A 77-year-old Ponca City man is arrested in connection to a 1969 Nebraska cold case murder.

 

Joseph Ambroz was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals on Monday at his home in Ponca City. Ambroz has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Mary Kay Heese in Wahoo, Nebraska, nearly 55 years ago.

 

Heese was reported missing on March 25, 1969, after she didn't show up for dinner after school. She was later found stabbed to death in a ditch. Investigators at the time thought she got into a car driven by someone she knew. Evidence suggested she may have run from the car, only to be chased down, overpowered, and killed.

 

Authorities in Saunders County, Nebraska, have not said what led to Ambroz's arrest, but Heese's body was exhumed in September, and the County Attorney's Office says evidence taken there helped lead to the arrest.

 

Ambroz will be extradited to Nebraska for trial.

Mary Kay Heese