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Oklahoma Man Arrested for 55-Year-Old Murder of Teenage Girl
Authorities have arrested a 77-year-old Oklahoma man in connection with the murder of a 17-year-old girl in Nebraska more than 55 years ago. But the circumstances that led to the arrest are still a mystery.
Joseph Ambroz of Ponca City, OK was apprehended by U.S. Marshals on Monday and indicted with first-degree murder charges for the March 25th, 1969 killing of Mary Kay Heese, according to a press release from Nebraska's Saunders County Attorney's office. Heese's body was discovered in a roadside ditch near Wahoo, NE, stabbed a dozen times.
It's unclear what evidence led police to Ambroz, however investigators had recently exhumed Heese’s body and performed a new autopsy. KSNB 4 News reports that authorities were "tight-lipped" about what they were looking for by re-examining the body more than five decades later.
Heese, a high school junior, was last seen having a hot chocolate at a local cafe following track practice, per the Kearney Hub. She was then reported walking up a nearby street alone about six blocks from her family's home. When she didn't return home for dinner, her parents called police.
Her body was found shortly after midnight alongside a rural road about 3.5 miles southeast of Wahoo. Authorities believe a struggle had taken place, and that Heese had escaped from a vehicle and had been chased down by her killer. She was found fully clothed and missing only her shoes. The murder weapon was also never recovered.
Heese's family didn't believe that she would get in a car with a stranger, but it's likewise unclear how she may have known Ambroz.
Ambroz had only been living in the Ponca City apartment for a couple of weeks before he was arrested, Neighbors reported seeing him sitting on his porch.
"It’s crazy, man. You live next door to people nowadays—just, man," Shawn Shafer told Oklahoma's News 4. Shafer had been staying with a relative two apartments down from where Ambroz lived when he was taken into custody. "He’s only been there, like, two weeks. We’ve seen coming and going over there, but I mean, he was older man. He had oxygen."
Ambroz was scheduled to appear before an Oklahoma court this week, and authorities could have him extradited to Nebraska as soon as Wednesday.
