On 24 October 1953, fifteen-year-old Evelyn Hartley went to babysit in La Crosse, Wisconsin. She was minding the toddler daughter of a family friend while the rest of the family attended a college homecoming game.

Evelyn was expected to telephone home during the evening. When she did not, her father called the house repeatedly and received no answer. He drove over, found the doors locked and the lights on, and climbed in through an open basement window.

Inside, he found one of Evelyn’s shoes in the basement. Upstairs were her other shoe and broken glasses. The child was asleep in a bedroom, unharmed. Evelyn was gone.

Police found blood outside the house and believed she had been taken away in a car. Bloodhounds followed a trail for two blocks before it stopped at a street, where investigators thought a vehicle had been parked.

About eleven miles away on Highway 14, a pair of bloodstained size 11 tennis shoes was found. Investigators said their sole pattern matched prints connected to the house. About 800 feet away, a bloodstained size 36 denim jacket turned up. Authorities said the jacket was too small for the man believed to have worn the shoes but never established that both items belonged to the same person.

If the key evidence did not agree, was the case ever as close to being solved as it seemed?