On Sept. 10, 1926, 22-year-old Clara Olson, of Mount Sterling, Wis., went missing. Her family thought she was eloping with her sweetheart, college student Erdman Olson, 18, the son of wealthy tobacco growers (no relation). Her relatives didn’t know she was six months pregnant with Erdman’s child, although Erdman’s parents knew. Almost three months after her disappearance, her badly beaten body was found buried facedown in a shallow grave on a knoll called Battle Ridge near Rising Sun, Wis., just six miles from Erdman’s home. She had “terrific, crushing blows” to the back of her head. Erdman denied he had anything to do with her disappearance, but a love note found on Clara’s body showed Erdman had written her for a midnight tryst the night before her disappearance. Charges were filed against him in the slaying, but he disappeared after Clara’s father visited him at college and begged Erdman to return his daughter. Erdman was never found.
