(WOWT) – Stabbed at least a dozen times, the body of 17-year-old Mary Kay Heese was discovered along a country road in 1969.

In an update to an exclusive First Alert 6 investigation, the detective who helped solve the decades-long cold case is speaking out.

“It’s been a dark cloud over Wahoo for a long time. There’s a lot of people who remember that,” Saunders County Attorney Investigator Ted Green said.

For nine years, Detective Green has learned much about the victim’s life and how it came to an end.

“She fought some, there was a struggle,” Green said.

The suspect, Joseph Ambroz, was 22 years old in 1969 and paroled from prison for about six months when he came to live with his mom in Wahoo.

“I still don’t understand how she got in the car because that wasn’t Mary Kay’s personality,” Kathy Tull, the victim’s cousin, said in an interview.

Detective Green believes a party grove was the destination.

“And she’s just thinking its ok a couple of guys I know from the restaurant and we’re going out for a ride,” Green said.

Green reveals that Mary Kay likely got in the car with the suspect and another young man who was with them.

“He committed suicide in 77 so if he wasn’t an active participant or just didn’t realize what was going to happened all of a sudden it just happened,” Green said.

A tip line set up by the victim’s cousin led to a lake west of Wahoo where the suspect’s car may have been dumped in 1969 where dive teams found a large metal object.

“It’s everybody’s hope the golden nugget you hope had been there. But there’s evidence I can’t discuss that there’s something there,” Green said.

Evidence that remains in the lake because Green got estimates of up to $400 to pull it from the muddy, murky water.

But Green said he has plenty more evidence, including an autopsy after exhuming the body of the victim with a forensic pathologist from the Offutt Military Identification Lab adding expertise.

“There’s DNA available, its just I’ve got to go off of we have available to us,” Green said.

Though forensics will play a part in this case, it appears solved the old-fashioned way.

“This is a case that didn’t have anything glaring but had small pieces along the way. This is all gum shoe, all gum shoe work,” Green said.

Green would not respond when asked if he has found a murder weapon.

The 1969 murder of a small town high school Junior led to hundreds of interviews and tips over 55 years, and the investigation narrowed from ten suspects to one.

“Well been able to exclude everybody mentioned as a suspect way back when except for this guy,” Green said.

Even though the suspect is in custody, the case is not closed.

If you have information on the murder of Mary Kay Hesse, call the Saunders County Attorney’s Office at 402-443-5613.

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