Arrest made in 55-year-old cold case of Wahoo teen stabbed to death
An Oklahoma man was arrested Monday in the cold-case killing of a 17-year-old Wahoo girl in 1969.
Joseph A. Ambroz, 77, was taken into custody for the murder of Mary Kay Heese, who was found dead in a roadside ditch on March 26, 1969.
According to Saunders County Attorney Jennifer Joakim, the U.S. Marshals Service arrested Ambroz at his home in Ponca City one week after a grand jury indicted him in the 55-year-old case.
The grand jury report remains under seal in Saunders County District Court. Joakim said the evidence that led authorities to Ambroz would be made available at a later date.
Heese, a Wahoo High School junior, was last seen at a downtown Wahoo café for hot chocolate following track practice on March 25, 1969.
A teacher reported last seeing the teenager described as "nice" and "shy" walking alone up a tree-lined street near 12th and Linden streets in Wahoo, about six blocks from her family's home.
But what happened next remains unclear. When Heese didn't return home for supper, her parents contacted police.
Authorities believe Heese got into a car with someone familiar to her, but her whereabouts over the next few hours remain a mystery.
At about 12:30 a.m. the next morning, a farmer found her books on the side of a road roughly 3.5 miles southeast of Wahoo and brought them to law enforcement.
When the farmer and the officer went back, they discovered Heese's body in a ditch. There had been no apparent attempt to hide the teenager's body. She was fully clothed but missing her shoes.
Investigators concluded Heese had bolted from the car and run down the rural road. Her killer had chased her and eventually caught up to her.
The two struggled, law enforcement suspected, but eventually Heese was overpowered and stabbed 12 times in the stomach and left to die.
The weapon used to kill her was never found.
An investigation into the murder was expansive, with law enforcement from Wahoo, Saunders County, Lincoln, Omaha, the Nebraska State Patrol and FBI investigating some 700 people.
A state patrol investigator told the Omaha World-Herald in 2009 that a man in his early 20s from Wahoo seen drinking heavily that day was fingered as a suspect, but there was not enough evidence to make an arrest.
That man eventually took his own life a few years after Heese's killing, the investigator said.
No arrests were made and the case went cold. Investigators revived their inquiry into Heese's killing several times over the next few decades before it was deemed "administratively closed" in 2009.
New leads emerged in the case in recent years, and the investigation was reopened, leading to a grand jury being called to hear evidence in the case last week.
In late September, Heese's body was exhumed from the family plot at the Blair cemetery, WOWT in Omaha reported, leading to further speculation that investigators had uncovered new evidence in the case.
Heese's parents died before witnessing a resolution in the case, however. Julius Heese died in 1989 and Dorothy Heese in 2007.
According to Joakim, Ambroz will appear in court in Oklahoma in the coming days.
