaker 1: also did an interview for the Lacrosse Tribune. She and
37:14
Speaker 1: she concurred that the case made her father extra paranoid
37:18
Speaker 1: about his children's safety and that he was never quite
37:20
Speaker 1: the same. After more than seventy years, Evelyn Hartley's remains
37:24
Speaker 1: have never been found, and the identity of her abductor
37:26
Speaker 1: or abductor's remains unknown. So I guess you could say
37:30
Speaker 1: the path when Chili.
37:33
Speaker 3: Your heart just breaks for both parties. Here where the
37:36
Speaker 3: Rasmussens were off to celebrate a homecoming game, and they
37:41
Speaker 3: asked one of their family friend's daughters to come over
37:44
Speaker 3: and babysit, and literally what a mixed evening like Their
37:49
Speaker 3: daughter's safe in her crib, but this other child is
37:54
Speaker 3: missing and likely dead. And this is all on the
37:59
Speaker 3: night that was It's just supposed to be a celebration
38:01
Speaker 3: of the local sports team, and so I can't imagine
38:05
Speaker 3: not becoming incredibly hyper vigilant about everything. Someone came into
38:11
Speaker 3: your home where your baby was sleeping, and you had
38:15
Speaker 3: a young teen babysitting for you or young lady baby
38:18
Speaker 3: sitting for you, and that's supposed to be the safest
38:21
Speaker 3: place you could be, and yet someone invaded that space
38:26
Speaker 3: and put everyone in danger in that home and most
38:30
Speaker 3: likely killed one of the individuals who is there. So
38:34
Speaker 3: that hypervigilance I totally understand. I can't imagine that the
38:38
Speaker 3: kind of the guilt and the pain and the fear
38:41
Speaker 3: that would follow you the rest of your life for
38:44
Speaker 3: that evening and then her. When you look at the
38:47
Speaker 3: Hartley family, the first thing I'd want to do is
38:50
Speaker 3: get the heck out of there. I find it admirable
38:52
Speaker 3: Richard waited and retired from the college so that he
38:55
Speaker 3: could provide better for his family and then moved them
38:57
Speaker 3: to Oregon. It's so sad that they all passed away
39:00
Speaker 3: without knowing what happened to their baby. But man, both parties,
39:06
Speaker 3: it is absolutely heartbreaking that these two family friends had
39:11
Speaker 3: a simple evening planned and at the end of the
39:13
Speaker 3: night it was the biggest nightmare either one of them
39:15
Speaker 3: had ever imagined well.
39:18
Speaker 1: Whenever a horrific crime like this takes place, you'll often
39:21
Speaker 1: hear comments about how things were never quite the same
39:23
Speaker 1: in the community, and that definitely rings true here. Lacrosse,
39:27
Speaker 1: Wisconsint wasn't an overly small town, as it had a
39:29
Speaker 1: population of around forty seven thousand in nineteen fifty three,
39:33
Speaker 1: but they had never seen anything like this before. The
39:36
Speaker 1: idea of a teenage girl being abducted from a home
39:39
Speaker 1: while she was babysitting was absolutely terrifying, and since Evelyn
39:43
Speaker 1: was never found and the perpetrator was never identified, Lacrosse
39:47
Speaker 1: lived in fear for a long time. There were stories
39:50
Speaker 1: about how men would stay home from work because they
39:52
Speaker 1: didn't want to leave their wives and children alone, and nobody,
39:56
Speaker 1: especially teenage girls, wanted to babysit after this. The situation
40:00
Speaker 1: Lulation was especially heartbreaking for Evelyn's parents, as Evelyn apparently
40:03
Speaker 1: wanted to back out of the babysitting job, but her mother, Ethel,
40:07
Speaker 1: told her that she had to do it because she
40:09
Speaker 1: made a commitment. In cases where children are murdered or
40:12
Speaker 1: grow missing, you'll sometimes hear the parents say that they
40:15
Speaker 1: were hit with an unexplained gut feeling that something was
40:18
Speaker 1: wrong right before it happened. At around seven pm, shortly
40:22
Speaker 1: after Evelyn left to go babysitting, Ethel said that she
40:25
Speaker 1: had one of those gut feelings and wanted to call
40:27
Speaker 1: the Rasmussen home, but her husband convinced her it wasn't
40:30
Speaker 1: necessary since Evelyn was planning to call at eight thirty,
40:33
Speaker 1: and of course, seven PM is the approximate time period
40:37
Speaker 1: when Evelyn was believed to have been abducted. When the
40:40
Speaker 1: Hartleys arrived at the Rasmusen home and saw the pools
40:43
Speaker 1: of blood outside, Ethel completely broke down and said she
40:46
Speaker 1: knew at that moment that her daughter was dead. And
40:50
Speaker 1: of course, even though her baby daughter was left unharmed,
40:53
Speaker 1: this incident had a profound effect on the Rasmussen family.
40:56
Speaker 1: Since the crime took place at their house, there was
40:59
Speaker 1: no way they could possibly continue living there after what happened,
41:03
Speaker 1: and it sounds like vegle ras Musin was overly paranoid
41:06
Speaker 1: and protective of his daughters for the rest of his life.
41:09
Speaker 1: It's bad not that Evelyn vanished while babysitting, but the
41:12
Speaker 1: fact that there was blood evidence, her glasses were broken
41:15
Speaker 1: and her shoes were left behind, clearly indicated that she
41:18
Speaker 1: was the victim of a violent crime and the odds
41:21
Speaker 1: of her surviving it were not good.
41:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the problem. I think once there's an injury,
41:26
Speaker 3: and once there's kind of that risk, you see the
41:29
Speaker 3: crime escalate to a whole new level, like you'll see
41:32
Speaker 3: in a sexual assault, where a perpetrator believes that maybe
41:35
Speaker 3: I can get away with this, and the victim is
41:39
Speaker 3: not physically harmed beyond the assault. Right, there's no knife,
41:46
Speaker 3: there's no stabbings, there's no gunshots or anything like that.
41:49
Speaker 3: But I think once you cross that line and there's
41:52
Speaker 3: a physical assault, blood's present. I just think it changes
41:56
Speaker 3: the whole perception and the whole kind of idea of
41:59
Speaker 3: I can't get away with this. At this point, we've
42:02
Speaker 3: gone too far, We've hurt her too much, and so
42:06
Speaker 3: I don't believe that Evelyn would have survived this. And
42:11
Speaker 3: it's heartbreaking when you think about this, because I know
42:14
Speaker 3: what that mom's describing when she says, you have that
42:17
Speaker 3: gut feeling. I don't think it's just when it's a
42:20
Speaker 3: crime being committed against your child. I remember one night
42:23
Speaker 3: I had a just a really bad night. I was
42:26
Speaker 3: up all night.
42:27
Speaker 1: I was upset, I was crying.
42:29
Speaker 3: And my mom called me at like five point forty
42:30
Speaker 3: five the next morning and said, I'm so sorry if
42:33
Speaker 3: I woke you up, But all night I was up
42:35
Speaker 3: feeling like you were distraught and struggling, and I went, what, like,
42:40
Speaker 3: what in her gut? She just knew something was wrong.
42:43
Speaker 3: And I've had those feelings where I'll think of Reagan
42:46
Speaker 3: during the school day and I'm like, I've something's going on.
42:49
Speaker 3: I have this kind of just sick feeling, and then
42:51
Speaker 3: Reagan I'll get in the car crying and say that
42:53
Speaker 3: it was a really bad day or something like that.
42:55
Speaker 3: So I think there's that maternal instinct where you go
42:58
Speaker 3: something's off, and I don't know what it is, or
43:02
Speaker 3: if it's just kind of these feelings that you have.
43:04
Speaker 3: But when that Mama said, you know, hey, she wanted
43:08
Speaker 3: to not go tonight, but I made her go because
43:11
Speaker 3: she made a commitment. Absolutely, you said you're going to
43:14
Speaker 3: watch their baby, They're going to the game. You have
43:16
Speaker 3: to go. No one would have thought that that evening
43:21
Speaker 3: was going to end in any other way but her
43:23
Speaker 3: walking home with some extra spending money, and yet Mom
43:27
Speaker 3: starts to feel as the night goes on something's wrong,
43:30
Speaker 3: and sure enough, you see where Evelyn's not only taken
43:34
Speaker 3: from the house, but there's significant injury to her because
43:38
Speaker 3: of the pools of blood, the smears of blood in
43:41
Speaker 3: different places. It's leaving a lot of evidence behind, which
43:44
Speaker 3: indicates to me that higher level of injury, which then
43:47
Speaker 3: would escalate to me to a murder, even if it
43:50
Speaker 3: was just starting as a sexual assault or abduction.
43:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is not the only case I've seen where
43:56
Speaker 1: a victim's family has said that they had this horrible
43:58
Speaker 1: gut feeling at the approximate, exact moment when their loved
44:02
Speaker 1: one was likely getting murdered or abducted. And usually, like
44:06
Speaker 1: ninety nine point nine percent of the time, when you
44:08
Speaker 1: have those horrible gut feelings, nothing bad does happen, or
44:11
Speaker 1: something minor happens. But this just happened to be one
44:14
Speaker 1: of the rare ones where she had that gut feeling
44:17
Speaker 1: at the exact moment when her daughter became the victim
44:20
Speaker 1: of a violent crime. And I'm sure a hauntedor for
44:22
Speaker 1: the rest of her life that she did pick up
44:24
Speaker 1: the phone and check on Evelyn, because who knows if
44:26
Speaker 1: things might have turned out differently if she had phoned
44:29
Speaker 1: while the intruder was in the house.
44:31
Speaker 2: And I feel even worse for her too, because Evelyn,
44:35
Speaker 2: you have to wonder did she have a gut feeling
44:37
Speaker 2: that something bad was going to happen. Is that why
44:39
Speaker 2: she wanted to back out of the babysitting job or
44:41
Speaker 2: was it just because she was a kid being a
44:43
Speaker 2: kid and maybe wanted to go to the homecoming game.
44:46
Speaker 2: But that's just another layer of what her poor mother
44:49
Speaker 2: had to deal with, is that her daughter didn't want
44:52
Speaker 2: to do this, but because she was trying to instill
44:55
Speaker 2: good values and responsibility, she insisted upon her following through.
44:59
Speaker 2: And so only did she not call at that time,
45:01
Speaker 2: but she also insisted upon the job in the first place.
45:04
Speaker 2: So my heart really breaks for this family.
45:08
Speaker 1: So I think this would be a good time to
45:10
Speaker 1: bring it into part one. But join us next week
45:12
Speaker 1: as we present part two of our series about the
45:14
Speaker 1: disappearance of Evelyn Hardley.
45:17
Speaker 4: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
45:19
Speaker 4: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
45:21
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
45:23
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
45:27
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
45:31
Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
45:34
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
45:36
Speaker 1: tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
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Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
45:43
Speaker 1: The Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
45:46
Speaker 1: Patreon and if you join our highest tier tier three,
45:49
Speaker 1: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
45:52
Speaker 1: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsawved Mysteries,
45:57
Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
46:00
Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
46:03
Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
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Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
46:10
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
46:13
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
46:16
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
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Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
46:22
Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
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Speaker 1: Tier three.
46:26
Speaker 5: So I want to let you know a little bit
46:27
Speaker 5: about the Jules and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
46:30
Speaker 5: free episodes of The Path Went Chili we've got our
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Speaker 5: Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
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Speaker 5: they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
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Speaker 5: turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
46:42
Speaker 5: so we hope you'll check out those patreons.
46:44
Speaker 4: We'll link them in the show notes.
46:46
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
46:48
Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
46:50
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46:52
Speaker 1: appreciate it. You can email us at the Pathwentchili at
46:55
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Speaker 1: the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle
47:01
Speaker 1: up because cold trails and chilly pass call for warm clothing.
47:05
Speaker 4: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy