Ponca City man arrested for 1969 murder of Nebraska teen

PONCA CITY, Okla. (KFOR) — U.S. Marshals arrested a Ponca City man on Monday after a Nebraska grand jury indicted him on a first-degree murder charge for the 1969 murder of a 17-year-old girl.

Officials with the Saunders County, Nebraska, Attorney’s Office told News 4 investigators in Nebraska linked 77-year-old Joseph Ambroz, of Ponca City, to the 1969 murder of 17-year-old Mary Kay Heese.

The Saunders County Attorney’s Office accuses Ambroz of brutally stabbing Heese to death before dumping her body in a roadside ditch in in March 1969.

They say investigators recently exhumed Heese's body and performed a new autopsy, which helped link Ambroz to the crime.

Saunders County Attorney Jennifer Joakim told News 4 Ambroz had not lived in Oklahoma very long.

News 4 obtained video showing U.S. Marshals swarming the Ponca City apartment where Ambroz lived, before taking him out in handcuffs on Monday morning.

“It's crazy, man,” said Shawn Shafer, who was staying with a relative two apartments down from Ambroz’s Monday morning when Marshals showed up. “You live next door to people nowadays—just, man.”

Shafer told News 4 Ambroz had not lived in the apartment long, and neighbors often saw him sitting on his porch.

“He's only been there, like, two weeks,” Shafer said. “We've seen coming and going over there, but I mean, he was older man. He had oxygen.”

Shafer was in disbelief when he heard how old the murder case was.

“1969. That's a long time ago,” he said. “I mean, like someone to do something like that, that's just crazy.”

“Really makes you wonder what else he could have done in all those years,” neighbor Christian Williams said.

Ambroz is charged in Saunders County with first-degree murder.

He’s currently being held in the Kay County jail until authorities can extradite him back to Nebraska.

“It’s freaky that we really just live anywhere around here and just even our neighbor could be a murderer.”