Shivangi Sinha
In March 1969, Mary Kay Heese, a Wahoo High School student from Wahoo, Nebraska, went missing after attending school. As the search for her began the next day, her remains were found on the outskirts of town, and it was determined that she had been stabbed. Police interviewed many people but did not identify any suspects until November 2024, when a grand jury indicted Joseph Ambroz on charges of murder. In CBS’ ‘48 Hours: The Girl From Wahoo,’ the details of the violence and how the case was solved all these years later are featured.
Joseph Ambroz Was Interviewed Four Times After Mary Kay Heese’s Killing
Joseph Ambroz was born around 1947 and, by 1969, was living in Wahoo, Nebraska. He worked at a slaughterhouse, and it has been reported that he was on parole after serving time for forgery and escaping custody. He was just 22 years old at the time, and when Mary Kay Heese went missing from the town on March 25, 1969. Her remains were found the next day, on March 26, and the crime scene suggested that she had been taken in a car from which she fled. She was caught and then stabbed multiple times, and her remains were left in a ditch. Ambroz became a person of interest. He, along with his friend Wayne Greaser, was interviewed in the days following the murder.
They had both visited the same cafés and shared some mutual friends, but there was no evidence connecting them to the case at the time, and it eventually went cold. Ambroz traveled around the country and stayed in various places. By 2024, he was living in Ponca City, Oklahoma. In 2015, a new investigation was launched into the case, and police noted that Ambroz had been interviewed and questioned multiple times between 1969 and 2021. He had passed two polygraph tests but failed one in 1999. In September 2024, Heese’s remains were exhumed for advanced DNA testing, but the evidence obtained did not lead investigators anywhere.
Prosecutors also learned about a community spot called “The Grove,” where local youth often gathered, and Ambroz emerged as a suspect based on circumstantial evidence. In November 2024, a grand jury indicted him on one count of first-degree murder. His ex-wife was also called to testify. She had previously claimed that Ambroz was with her on the night of the murder, but her testimony later changed. The remaining details about the evidence presented to the grand jury have not been made public.
Related
Joseph Ambroz is a Free Man Today
77-year-old Joseph Ambroz remained behind bars from November 2024 until he pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Since prosecutors did not have any concrete physical evidence, the plea deal was offered. At the time of his sentencing, he was on oxygen support. Based on the sentencing guidelines in place in 1969 for that charge, Ambroz was handed a two-year sentence with credit for time served, and he walked out a free man. He has kept a low profile since then, and not much is known about him.
