Man arrested in unsolved murder of 50-year-old woman in Minneapolis

When Mary Schlais of Minneapolis was found stabbed to death in a rural Wisconsin snowbank in February 1974, investigators had no idea who killed her, and the case remained unsolved for decades.

But on Thursday, the Dunn County Sheriff’s Office in Wisconsin announced it had made an arrest in the unsolved case and was heading to Owatonna to arrest the suspect, 84-year-old Jon Miller. The identification was made possible in part by the sheriff’s office’s collaboration with a team of genetic genealogists at Ramapo College in New Jersey.

The 84-year-old man was charged with first-degree murder Thursday in Dunn County Circuit Court.

Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd said he was happy to be able to deliver news to Schlais’ family that a suspect had been arrested and charged.

“It’s exciting to finally put an arc to this and take into custody someone who’s still alive 50 years later,” he said Friday.

Schlais was 25 when he died and was trying to hitchhike from Minneapolis to Chicago for an art exhibition. Schlais was captured by Miller somewhere in the Twin Cities area before the woman was allegedly stabbed to death, Bygd said. He was a resident of Pine City at the time, the sheriff said.

An eyewitness at the time said he saw someone throw Schlais’ body out of the car before driving away.

A hat was left at the scene with the victim’s body, which allowed investigators to analyze the DNA of hair and skin cells inside the hat, Bygd said. At that time there was not enough technology to process this DNA, but in the following years it became possible.