Authorities arrested an Oklahoma man Monday in connection to a 1969 Saunders County murder.
Saunders County Attorney Jennifer D. Joakim said Joseph A. Ambroz, 77, was arrested in Ponca City, Oklahoma, by the United States Marshals Service for one count of murder in the first degree.
The warrant for the arrest was issued last week after a Saunders County Grand Jury indicted Ambroz for the March 25, 1969, murder of Mary Kay Heese, 17. Heese was a junior at Wahoo High School and was last seen walking home following track practice. Her parents, Julius and Dorothy Heese reported her missing when she didn’t arrive home for dinner.
Authorities discovered her body in a roadside ditch south of Wahoo just after midnight on March 26, 1969. She had been stabbed multiple times.
Ambroz will appear in Court in Oklahoma within the next couple of days for the start of proceedings to extradite him back to Nebraska.
In recent months, Heese’s body had been exhumed from the family plot at the Blair cemetery. Authorities didn’t divulge any information on why they exhumed the remains.
Julius and Dorothy Heese are both deceased. Julius died in 1989 while Dorothy passed away in 2007.
