Man, 77, Arrested in Connection with 1969 Murder of 17-Year-Old Girl Found Dead in Roadside Ditch
Mar. 15, 2025Mary Kay Heese.
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A man in Oklahoma has been arrested over the death of a 17-year-old girl in Nebraska more than 55 years after her body was found in a roadside ditch.
“Mr. Ambroz will appear in Court in Oklahoma within the next couple of days for the start of proceedings to extradite him back to Nebraska,” the release stated.
Joseph A. Ambroz.Kay County Detention Center
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Kay County Detention Center
Per Nebraska ABC-affiliated stationKLKN, it was “unclear what new evidence” led to Ambroz’s arrest.
Okla. stationKFORreported that investigators had recently exhumed the victim’s body and performed a new autopsy. Joakim told the outlet Ambroz — who is accused of stabbing the teenager to death — hadn’t been living in Okla. very long before his arrest.
According to the Nebraska newspaper theKearney Hub, the victim was a junior at Wahoo High School and had been seen having a hot chocolate in a café in the city after track practice before she disappeared.
The station said the teenager’s family said she wouldn’t have gotten in a car with a stranger.
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The victim’s cousin, Kathy Tull, told the outlet of the update in the case, “We kept calling state patrol. We kept calling and calling and calling, and where the case was with new evidence.”
“When we put up our own tip line. That’s when things really took off,” Tull said, per the station.
“He’s only been there, like, two weeks,” Shafer said, per the outlet. “We’ve seen coming and going over there, but I mean, he was older man. He had oxygen.”
TheKearney Hubreported the victim’s parents both died years ago. The outlet also stated law enforcement from Wahoo, Saunders County, Lincoln, Omaha, the Nebraska State Patrol and the FBI had looked at around 700 people amid the investigation through the years.
source: people.com
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