An Owatonna man is awaiting extradition to Wisconsin after DNA testing linked him to a 50-year-old homicide case, and he allegedly admitted to detectives that he stabbed the victim to death.
Jon Keith Miller, 84, was arrested on Thursday and charged with first-degree murder.
Miller was arrested during a cold case investigation by the Wisconsin Dunn County Sheriff’s Office into the murder of Mary Schlais of Minneapolis, who was discovered stabbed to death alongside a road in Dunn County, Wisconsin, in 1974.
Schlais was discovered dead on February 15, 1974, near the intersection of 408th Avenue and 990th Street in the township of Spring Brook, Wisconsin, which is located between Menomonie and Eau Claire.
Schlais was from Minneapolis and was thought to be hitchhiking to an art event in Chicago. An eyewitness saw a suspect and his vehicle, which were thought to be connected to the crime.
Multiple law enforcement organizations have conducted numerous tips, leads, and interviews into the crime over the last several decades. Several pieces of evidence were also studied and reexamined throughout the years as DNA technology advanced. However, local law enforcement reports that no plausible suspects have been discovered.
In recent years, Dunn County Sheriff’s Office investigators have collaborated with Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey, and their team of genetic genealogists. Miller was recognized as a viable suspect after doing investigative genetic genealogy.
Court filings state that when investigators visited with Miller in Owatonna on Thursday, they presented him the DNA evidence, and he allegedly “admitted that he picked up the victim while she was hitching and eventually stabbed her to death.”
According to court records, Miller testified to law authorities at his Owatonna residence on Thursday that he “picked up the victim while she was hitchhiking” and “eventually stabbed her to death.”
Miller faces life in prison if convicted, according to the warrant issued in Wisconsin.
Miller appeared in Steele County District Court and waived the extradition process. He is being held in the Steele County Detention Center pending extradition to Wisconsin.