Man, 84, arrested in connection with 50-year-old cold case in Wisconsin

An 84-year-old Minnesota man was arrested after new genetic technology linked him to an unsolved murder of a woman in the 1970s.

The Dunn County Sheriff's Office in Wisconsin announced in a news release that Jon K. Miller was arrested on Thursday, November 7, for the murder of Mary K. Schlais, who was found dead near an intersection on February 15, 1974 became Dunn County, Wisconsin

Schlais, who was originally from Minneapolis, was said to have been “hitchhiking” from her hometown to an art exhibition in Chicago, according to an initial police investigation.

“There was an eyewitness who observed a suspect and a suspicious vehicle believed to be related to the murder of Mary Schlais,” police said in their statement.

But although investigators investigated “leads” and “leads” and conducted interviews related to the case, they were unable to identify a “viable suspect.”

But later, thanks to advances in DNA technology and investigative genetic genealogy – on which police worked with a team of genetic genealogists from Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey – they were finally able to identify Miller, of Owatonna, Minnesota, as a suspect identify.

The Dunn County Sheriff's Office said in its news release that Miller “is in custody awaiting extradition to Wisconsin.” It is not known whether he has legal representation who can comment on his behalf.

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While Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd said during a press conference that solving the case was a “huge victory for our agency,” according to CNN, he also stated that it did not come without challenges.

In particular, he said that Miller's genealogy has caused problems for detectives since his adoption.

“It takes a lot more work that these guys have put in over the last few weeks to dodge this curveball… We were able to sit down with him and have him confirm his involvement in her murder yesterday,” Bygd said, per CNN.

The sheriff also said in the news conference that this was the first time his office had used genetic genealogy to solve a case.

“I was actually sitting in a deer stand when I got a text from the investigator [Dan] Westland [who was working on the case] yesterday and I had a hard time controlling my excitement,” Bygd said, according to CNN.

He added: “I've been through it with every investigator who picked this up, continued with it and reached a dead end.”