Girl looking for a date to a school dance was murdered a week later

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On March 25, 1969, 17-year-old Mary Kay Heese ne'er returned location from schoolhouse successful Wahoo, Nebraska. Hours later, her assemblage was recovered beaten and stabbed to decease connected the broadside of the roadworthy extracurricular of town.

Investigators tried to retrace Mary Kay's past known whereabouts. One witnesser saw Mary Kay get into a car with 2 men connected a thoroughfare country adjacent her home. But investigators astatine the clip were incapable to fig retired who was successful that car. Weeks turned into months with nary arrests. Mary Kay's execution would stay unsolved for decades.

"48 Hours" analogous Natalie Morales reports connected however the execution was yet brought backmost into absorption successful "The Girl from Wahoo," an all-new "48 Hours" airing Saturday, Feb. 14 astatine 10/9c connected CBS and streaming connected Paramount+.

In 2015, a caller probe was launched. Ted Green, a transgression researcher with the Saunders County Attorney's Office, was assigned to the case.

"Every transgression probe is simply a puzzle," Green told "48 Hours." For Green, portion of figuring retired that puzzle was learning much astir Mary Kay Heese.

Mary Kay's younger cousins, Mark Miller and Kathy Tull, retrieve Mary Kay arsenic a blessed idiosyncratic who ever looked retired for them. But they said that happiness was sometimes challenged by the struggles of adolescence.

Green learned Mary Kay came from a strict location nether the eyes of watchful parents. It was a antithetic concern astatine precocious school. "There was a radical of girls that would get her unneurotic and enactment constitution connected her astatine the opening of the time and alteration her apparel out," Green said.

"She wanted to acceptable in," Miller told "48 Hours."

Part of that tendency to acceptable successful was Mary Kay's privation to be the section Sadie Hawkins creation — a fashionable lawsuit astatine that clip wherever the girls inquire the boys to attend.

Tull told "48 Hours" that the shy Mary Kay struggled to find a date. Tull inactive has a missive from Mary Kay, written a week earlier her murder, asking her relative Jerry to be the creation with her.

"If we travel implicit to get you connected Friday the 28th oregon Saturday the 29th, volition you spell to the Sadie Hawkins creation with me?" Mary Kay wrote successful the letter. "You tin deterioration sportswear (not a tuxedo oregon anything) due to the fact that it's not a ceremonial creation […] Don't bring immoderate wealth to get successful due to the fact that the girls are to wage for it each including the tickets and food."

As Green learned much astir Mary Kay, helium came to 1 conclusion. "She wouldn't get into a car with idiosyncratic that she didn't know," helium said.

The pieces of the puzzle were coming unneurotic for Green, who focused connected 2 names that kept coming up successful the aged lawsuit files: Joseph Ambroz and Wayne Greaser, some interviewed successful the days pursuing Mary Kay's murder.

Joseph Ambroz, 22, was surviving successful Wahoo and worked astatine a slaughterhouse astatine that time. He was besides connected parole aft serving clip for forgery and escaping custody.

Greaser was friends with Ambroz. "He was conscionable that wannabe kid who wa conscionable pursuing astir Ambroz," said Deputy Saunders County Attorney Richard Register, who worked connected the case.

Green and Register told "48 Hours" Ambroz knew Mary Kay. They some frequented the aforesaid café and had communal friends. Green and Register besides judge Mary Kay thought Ambroz was not a threat, but an accidental to acceptable successful with the crowd.

Green believes Ambroz and Greaser took Mary Kay to a well-known enactment spot adjacent municipality and astatine immoderate constituent Mary Kay tried to fly the car. Green says helium believes Ambroz went aft her and yet stabbed her to death.

"She conscionable wanted to get a lad to spell to the creation with her. And unfortunately, the creation she went to was her death," Register said.

More than 5 decades aft Mary Kay Heese was recovered dead, 77-year-old Joseph Ambroz was arrested for her murder.

In July 2025, Ambroz took a plea woody and pleaded nary contention to conspiracy to perpetrate first- grade murder. He was sentenced to 2 years successful prison. Greaser, who had died by termination successful 1977, was named arsenic the different idiosyncratic conspiring to termination Mary Kay.

For Mary Kay's cousins, the plea woody and condemnation were an injustice. They accidental Ambroz stole Mary Kay's future.

"He got each these years to live, and Mary Kay ne'er had the accidental to live," Miller told "48 Hours."

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