00:00:02
♪♪ -The murder of Mary Kay Hesse has been on the minds of
the people of Wahoo, Nebraska,
00:00:16
for 56 years now. I remember being about nine
years old out in the front yard. My mom came out and said, "Hey,
get in this house right now.
00:00:30
A girl in Wahoo
has been murdered." And I remember that plain
as day. It didn't happen
that often in Nebraska.
00:00:37
Murders were rare. Mary Kay Hesse was a 17-year-old
high school student from Wahoo,
00:00:45
Nebraska, who was killed
by stabbing in 1969. The Mary Kay Hesse case is
unique because of
00:00:55
how many people have tried
to solve it, and they just hit
brick walls right and left.
00:01:01
I'm Bob Frank. Back in 1999, I was a sergeant in charge of the Nebraska State Patrol
Cold Case Unit.
00:01:09
♪♪ She was running.
You could see the struggle, the blood on the ground, and the footprint showed there
was a struggle in this area.
00:01:23
Her shoe and another spot
of blood was found. And then her body. I'm hoping the integrity
of the evidence is still there.
00:01:31
As far as it's not too old
to test. As far as DNA, we're hoping after 30 years, we can pull a fingerprint
off those books.
00:01:43
The purse was found
at the crime scene. This stuff has been
in here for the last 30 years.
00:01:50
Rabbit's foot with a key
and a nail clipper on it. -Better be dead sure than
sure dead.
00:01:55
Kind of ironic, isn't it? -With the makeup,
the pencils, the handkerchiefs, the Kleenexes, just
your normal 17-year-old's purse.
00:02:06
I have one prime suspect. What I'll say right now
is he knows who did it, or he was there.
00:02:11
I can't positively say
he did it yet. -What did you learn
about what the connection was
00:02:17
between him and Mary Kay? -Through reports that we had, they were both at the Wigwam
Cafe about the same time.
00:02:25
-How long did
you end up working this case? -We probably stayed on it
for about a year.
00:02:31
-Did you think, well, I couldn't make
any more headway here. It's it's never going to
be solved.
00:02:35
-Well, it got to the point
where, working with a grant, we had X-amount of funds
to expend per case,
00:02:42
and we had reached our maximum. It was one that I really wanted
to solve for the community,
00:02:48
but it just didn't turn out
that way. -My name is Ted Green, and I was
the criminal investigator
00:02:58
for the Saunders County
Attorney's Office. -Her body was found
where, roughly? -That's roughly right here.
-Around here in the ditch.
00:03:05
-Yeah. -When you're
first assigned this case, did you think, well, I'm the
guy, I'm going to solve this.
00:03:11
I'm going to get the answer.
-No. -No, but I don't let go. I won't give up. And I was putting
this puzzle back together.
00:03:21
-What happened
after more than 50 years, in this case? -The puzzle came together.
00:03:27
You finally got a full puzzle
with all the pieces in place. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Mary Kay Hesse's unsolved
murder hung over this community
00:04:24
for five decades. It needed to be resolved. -I look at this as the case where the community lost
its innocence,
00:04:36
where people were told,
"We're not going into Wahoo, you're not going out alone."
00:04:44
-Jennifer Joakim, Saunders,
County attorney, and Richard Register,
deputy county attorney,
00:04:49
worked on what is believed
to be the longest unsolved cold case in Nebraska
history.
00:04:56
The 1969 murder
of 17-year-old Mary Kay Hesse, a high school junior. -It was a very well known --
00:05:05
A murder,
especially of this nature, is not common for this area. -This right here is what Wahoo
is really known for, right?
00:05:14
-Yeah.
-I mean -- cow country. -It's rural cattle. -Corn country. -It hasn't changed much.
00:05:21
-Ted Green was
the criminal investigator for the Saunders County
Attorney's Office.
00:05:26
He started working on the case
in 2015. -So this was
the high school here. -So on that day,
she had just finished.
00:05:33
-Walked home and
she started walking north here on Linden Street. -Memories
of Mary Kay Hesse's murder
00:05:41
loom large in this small town. This black and white
footage was filmed by a local television station
shortly after the murder.
00:05:51
Much of Wahoo looks
like it did on March 25th, 1969, when Mary Kay Hesse
never made it home after school.
00:06:02
-So the last place that she
was seen was here on the corner. -That evening, Mary Kay's
parents reported her missing,
00:06:14
and the community came out
in force to search for her. -So they had Boy Scouts,
Cub Scouts, church groups,
00:06:21
school groups, and the Wahoo
Police Department and Sheriff's office all searching for her.
00:06:26
-Nothing was found
until close to midnight, when a farmer spotted
Mary Kay's schoolbooks and purse
00:06:33
stacked neatly on a road
near his field. -Inside the books
was her name, and so he brought the books
into Wahoo
00:06:42
and ran into the police
that were searching for her. They all went back to
where the books were found,
00:06:50
and they found her body lying in
a ditch on the side of the road. -Not far from Mary Kay's
bloodied body,
00:06:58
investigators discovered
her shoes in the road, tire tracks from a car, and shoe prints,
potentially from the killer.
00:07:08
And how had she died? -Well, in a horrible way. She was chased down. The footprints,
which were preserved
00:07:15
by the ground freezing, showed that she got out of
the vehicle, and she ran. And you could tell
by the strides
00:07:21
that she was really trying
to escape. And then,
near where her body was found, there was -- there's a pool
of blood.
00:07:26
She's laying there
discarded like trash. -Investigators photographed
the scene, measured and made a cast
of that shoe print,
00:07:37
and sent Mary Kay's
body for an autopsy. It was determined
that Mary Kay had been beaten
00:07:44
and was stabbed to death,
leaving 14 wounds. No knife was found at the scene. -She has a pretty good mark on
her jaw where she was punched,
00:07:55
and the stab wounds come
after that. -Stabbing somebody 14 times,
though. What did that tell you
about the nature of the crime?
00:08:04
-Rage. Rage.
-Was she sexually assaulted? -No. No.
But I believe she understood.
00:08:12
That's probably
where it was going to head. -The investigation
was initially handled
00:08:17
by various law enforcement
departments. Mary Kay's clothing was sent
to the FBI to J. Edgar Hoover's attention
before the days of DNA testing
00:08:29
to see
if anything could be learned. Investigators questioned people
around town
00:08:35
about the day of the murder. A witness reported seeing Mary
Kay that day at around 5 p.m.,
00:08:42
getting into a car that had
two men at that street corner. In those early days and weeks,
did you think,
00:08:50
"Oh, they're going to they're
going to find whoever did this?" -Yeah. Yeah.
-Oh, yeah.
00:08:54
-Mark Miller and Kathy Tull
are Mary Kay's cousins. These are some of Mary Kay's
personal belongings, right?
00:09:01
-This is her 4H. -Was she proud of
what she did at the 4H? -Look how tiny she was.
-Yeah.
00:09:07
Kathy was 9, and Mark 8, when they learned
Mary Kay had been murdered. -She's the oldest
of us cousins,
00:09:15
so she always looked out
for all of us. -She was a 17-year-old girl,
full of life.
00:09:21
-Kathy recalls being picked up
early from school the day Mary Kay's body was found.
00:09:27
-And they told us
we had to come to Wahoo. -Kathy's family drove
to her cousin's home.
00:09:32
When they got there, Kathy saw and heard
Mary Kay's mom, Dorothy. -When we went in,
it was just --
00:09:42
You could hear her wailing. It's the kind of pain
you feel across the room. -And at the time, did
they tell you how she was found,
00:09:52
or was that too much
to tell the cousins? The kids?
-I think we heard it. -When they told us --
Then it was on the news.
00:10:00
-The family and the community
could not understand why Mary Kay had been targeted.
00:10:06
There were no answers,
just fear. -And I remember thinking,
"I'm scared." -Everything changed.
00:10:15
What our parents allowed
us to go do. -You didn't have the freedoms
that you had before.
00:10:20
-We lost so many
different things because of it. Our parents wanting
to overprotect us.
00:10:26
-But being overprotective
did not ensure safety. Mary Kay's parents,
especially her father,
00:10:34
had always been very watchful
and careful with their daughter. -She had a very strict father,
and she was shy.
00:10:43
She very much wanted to fit in, and there was a group of girls that would put makeup on her
at the beginning of the day
00:10:51
and change her clothes out
so she would fit in socially. And then at the end
of the school, she changed back.
00:10:58
She wanted to be a part
of the crowd. -Mary Kay was trying
to participate in school activities,
practicing baton twirling,
00:11:06
hoping to be a majorette. Part of fitting in for Mary Kay also involved
trying to get a date
00:11:13
for an upcoming school dance. Mary Kay had even written
this letter to another cousin,
00:11:19
asking him to be her date. "Will you go to the
Sadie Hawkins Dance with me? I just wanted a date."
00:11:26
And so she would take
her cousin. This was March 18th, 1969. So just a week before she died.
00:11:34
-Investigators thought that perhaps the pressure
to find a date and fit in led the usually shy
Mary Kay to get into that car
00:11:43
with the men
at that street corner. -I think she was so naive. She had no clue that something
bad could happen to her.
00:11:51
-She just wanted to get a boy
to go to the dance with her. And unfortunately, the dance
she went to was her death.
00:12:09
♪♪ -Ted Green,
formerly the investigator for the Saunders County
Attorney's Office,
00:12:23
believes the two men, who picked up 17-year-old Mary
Kay Hesse on March 25th, 1969,
00:12:30
were driving here to an area
known locally as The Grove. -Natural parking and party
spot.
00:12:37
So, kids coming down this way, there were two things in mind,
either partying or hooking up?
00:12:44
-Or hooking up. Those are the two things
on everybody's mind. -Green's theory of the crime
00:12:50
is that when Mary Kay
realized the men's intentions, she fled the car, and one
of the men ran after her,
00:12:57
eventually stabbing her
to death. But people who knew Mary Kay
wondered why she got in the car
00:13:03
with the two men. -She wouldn't get into
a car with somebody that she didn't know.
00:13:09
She knew these guys. -Working that theory, investigators in 1969
questioned males in town,
00:13:16
especially ones who could have
crossed paths with Mary Kay. They used what was then a brand
00:13:23
new crime-solving tool,
polygraphs. -They polygraphed virtually
the entire male population
00:13:29
of both the schools. I mean, can you imagine
the uproar would happen today? And they were looking for that
as their silver bullet.
00:13:37
-One of the people polygraphed
and questioned a few days after the murder was this man,
Joseph Ambroz,
00:13:44
22 years old at the time. Ambroz had been seen weeks
before the murder talking to
00:13:50
Mary Kay around town. They both frequented this
restaurant, the Wigwam Cafe, which still stands today.
00:14:00
Ambroz stood out
as he was new to town. Investigators learned
he was on parole after having been convicted
of forgery
00:14:09
and escaping from custody. -He wrote a $10 bad check with
his buddy up in Wayne, Nebraska.
00:14:17
They get stopped for that, and they escape this
little county jail up there, and they catch up in California
and bring them all the way back.
00:14:27
-Ambroz served about three
years and then moved to Wahoo. -And he's out on parole.
00:14:34
He's got a job.
He's working at a packing plant. -It's a slaughterhouse. -Yeah, slaughterhouse.
00:14:39
And she knew him. -Authorities say they learned that Ambroz was known to mingle
with high school girls
00:14:47
and had a reputation
for having a temper. He also drove the type
of car similar to this one
00:14:54
that someone said they saw
near the crime scene. -A local resident had seen
two cars leave that night.
00:15:02
One car was a white
over red '56 Chevy. The second car was a white
over blue '56 Chevy
00:15:09
with two dark-haired males
in it, driving it at a high rate
of speed. Ambroz drove that white
over blue.
00:15:17
He's a person of interest. -Ambroz denied
any involvement in the murder, and his polygraph seemed
to support that.
00:15:27
Ambroz said he had an alibi
that the night of the murder, he was hanging out
at various locations
00:15:34
with his friend Wayne Greaser, who was also questioned
and polygraphed. -Wayne Greaser was just
that wannabe kid
00:15:41
who was just fooling around
Ambroz. And so he's -- he says he's
with him. -But while being questioned,
00:15:47
Ambroz did speak about things,
says Ted Green, that got him in trouble
with the law,
00:15:52
and he was immediately sent
to jail. -He blows his parole right
in the pre-polygraph interview.
00:15:58
He violates it, says
"I'm buying booze for minors. I'm having sex with minors." So he's booked parole violation.
00:16:07
-But not for Mary Kay's
murder. Why did this case not move
along further at the time?
00:16:13
-That's --
That's a very good question. -Follow up
in the initial investigation,
00:16:18
Prosecutors say, seemed to be lacking
within experience a factor. Cars were not checked for
blood and suspects shoe sizes
00:16:28
were not compared to the shoe
prints found at the scene. -This was the beginning
of the State patrol
00:16:34
because before that they
just gave tickets for speeding. And so these people were thrown
00:16:38
into this new
investigative unit. -There were
other agencies involved, and it didn't seem like there
was really a lead investigator.
00:16:47
-And they were just relying
on those polygraphs. -For decades,
the case sat cold.
00:16:57
-After seeing the pictures
and going through the case, you can visualize it. I mean, everything's
the same after 30 years.
00:17:02
It's all the same.
Nothing has changed. -Then, 30 years later,
in 1999, with the creation
00:17:08
of the Nebraska State
Patrol Cold Case Unit, Mary Kay's murder
was getting attention again
00:17:16
and 48 Hours cameras
followed Sergeant Bob Frank as he worked the case. -Her body was found
right in here.
00:17:24
And that's where we're
at right here. -And we spoke with Frank
again in 2025, now retired
from the State Patrol.
00:17:32
-One thing
about doing cold cases, you find is that stories grow,
stories change.
00:17:38
And so, you know,
trying to separate truth from fiction is
sometimes difficult. -To try to get to the truth,
00:17:46
Frank, in 1999,
scoured the old case reports. He noticed that Joseph Ambroz
and Wayne Greaser,
00:17:55
the men who were
each other's alibis, kept coming up
in witness statements. -I started talking to
other people
00:18:03
who had been told
by these two individuals that they had done
this homicide. -Greaser had died by suicide
in 1977.
00:18:11
Ambroz was long out of jail, having served a year and a half
for that parole violation
00:18:16
after Mary Kay's murder, he had moved around
and worked as a truck driver. Bob Frank knew at some point he
would want to talk to Ambroz,
00:18:26
but first wanted to take
a new look at the old evidence. In '99 now, are you hoping you're
going to get some sort of DNA?
00:18:38
-Something. ♪♪ -So here's the evidence bag. By 1999, when Sergeant Bob Frank led
the Nebraska State Patrol's
00:19:01
Cold Case Unit, advances had been made
in forensic science that were not available.
00:19:06
In 1969, when Mary Kay Hesse
was murdered. 48 hours cameras filmed
Frank going through Mary Kay's
00:19:14
belongings as he
looked for DNA and fingerprints. Among the items tested were Mary Kay's schoolbooks
found stacked at the scene.
00:19:25
-We're hoping
for prints to come off. It's been 30 years. -The theory was
that Mary Kay left the books
00:19:31
and her purse in the car. The killer noticed the items
and, not wanting to be linked
to her belongings, dumped them.
00:19:39
-So we know it was
probably the suspect that that put those books
on the road. What we were looking for there
00:19:45
was any type of
fingerprint evidence. -A fingerprint examiner worked
to find and lift prints
off the school books,
00:19:53
including one titled "Building a
Successful Marriage." Were there any fingerprints
that came forward?
00:20:00
-No. No. That's what we
really had him concentrate on -- were these gloves. -She was wearing these
at the time, wasn't she?
00:20:07
-Yes. We were looking for
somebody else's blood on those gloves. -They also tested
Mary Kay's clothing.
00:20:16
-These clothes were cut off
at the autopsy. When I see this,
it just motivates me more.
00:20:20
I mean, it's -- it's something
you want to solve. It's something you want
to get closure on.
00:20:24
I -- Tell you the truth,
when I put this out and laid it out,
the first thing I thought of
00:20:27
was Mrs. Hesse... Frank spoke several times
with Mary Kay's mother, Dorothy, over the course
of his investigation.
00:20:35
-That's
when she started to high school. -48 Hours spoke with her
as well in 1999.
00:20:42
-I don't think
it'll be solved. I really don't. It's gone all these many years,
and I just --
00:20:49
I've just given up hope. -Hope would be diminished
again when the forensic testing led
nowhere.
00:20:57
Still, Joseph Ambroz
and Wayne Greaser remained at the top
of Frank's suspect list.
00:21:03
In May 1999, Frank decided to question people
who knew Ambroz and Greaser around the time of the murder
00:21:11
and had been named
in prior police reports. -That's
why I went two guys in there.
00:21:16
So one guy can really watch how these guys are reacting to
the questions being asked of them.
00:21:21
-The thought was
the passage of time might make someone
more forthcoming, and the investigators took
several steps to try
00:21:29
to help that along. -We created an atmosphere to where it appeared we were
a full-fledged task force
00:21:35
looking at this case. -If he's giving you
a hard time. -In fact, there was
no designated Hesse task force,
00:21:42
nor was it getting hot. It was just one of the measures
taken by Frank and his team
00:21:48
as they tried to see if anyone
would give new information. -I wrote their names
down on the board
00:21:54
and some numbers
behind those names, which don't really have
any relevancy either.
00:21:59
-Investigator Jay Peterson. -But it's just going to get
them to thinking that we know a heck
of a lot more about them
00:22:05
than perhaps we actually do. -They also tried to make
the setting a bit uncomfortable
00:22:11
for those being interviewed. -You grease the table down,
too? -Yeah.
What we did was
00:22:15
we took a bottle
of furniture polish, we waxed the table,
we waxed these chairs.
00:22:20
So when they sit down, they're not going to be
able to get into a comfort zone. So keep them on edge
a little bit,
00:22:26
and hopefully that'll get
them talking a little bit too. -We put electronic devices
in to record in the room.
00:22:34
We let these people know
when we brought them in that they were going to
be monitored constantly.
00:22:39
-But despite all those efforts, nothing usable was learned. -We had people telling us
that Wayne Greaser told us this,
00:22:47
Joe Ambroz told us this,
but it was all hearsay evidence. You know, we didn't have
that witness that was there
00:22:54
or, you know,
knew the facts directly. -So Frank decided it was time to interview Joseph Ambroz
himself.
00:23:00
-We will just go see what we
can get by knocking on the door. Let's do it. -In September 1999,
00:23:08
Frank traveled to Orange Park,
Florida, where Ambroz was living. Working
with local law enforcement,
00:23:14
Frank went to Ambroz's home, where he answered the door. -You Mr. Ambroz?
-Yes, sir.
00:23:20
-And willingly went to
be questioned at the Florida Department
of Law Enforcement.
00:23:31
-Ambroz said
on the day of the murder. He got off work around 5:30, went home and then went to
a club until closing time.
00:23:41
Unlike his previous interview, where his now deceased friend
Wayne Greaser was his alibi,
00:23:47
he did not mention being
with Greaser. -Frank also asked many
questions about Ambroz's job
00:24:03
at a slaughterhouse. -Since Mary Kay was stabbed
to death, Ambroz was asked about
his access to knives.
00:24:21
-Ambroz was
adamant he had nothing to do with Mary Kay's murder. Even when Frank
implied they found someone's
00:24:28
DNA at the scene. -Despite Ambroz's
cooperation, Frank found
several things suspicious.
00:25:03
Like Ambroz's explanation
for giving different versions of where he was at the time
of the murder.
00:25:16
-And there was that shoe print
found at the scene, which was the same size
that Ambroz wears.
00:25:25
-Frank also asked Ambroz
about a report from 1972 before Wayne Greaser died, in which a friend of Greaser
informed authorities Greaser
00:25:35
had confessed to him
that he and Ambroz drove Mary Kay to the field, and that it was Ambroz
who killed her.
00:25:43
When Frank brought it up,
Ambroz got agitated. -After the interview, Ambroz gave his blood
for DNA testing
00:25:54
and submitted
to another polygraph. Nothing incriminating
was found at his house,
00:26:00
and his DNA did not match
any found on Mary Kay's items. -We presented what we had to
the county attorney at the time,
00:26:08
and he just felt there was not
enough to even take it forward. -In 2000,
Frank stopped working the case,
00:26:16
but held out hope that one day
something would be found. -We needed something
to to drive this case forward.
00:26:33
♪♪ -What exactly happened
in this field in 1969 was still a mystery
when Ted Green, in 2015,
00:26:46
then the investigator for
the Saunders County Attorney's Office, started looking into
Mary Kay Hesse's murder.
00:26:54
-Was putting this puzzle
back together. -He had collected reports
from all the different agencies
00:27:00
that worked the case
over the years. He found memos and statements
that had never been filed.
00:27:07
-Then I started
going through the list of names and all those volumes
and re-interviewing.
00:27:12
And so I was able to start
tracking down individuals. -Green says one
of those people told him
00:27:19
that Ambroz had seen Mary Kay, not just at that cafe
they frequented, but also around town,
00:27:25
and that Ambroz told
him he wanted to have sex with Mary Kay. -He says, well, "Mary Kay
was up in her driveway
00:27:32
twirling her baton," and he had made
the comment that, "Yeah, the suspect told me
he wanted to do her."
00:27:41
-Green, like Frank, focused his investigation
on Joseph Ambroz. Green says another person told him he had
seen Ambroz and Wayne Greaser
00:27:50
arguing that night. -They got into a fight that very night about some girl,
and this guy's coming forward
00:27:58
and saying this fight occurred, and nobody paid attention
to him. -Green also re-interviewed
a coworker of Ambroz
00:28:05
who said Ambroz told him
after the murder that, quote, "I can do six months, but I can't do life," for Green.
00:28:12
This was Ambroz's motive. Green theorized that Ambroz
could deal with serving six months
for a parole violation,
00:28:20
but not more for attempting
to sexually assault Mary Kay. -He knows he's going back.
00:28:26
It's not a place he wants to go. -So you believe he killed her because he was trying
to make sure --
00:28:32
-He was going to, yeah. She -- -She didn't report him.
-Yeah. -Green was frustrated
with the initial investigations
00:28:38
lack of follow up. Especially disturbing to him
was that Joseph Ambroz's car, that looked similar to this,
was long gone
00:28:48
and had never been examined. -Why wasn't this
in those reports? These are basic questions
I was asking.
00:28:56
-While Green worked the case, this man, Josh Eberhardt,
a friend of Kathy Tull, Mary Kay's cousin,
00:29:03
wanted to bring attention
to the decades old murder that continued
to haunt the family.
00:29:08
-The way
that I could feel their pain when I spoke with them. I couldn't let it go.
00:29:14
I knew I wanted to help
them somehow. -That help came in 2019
when Josh, with the assistance of Kathy,
00:29:21
set up a Facebook page
tip line. -And I started writing
the post for this page, and I was trying to pull at the
heartstrings of the community.
00:29:32
"Dear Mary Kay, 50 years have come and gone since someone took you
from us all. I sit here at my computer
every day working
00:29:42
to find justice for you." -Josh hoped the post
might jog people's memories. Tips came in that went nowhere.
00:29:51
But then... -Somebody came forward
with a really big tip. -The tip involved a reservoir
not far from the murder scene.
00:30:02
The person had heard stories
about men taking apart a car that looked like the one
Joseph Ambroz drove
00:30:10
and pushing the car
into the water shortly after Mary Kay's murder. -We heard the words white
over blue '50 Chevy,
00:30:19
so we knew it was
important enough to pass to Ted, and he took it from there. -Ted Green also thought
it was important.
00:30:27
He always wondered
what happened to the car witnesses reported
seeing Mary Kay get into.
00:30:33
A car he believed belonged to
Joseph Ambroz. -You think it's the Chevy
that's in that lake?
00:30:39
-Yeah.
They got rid of the car. -There's blood on it.
It was a murder scene. -It was a murder scene.
00:30:45
I think the murder weapon's
there also. -So Green tried to determine
what was at the bottom
00:30:51
of that reservoir. It was a process seen here that
went on for about five years,
00:30:58
including having
a portion dredged. -And we started coming up with
bits and pieces of weird steel.
00:31:07
-But he needed to come up with
more. -Civilian divers cracking
cold cases. -Then Green saw
a YouTube video
00:31:17
from an underwater search
and recovery dive team called
"Adventures with Purpose."
00:31:22
The organization
is primarily focused on searching underwater
for missing persons.
00:31:28
-Called them up and said,
"This is an active, ongoing investigation. We don't have a body in here.
00:31:33
I'm looking for evidence." And they agreed to do it. -Two-tone piece of fiber,
two different colors.
00:31:41
A piece of metal. Same metal
we've been pulling up. -We pulled up more
and more metal.
00:31:45
We also pulled up fiber
consistent with the color of the interior of the car
we're looking for.
00:31:52
-Still, though,
they could not prove the metal and fiber
were from a car. To determine anything more,
00:31:59
the reservoir would
need to be drained, which was not feasible. If the reservoir
couldn't provide more clues,
00:32:08
Green and the county attorney thought perhaps
Mary Kay herself could. In 2024, the decision was made
to have her body exhumed
00:32:19
and perform another autopsy. -The first autopsy was
not a quality autopsy, or at least by today's
standards.
00:32:29
Obviously it's science,
things evolve. -But first,
the family had to consent. Green and Kathy Tull
had been in close contact
00:32:38
through the course
of his investigation. Kathy was always pushing
to learn more,
00:32:44
so she gave her permission
to have Mary Kay's body exhumed. -It was --
It was hard.
00:32:50
I, uh -- Anything that maybe would give
the answers we were looking for. But it was a hard choice.
00:33:01
-But what kind of answers
could be found from a body that had been buried
for more than 50 years?
00:33:08
-We didn't know what
we were going to find. -Mary Kay had been buried
for 55 years
00:33:25
when her casket was lifted
out of the ground to perform another autopsy. Remarkably, say prosecutors,
00:33:35
her body was well preserved, allowing a pathologist to learn
more about her knife wounds.
00:33:42
-The second autopsy was
extremely valuable. It added clarity
to the manner of killing.
00:33:51
-According to investigators, the manner in which
Mary Kay was stabbed was consistent with
00:33:57
how slaughterhouse workers
are taught to kill animals. -The angle exactly how her
body was showed in the autopsy
00:34:06
is exactly how they were told
to do it. -For Ted Green, it was another
piece of the puzzle
00:34:11
tying Joseph Ambroz,
who had worked on the kill floor
of a slaughterhouse, to Mary Kay's murder.
00:34:18
There was also that shoe print
at the murder scene, a size nine and a half. -And he wore nine and a half
shoe,
00:34:26
and that's the size shoe
that was there. -But it was more
than just the size. Green says it was
also the pattern of the print.
00:34:34
It matched a prison-issue shoe
that Ambroz, on parole at the time
of Mary Kay's murder,
00:34:40
could have been wearing. -So these little consistencies
are starting to add up. -At what point, though, do you
feel you have enough
00:34:48
that you can then go to
the county attorney's office and say, "I think I've got
a pretty good case here."
00:34:54
-It was his interview. -In 2021, Green interviewed
Ambroz, traveling to Ohio, where he was living.
00:35:02
According to Green, people told him they
had seen blood on Ambroz's car around the time of the murder.
00:35:08
Green says when he asked
Ambroz about this, he admitted there was blood
on his car
00:35:14
because he ran over
a deer or rabbit. -He said that blood is
on the left rear fender.
00:35:21
-The back, the back fender. -You don't hit a deer or
a rabbit on the left rear fender
00:35:26
and put blood on that. And he admitted the blood was
there the night of the homicide.
00:35:29
-Green believed Ambroz pinned
Mary Kay on the car trunk, and the blood was hers from
those 14 stab wounds.
00:35:38
In 2023, Green presented
his investigation's findings to the county attorney. The witness statements,
the shoeprint evidence,
00:35:47
Ambroz's interview. Prosecutors knew
it would be a challenging case. The murder weapon
was never found,
00:35:55
nor was there DNA evidence
connecting Ambroz to the killing. But they also knew
time was running out.
00:36:03
-We were getting to a point
that 55, 56 years ago this occurred. So we're starting
to lose witnesses.
00:36:12
So the decision was made to take
it before the grand jury. -The grand jury
quickly indicted Joseph Ambroz
00:36:20
for the first-degree murder
of Mary Kay Hesse. The then 77-year-old was
arrested on November 18th, 2024,
00:36:30
in Oklahoma,
where he was living. Ambroz was then extradited
to Nebraska. -Thrilled to death.
I was thrilled to death
00:36:38
that finally, finally, Mary Kay will have justice. -For Mary Kay's family, the arrest was gratifying,
especially for Kathy.
00:36:48
She had promised Mary Kay's
mother, Dorothy, who died in 2007, that she would fight for justice
and not forget Mary Kay.
00:36:58
-This is Aunt Dorothy
asking for us to continue to search for
whatever happened to Mary Kay.
00:37:04
I didn't want to let her down. I told her
that I would not stop. That I would continue.
00:37:09
-Kathy and Mark
were preparing themselves to finally have some answers to 56 years of questions
about what happened to Mary Kay.
00:37:18
There were pretrial hearings where Ambroz appeared frail
and on oxygen. Months passed,
and then in July of 2025,
00:37:29
Kathy and Mark got news they were not
expecting. A plea deal had been reached, not for first-degree murder
as charged,
00:37:38
but for conspiracy
to commit first-degree murder. As part of the deal,
Ambroz pleaded no contest,
00:37:47
which meant he did
not have to give any details about the murder. -The family never got
the chance to say no.
00:37:56
-Kathy and Mark say they weren't
consulted about the deal, which also named
the deceased Wayne Griesser,
00:38:03
as the other person conspiring
to kill Mary Kay. It was a blow to Kathy and Mark
and to Ted Green.
00:38:12
-There's no justice
for Mary Kay. There's no justice
for the family. -And no answer.
-And no answer.
00:38:20
-In an email to 48 Hours, Joseph Ambroz's attorney stated that Mr. Ambroz maintains
his innocence.
00:38:28
Due to Mr. Ambroz's age, he states he took
the plea bargain due to his health issues,
00:38:34
since he may not have lived
until trial to try to clear his name. -He gets off.
"I didn't do it." Really?
00:38:44
I'm sorry. If you're going to fold
like that. I laid my keys on the table and walked out two minutes
after he pled.
00:38:52
I retired right then and there. -I understand with some folks the plea deal wasn't
particularly appealing.
00:39:01
-County Attorney Jennifer
Joakim knew there would be backlash for accepting
the plea deal.
00:39:06
But she also felt
as they proceeded to trial, the case was only getting
weaker. -You know, you have to look
at the odds
00:39:13
of even getting to trial. -There were chain
of custody issues with the evidence going through
so many hands over the years,
00:39:21
and with some witnesses dead, testimony could be deemed
inadmissible. It was leaving them uncertain
00:39:29
the case could be proven
beyond a reasonable doubt. -We had to analyze the case
and the evidence.
00:39:36
It was important
to get the conviction. -But since Mary Kay's
murder occurred in 1969,
00:39:44
sentencing guidelines
from then would have to be used. A conviction of conspiracy
to murder in 1969
00:39:53
carried only two years
of prison time. -We're bound
to use those statutes as they existed at that time.
00:40:01
-Oh, I'm angry.
I'm plain angry. -On August 27th, 2025, just before
formal sentencing was to occur,
00:40:11
we spoke with Kathy and Mark. They already knew
the maximum sentence that could be imposed
was two years.
00:40:19
-We all
know this isn't justice. -His thing was
he didn't want to die in jail. He didn't want to die in prison.
00:40:25
Mary Kay didn't want to die
that day, either. -At sentencing, Kathy and Mark
addressed the court.
00:40:37
-Joseph Ambroz chose
to say nothing. -Due to Nebraska's good
time sentencing reduction law,
00:41:01
Joseph Ambroz's sentence was
cut in half with time served. He was released
on November 15th, 2025.
00:41:11
-He got all these years
to live, and Mary Kay never had
the chance to live. -For Mary Kay Hesse's family,
the quest for justice
00:41:22
after more than 50 years
remains elusive. -She didn't deserve this
at all. She was a 17-year-old girl
full of life.