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The murder of Mary Kay Hees has been on the minds of the people of Wahoo, Nebraska for 56 years now.
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I remember being about 9 years old out in the front yard. My mom came out and said, "Hey, get in
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this house right now. A girl in Wahoo has been murdered." And I I remember that playing a stay.
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It didn't happen that often in Nebraska. Murders were rare. Mary Kay Hees was a 17-year-old high
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school student from Wahoo, Nebraska who was killed by stabbing in 1969. The Mary Kay Hees case is unique because
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of how many people have tried to solve it and they just hit brick walls right and
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left. I'm Bob Frank. Back in 1999, I was a sergeant in charge of the Nebraska State
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Patrol Cold Case Unit. She was running. You can see the struggle. The blood on the ground and the
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footprint and showed there was a struggle in this area. Her shoe and another spot of blood was
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found. And then her body. I'm hoping the integrity of the evidence is still there as far as it's not too
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old to test as far as DNA. We're hoping after 30 years we can pull a fingerprint
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off those books. The purse was found at the crime scene. This stuff has been in here for the last
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30 years. Rabbit's foot [music] with a key and a nail clipper on it. Better be dead sure than sure dead.
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Kind of ironic, isn't it? With the makeup, the pencils, the handkerchiefs, the Kleenexes, just
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your normal 17-year-old's purse. I have one prime suspect. What I'll say right now is he knows who
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did it or he was there. I can't positively say he did it yet. What did you learn about what the
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connection was between him and Mary Kay? Through reports that we had, they were both at the Wigwam Cafe about the same
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time. How long did you end up working this case? Uh we probably stayed on it for
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about a year. Did you think, well, I couldn't make any more [music] headway here, it's it's
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never going to be solved? >> Well, it it got to the point where working with a grant, we had X amount of
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funds to expend per case. And we had reached our maximum. It was one that I really wanted [music]
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to solve for the community, but it just didn't turn out that way. My name is Ted Green, and I was the
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criminal investigator for the Saunders County Attorney's Office. Her body was found where, roughly?
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It's roughly right here. Yep, lying. Yep, sideways. >> When you're first assigned [music] this
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case, did you think, well, I'm the guy, I'm going to solve this, I'm going to get the answer? No, but I don't let go.
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I won't give up. And it was putting this puzzle back together. What happened after more than 50 years
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in [music] this case? The puzzle came together. We finally got a full puzzle with all
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the pieces in place.