Federal authorities Monday arrested a 77-year-old man in Ponca City who is accused of first-degree murder in the death of a teen in Nebraska in 1969.
Joseph A. Ambroz was taken into custody at Copper Ridge apartments by the U.S. Marshals Service. A warrant for his arrest was issued last week after a Saunders County, Neb. grand jury returned an indictment on a sole count of murder in the first degree.
Ambroz was taken to the Kay County Detention Center in Newkirk, Okla. where he will await extradition.
Saunders Co. Dist. Attorney Jennifer Joakim said Ambroz is accused in the murder of 17-year-old Mary Kay Heese in March 1969. She was reported missing by her family on March 25 of that year and her body was found in a roadside ditch south of Wahoo on the morning of March 26. Continue story below ad.
After obtaining the indictment against Ambroz, he was tracked to Ponca, where he is believed to have recently moved.
“It was a brutal homicide,” Joakim said of the 1969 case.
Nebraska news reported that the investigation was one that had clearly become a cold case long ago. Heese’s body, however, was recently exhumed, though it was not clear at the time what the purpose of the exhumation was.
(Editor’s note: Sharon Rowen with Kay NewsCow spoke with Joakim by phone to obtain information for this report.)
