Dunn County, Wisconsin — More than 50 years after a Minneapolis woman was stabbed to death, investigators in western Wisconsin reported that an arrest was made in the cold case, and he was identified as a suspect using genetic genealogy.
Jon Keith Miller of Owatonna was charged with first-degree murder on Thursday, according to court records filed in Dunn County. He is 84 now, but he was 33 on February 15, 1974.
That was the day Mary Schlais, 25, was discovered dead in Spring Brook, Dunn County, Wisconsin. Authorities claim she left her Minneapolis home and hitchhiked to a Chicago art show. Just a few hours later, someone called police to claim seeing a man dump her body from a car before driving away.
According to the Dunn County Sheriff’s Office, her autopsy revealed that she had “more than a dozen stab wounds and defensive cuts to her hands, indicating she had put up a big struggle with her killer.”
Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd verified to KARE 11 that Miller was arrested in this instance.
In a statement issued Thursday night, he stated that several tips, leads, and interviews were performed over the last five decades, with several pieces of evidence evaluated and reexamined.
In recent years, Bygd stated that his department collaborated with Ramapo College in New Jersey and its team of genetic genealogists. He stated that through investigative genealogy, a viable suspect was uncovered.