Evelyn Grace Hartley[1] (b. November 21, 1938)[2] was an American teenager who mysteriously disappeared on October 24, 1953, from La Crosse County, Wisconsin.

[7] That evening, Evelyn's father Richard called the Rasmussen house several times after she failed to check in as planned at 8:30pm; he received no answer.

When Richard arrived, the doors were locked, the lights and radio were on and items were scattered all over the house.

They were told by one neighbor they had seen a car repeatedly driving around the neighborhood, and another person who lived nearby claimed they had heard screams an hour earlier.

Two days after the incident, local resident Ed Hofer told police that while driving his vehicle, he was almost hit by a dark green two-tone 1942 Buick as it was speeding in a westerly direction.

[7] Over 1,000 members of the local community, including law enforcement officers, the National Guard, Boy Scouts, and La Crosse State College students and faculty, participated in a search in October 1953.

[4] In May 1954, mass lie detector tests were conducted on La Crosse-area high school boys in an attempt to find more information about Evelyn's disappearance.

[4] After his arrest, murderer Ed Gein was considered a suspect in Evelyn's disappearance, as he was visiting a relative a few blocks away from the Rasmussen house at the time.

[18] On the tape, one of the men, Clyde "Tywee" Peterson, implicated himself, Jack Gaulphair (or Gaulthair), and an unnamed third party in the disappearance, claiming that Evelyn was murdered and buried in La Farge, Wisconsin, after her kidnapping.

[19] The unnamed party is now deceased, Gaulphair committed suicide on December 25, 1967,[9][20] and Peterson died of a heart attack in 1974.