The chilly case killing of a Wisconsin hitchhiker has been solved 50 years later because of a DNA breakthrough from proof pulled from a hat that the accused killer left behind on the scene.
Jon Keith Miller, 84, was arrested Thursday after he “confirmed his involvement” within the vicious stabbing of Mary Schlais, whose physique was discovered at a Spring Brook intersection in February 1974.
Schlais, simply 25, had been hitchhiking to a Chicago artwork present when she turned up useless that chilly morning, and investigators have been left with few leads past one piece of attainable proof — a stocking cap discovered close to her physique, from which just a few hairs have been pulled.
However for 50 years, there was little police might do with them till the Dunn County Sheriff’s Workplace teamed up with the genetic family tree division at Ramapo Faculty in New Jersey, CBS Information reported.
Investigators have been in a position to make use of the hairs to create a genetic profile, and from there recognized potential kin.
That course of led to Miller’s daughter, which then positively linked the hairs’ DNA to him.
When police interviewed Miller, who now lives in Minnesota, on Thursday, he initially denied understanding something concerning the homicide — however as soon as introduced with the DNA proof he fessed up.
The grizzled octogenarian stated he noticed Schlais hitchhiking on the facet of the street that evening and picked her up, based on the felony criticism from his arrest cited by CBS Information.
After driving off, he began asking her for “sexual contact” — however when she refused, he pulled out a knife and started stabbing her within the again, slashing away as she tried to defend herself, per the criticism.
He then pulled over and started hiding her physique in a snowbank, however when a automotive drove by, he panicked and took off — forsaking the hat that will implicate him 5 many years later.
“When he glided by the man was simply looking at him. He stated he’ll always remember the look on his face,” stated Mary Dodge, whose neighbor Denny Anderson was the person who drove by and scared Miller off, CBS Information reported.
Police stated Miller was “pretty calm about what had occurred” when he confessed.
“I imagine it’s obtained to even be a aid for him after 50 years of residing with this. It’s needed to have been on his thoughts virtually day by day,” Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd advised reporters Friday, based on CNN.
“You’ll assume anyone with a conscience, it might. So, I feel he was achieved preventing it, personally.”
Bygd known as the arrest “an enormous victory for our company,” explaining how many years of officers assigned to the chilly case routinely got here up empty-handed — and that with out Ramapo Faculty’s assist, that may have remained the case.
“Companies can spend hundreds and hundreds of {dollars} sending DNA samples to personal labs throughout the nation to try to get outcomes, and we had a university very keen to step up and assist us with this course of,” he stated.
Earlier than Miller was implicated, for years the prime suspect in Schlais’ homicide was Randall Woodfield — who was briefly a member of the Inexperienced Bay Packers, however was later despatched to jail for homicide. He’s suspected of being the “I-5 Killer,” who had quite a few victims throughout the Eighties.
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