An elderly man from Oklahoma has been apprehended for the vicious killing of a teenage girl that happened decades ago.
Elderly man arrested in cold case
Joseph A. Ambroz, aged 77, was arrested by U.S. Marshals on Monday in a raid at his residence in Ponca City.
He faces charges for the murder of 17-year-old Mary Kay Heese, who was discovered stabbed to death in 1969 near her Nebraska home.
Investigators exhumed Heese’s body this September, and discovered evidence that reportedly implicated him in the crime, according to the Saunders County Attorney’s Office.
Heese was a junior at Wahoo High School, when she was last seen hanging out with classmates at a café after track practice 55 years ago.
Later, a witness placed her walking along a street just six blocks from her home, which she never returned to.
Her school books were found tossed on the roadside over three miles outside town the following morning.
Body of teenager allegedly killed by elderly man found in ditch
Officers arrived at the scene to find Heese’s lifeless body in a ditch nearby, bearing more than a dozen stab wounds inflicted on her stomach.
She was barefoot, and evidence suggested she fled from a car, suspected to belong to someone she knew, before being caught and murdered.
“It’s crazy, man,” said Shawn Shafer, a neighbor who lives next door to where Ambroz moved a few weeks ago.
“1969. That’s a long time ago. I mean, like someone to do something like that, that’s just crazy,” he commented to KFOR.
Ambroz is set to be extradited to Nebraska for trial proceedings.
In a separate incident, the skull of an Arizona woman who vanished two years back has been located.
64-year-old JoAnn Dudek went missing from her home on November 13, 2022, prompting the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to launch a homicide investigation.
For years, no one knew what happened to Dudek until remains were uncovered on November 6 around New River, with a medical examiner confirming her identity through her skull.
Her family now grapples with mixed emotions following this chilling update.
Family distraught after missing victim’s skull located
“Half of my heart is heartbroken, and the other half of my heart is happy to say this is no longer a no-body homicide,” Erin Murtha, her niece, commented to KPHO.
Murtha is adamant that whatever happened to her aunt wasn’t voluntary, and the evidence points to her daughter’s boyfriend.
At the time she went missing, JoAnn was living with her husband Walter, who died just months later, her adopted daughter Josephine, and her unnamed boyfriend.
Josephine told Fox10 that her then boyfriend had become a thorn in JoAnn’s side, wanting to marry her while she was still underage.
“My boyfriend at the time) had crashed my mom’s car and my mom was concerned about (him) being harmful to me. He wanted to be my legal guardian, but my parents didn’t really like that,” she explained.
On the morning of November 14, Josephine mentioned her mother was missing, and the now ex-boyfriend said that he had “hurt her.”
“He said he hurt her,” Josephine alleged to Fox about her ex-boyfriend, who remains unnamed.
“I don’t know if I should say the details, but he confessed to hurting my mom” she told the outlet.
Erin’s family suspects JoAnn perished at home during a “violent altercation” that very night.
“We are very hopeful with now with the location of these remains, that what happened that night and who did this to her will come to light,” Erin remarked.
“It is insane that the day before we are getting ready to mourn the second anniversary, without answers, that was our big thing – second anniversary without answers – is that the day before, our biggest answer has been revealed,” she added.
No arrests have been made in this homicide investigation, reported Fox10.
