Inside a murder case: Investigator traces Mary Kay Heese’s last moments
For the first time, Hearst sister station KETV is delving into the investigation of what some would call Nebraska’s coldest murder case.
The lead investigator who brought Mary Kay Heese’s murder case to court after 55 years sat down exclusively with KETV Reporter Carson DuRall.
Former investigator Ted Green, who investigated the case for 10 years, revealed everything that he believes happened in Wahoo, Nebraska, on March 25, 1969, when a 17-year-old girl was murdered.
A warning: some of the details you are about to read are graphic.
READ MORE: Grand jury details chilling clues that led to indictment in a Nebraska cold murder case
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It was a warm spring Tuesday in Wahoo. Heese, a junior at Wahoo Public High School, said goodbye to her parents and went to school like she would any other day.
After school, Heese attended a track meeting.
“She’s coming home from this track meeting; she knows she has to go home,” Green said.
Heese usually walks home with her best friend who lives just down the road from the school.
“Her best friend would stop there and then Mary Kay, after this point, would walk by herself,” Green said.
Her home is only a few blocks away from where she drops her best friend off. Heese walked down the street to the next intersection, 12th and Linden streets.
“This is the last place they’re seen, Mary Kay here on that corner,” Green said.
He said he believes the corner is where she got into a car with two men. The route continues with what was a gas station at the edge of Wahoo.
“That was a gas station back in the day, and the attendant there reported seeing two guys and a girl in a wide open blue ’56 Chevy,” Green said.
From the corner where Heese is last seen, it’s a 30-second drive past the gas station and out of town.
“You’re out of town that quick,” Green said.
In just a matter of moments, after getting into the car, Heese is believed to be on backcountry roads where she would never be seen again until it was too late.
Green said Heese’s next known location is the murder scene.
“You can see this is a minimum maintenance road, so this is where they were going to be turning; those trees up ahead is where the grove is,” Green said.
Many have said in that period the grove was known as a place for teenagers to hang out and party.
“She’s never made out with the guy. She’s very shy, so she’s getting nervous, and then when they get ready to make the turn, she’s like, I’m putting my gloves on, I’m going to boogie,” Green said.
Based on tire tracks and footprints, Green assumed Heese bolted out of the car just before they turned on the road leading to the grove. The murder scene diagram shows her purse sitting next to her books, close to where the car would have turned to go to the grove; then there are footprints running in the opposite direction that the car was moving.
“She’s running back this way. And as she’s running now, obviously he’s turned around trying to not run over her … We see the tire marks, and then he’s still chasing her,” Green said.
Based on footprints, Ted believes at this point someone jumps out of the car to chase Heese.
“She turns around and all of a sudden it’s just his shoe prints for 1 or 2 steps, and then there’s no shoe prints for 41 feet. Now you have a struggle on the side of the road,” Green said.
Later that night, Heese’s books were found by a farmer who lived down the road from the murder scene. When the farmer took the police to where he found the books, they found Heese’s body lying in a ditch, with 14 stab wounds.
On Nov. 18, 2024, Joseph Ambroz was arrested in Oklahoma in connection with the murder of Heese after a Saunders County grand jury convened and indicted him for first-degree murder.
On July 31, 2025, Ambroz entered a no-contest plea for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
On Aug. 27, 2025, a judge sentenced Ambroz to two years in prison for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. He received the maximum sentence allowed in 1969, with credit for almost one year served.
Ambroz served less than a year behind bars, benefiting from credit for time served while awaiting trial and Nebraska’s “good time” laws that cut the sentence in half. He was released on Nov. 15, 2025, and was home before the holidays.
