Chapter 1: What happened to Mary Kay Hesse in Wahoo, Nebraska?
The murder of Mary Kay Hesse has been on the minds of the people of Wahoo, Nebraska, for 56 years now. I remember being about nine years old, out in the front yard. My mom came out and said, hey, get in this house right now. A girl in Wahoo has been murdered. And I remember that plain as day. It didn't happen that often in Nebraska. Murders were rare.
Mary Kay Hesse was a 17-year-old high school student from Wahoo, Nebraska, who was killed by stabbing in 1969. The Mary Kay Hesse case is unique because of how many people have tried to solve it, and they just hit brick walls right and left. I'm Bob Frank. Back in 1999, I was a sergeant in charge of the Nebraska State Patrol Cold Case Unit. She was running. You could see the struggle.
The blood on the ground and the footprint showed there was a struggle in this area. Her shoe and another spot of blood was found, and then her body. I'm hoping the integrity of the evidence is still there as far as it's not too old to test, as far as DNA. We're hoping after 30 years we can pull a fingerprint off those books. The purse was found at the crime scene.
This stuff has been in here for the last 30 years. Rabbit's foot with a key and a nail clipper on it. Better be dead sure than sure dead. Kind of ironic, isn't it? With the makeup, the pencils, the handkerchiefs, the Kleenexes, just your normal 17-year-old's purse. I have one prime suspect. What I'll say right now is he knows who did it or he was there. I can't positively say he did it yet.
What did you learn about what the connection was between him and Mary Kay?
Through reports that we had, they were both at the wigwam cafe about the same time.
How long did you end up working this case?
We probably stayed on it for about a year.
Did you think, well, I couldn't make any more headway here, it's never gonna be solved?
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Chapter 2: What challenges did investigators face in solving Mary Kay's murder?
A murder, especially of this nature, is not common for this area.
This right here is what Wahoo is really known for, right? Oh, yeah. Cow country, corn country.
It hasn't changed much.
Ted Green was the criminal investigator for the Saunders County Attorney's Office. He started working on the case in 2015.
So this was the high school here. So on that day, she had just finished her... Walked home, and she started walking north here on Linden Street.
Memories of Mary Kay Hesse's murder loom large in this small town. This black and white footage was filmed by a local television station shortly after the murder. Much of Wahoo looks like it did on March 25th, 1969, when Mary Kay Hesse never made it home after school.
So the last place that she was seen was here on the corner.
That evening, Mary Kay's parents reported her missing, and the community came out in force to search for her.
So they had Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, church groups, school groups, and the Wahoo Police Department Sheriff's Office all searching for her.
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Chapter 3: Who were the prime suspects in the Mary Kay Hesse case?
Part of fitting in for Mary Kay also involved trying to get a date for an upcoming school dance. Mary Kay had even written this letter to another cousin, asking him to be her date. Will you go to the Sadie Hawkins dance with me? I just wanted a date. And so she would take her cousin. This was March 18th, 1969, so just a week before she died.
Investigators thought that perhaps the pressure to find a date and fit in led the usually shy Mary Kay to get into that car with the men at that street corner.
I think she was so naive, she had no clue that something bad could happen to her. She just wanted to get a boy to go to the dance with her. And unfortunately, the dance she went to was her death.
Ted Green, formerly the investigator for the Saunders County Attorney's Office, believes the two men who picked up 17-year-old Mary Kay Hesse on March 25, 1969, were driving here to an area known locally as The Grove.
Natural parking and party spot.
So kids coming down this way, there were two things in mind, either partying or hooking up?
Or hooking up. Those are the two things on everybody's mind.
Green's theory of the crime is that when Mary Kay realized the men's intentions, she fled the car and one of the men ran after her, eventually stabbing her to death. But people who knew Mary Kay wondered why she got in the car with the two men.
She wouldn't get into a car with somebody that she didn't know. She knew these guys.
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Chapter 4: How did the community react to Mary Kay Hesse's murder?
It's been 30 years.
The theory was that Mary Kay left the books and her purse in the car. The killer noticed the items and, not wanting to be linked to her belongings, dumped them.
So we know it was probably the suspect that put those books on the road. What we were looking for there was any type of fingerprint evidence.
A fingerprint examiner worked to find and lift prints off the school books, including one titled, Building a Successful Marriage. Were there any fingerprints that came forward?
No. This is what we really had them concentrate on were these gloves.
She was wearing these at the time, wasn't she?
We were looking for somebody else's blood on those gloves.
They also tested Mary Kay's clothing.
These clothes were cut off at the autopsy. When I see this, it just motivates me more. I mean, it's something you want to solve. It's something you want to get closure on. I tell you the truth, when I put this out and laid it out, the first thing I thought of was Mrs. Hesse.
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Chapter 5: What evidence was found at the crime scene of Mary Kay Hesse?
We also pulled up fiber consistent with the color of the interior of the car we're looking for.
Still, though, they could not prove the metal and fiber were from a car. To determine anything more, the reservoir would need to be drained, which was not feasible. If the reservoir couldn't provide more clues, Green and the county attorney thought perhaps Mary Kay herself could. In 2024, the decision was made to have her body exhumed and perform another autopsy.
The first autopsy was not a quality autopsy, or at least by today's standards. Obviously, it's science. Things evolve.
But first, the family had to consent. Green and Kathy Toll had been in close contact through the course of his investigation. Kathy was always pushing to learn more, so she gave her permission to have Mary Kay's body exhumed. It was hard.
Anything that maybe would give the answers we were looking for, but it was a hard choice.
But what kind of answers could be found from a body that had been buried for more than 50 years?
We didn't know what we were gonna find.
Mary Kay had been buried for 55 years when her casket was lifted out of the ground to perform another autopsy. Remarkably, say prosecutors, her body was well preserved, allowing a pathologist to learn more about her knife wounds.
The second autopsy was extremely valuable. It added clarity to the manner of killing.
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