A Nebraska girl’s murder went unsolved for more than 55 years before an Oklahoma man was arrested and accused of being the “enraged killer,” that was being sought for decades, officials said.
Joseph A. Ambroz, 77, was picked up by marshals in Ponca City, Oklahoma this week, after he was indicted for one count of first-degree murder for the slaying of 17-year-old Mary Kay Heese, according to a statement by the sheriff and prosecutor in Saunders County, Nebraska.
The girl was reported missing on the night of March 25, 1969, before her body was found in a “roadside ditch south of Wahoo just after midnight,” the sheriff and prosecutor said.
Heese’s loved ones never lost hope that her killer would be found one day.
The family maintained a Facebook page all these years, asking for the public’s help to bring justice to the teenager whose “Life was taken by this enraged killer.”
Investigators recently exhumed Heese’s body, although it wasn’t immediately clear what role, if any, unearthing the girl’s remains played in Ambroz’s arrest.
Ambroz was taken into custody on Monday and was still at the Kay County Detention Facility on Thursday, a jail official said.
Records did not indicate if Ambroz had yet hired or been assigned a defense lawyer.