Fifty years after the death of Mary Schlais, 25, stabbed to death, the culprit has just been found by the police. The man immediately confessed to the facts.
Betrayed by his DNA after 50 years between the cracks. On February 15, 1974, Mary Schlais, a 25-year-old accomplished artist, was hitchhiking from her hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota, to an art exhibition in Chicago. But her lifeless body was discovered 75 miles from her home, along a road in Dunn County, Wisconsin. The young woman had been stabbed to death.
At the scene of the discovery, a hat was seized by investigators, but the hair taken from inside it never yielded anything… Until last year. In 2023, investigators decided to use relatives' DNA to try to make the hair talk and this led law enforcement to a suspect. ABC News thus explains that by comparing the DNA taken from the hat with the immense database available to American investigators (which even contains the data of people carrying out online tests), the latter went back to a man.
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It was quickly established that he had nothing to do with Mary Schlais' crime, but his interrogation led investigators to his cousin in Michigan, and then to a potential suspect, Jon K. Miller, 84 years old.
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“He knew why we were there”
After further DNA testing, the scientist confirmed that Jon Miller's DNA matched that found on the hat at Mary Schlais' crime scene. Arrested at his home in Minnesota on Thursday, November 7, the man immediately admitted the facts. “He informed us that as soon as he opened the door, he knew why we were there,” authorities said. “Thank you for not giving up on this case,” said Dunn County Sergeant Jason Stalker. “This is a big victory for our agency. »
