It looks like someone hacked into my computer?

Hi,

I hope this is the right place to post this.

I am going to briefly describe the issue and would like to know what others would do.
Go to a lawyer, speak to the police or fill out a online police form.
It is about my computer (Windows) and pardon me, if I am not using certain terms correctly in this context.

For legal reasons, i will not indicate where and how this happened. But it happened.

Long story short,
I wanted to see, if someone accessed (hacked) my computer, while I was away.

I do not mean remote access. I mean hacking my laptop directly, by taking my laptop and gaining access, and furthermore manipulating my laptop.

I looked up how to check the events on my computer. I wanted to make sure that certain people (or at least one person) did not take manipulated my laptop.

I was expecting to see a long list of login information, when I opened the 'Event Viewer'.
I was shocked to see that my event logs (are they called like this?) have been deleted by someone or something at the time I was away from my laptop.

I'll quickly explain now what I found, when I opened 'Event Viewer' on my windows laptop:
A SACL change (Audit Policy Change) is the first record listed under 'Security', and the time point is that day and time the incident could have happened. Any logins or security events that happend before have been deleted.

I cannot see what happened on my laptop before I 'left' my laptop, or the day before, or 5 month ago. All records are gone.

After researching and with a lack of knowledge about IT, I conclude that I am right. Someone did something on my laptop and tried to make sure there are no traces of his or their actions .
Correct me if I am wrong, I got it from this page:
https://4sysops.com/archives/audit-changes-in-the-windows-registry/
and also other sources.

I am puzzled. Would you call the police, fill out an online police report or consult a lawyer, if you where in my situation?

Please pardon me, if this question sounds silly to you, but I am shocked and confused.
What would other people do in my situation?
Should I get an expert checking my laptop first?

If there is any explanation why my conclusions could be wrong, I would be happy to get an explanation. I would be more then happy if this isn't true. But something else happened in this context, and a laptop hack would not be coincident.

Many thanks

(edited 3 years ago)