January 28, 2025 • 30 mins
Mary Schlais was murdered and dumped in a ditch in 1974. Her case may have just been solved.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Listen to Hudson Riverradio dot com. Don't make us come
and find you.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Linda Zimmerman.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm Brian Harrowitz, and this is.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Murder in the Hudson Valley on Hudson Riverradio dot Com. Well, hello,
good evening, good morning whenever you're streaming this podcast. And
how are you, Brian.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm doing all right, I'm doing my notepad. I'm about
to be ambushed. I got the pen, I got the notepad,
I got the beverage. I'm ready, all right.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
So this is an old case but with something very new.
Oh okay development. So we are going to Springbrook in
Dunn County, Wisconsin, February fifteenth, nineteen seventy four, about one
(00:54):
twenty five pm. Probably a little cold in Wisconsin, Wisconsin.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Cold and cheesy, yea cold and cheesy.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Okay, what was it?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Now?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I love when you read initial newspaper reports and then
find out the truth. So I'm going to present this
as the public was learning about it. A passerby who
was near the intersection of four hundred and eighth Avenue
(01:28):
and nine hundred and ninetieth Street. That's a lot of streets.
Have you ever heard of it?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah? In farm country, you'll see numbers like that. Oh,
because you know, streets tend to run east west, avenues
tend to run north south. I'm assuming it's done the
same way there.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Okay, nine hundred and ninetieth Street, four hundred and eighth Avenue, right.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And there's enough numbers in between that if a field
gets broken up and another street gets added, they can
assign it a number.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh okay, well look.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
At you, mister. And actually, if you look at it
map here. This is a fun fact I learned because
on the other show I do, the Rock and Roll
history show, we go to farm made every year. So
I learned this from that. If you look at farm
streets that run north to south, if you look at
a bigger map, you'll see every once in a while,
one kind of jogs over to the east or the west.
Every once in a while. That's to make sure the
(02:18):
street continues to point to true north. Because the earth
is a sphere, regardless of what other people may try
to convince you the shape that it is. So in
order to make sure a straight street winds up pointing
to true north, they have to jockey it over one
way or the other just to make sure that it's straight. Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
See listeners, you never know what great conversation items you're
going to learn on radio.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Has a podcast for everybody, we do, I forgot how many,
but there's something for everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
You go. But I don't think we're going to have
a street naming podcast. We might not yet at least.
All right, fair enough, all right, so we've completely digressed
one line in. So that's where they are. This passerby
is he has driven down a dead end road by
Elk Creek Lake and at first he sees what he
(03:13):
says appeared to be a fight, but kept on driving,
and then he saw a man pull a body out
of the trunk of the car, drag it, throw it
in a ditch, and try to cover it with snow. Okay,
so initial newspaper reports say the passerby then backed his
(03:37):
car onto the main road and fled the scene, which
may or may not be correct. I mean, so I'm
outraged at this point.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I'm like, really, well, you're driving it slow enough to
see a fight, and then someone take a body out
of a trunk. You don't see that if you're driving
by a fifty five miles an hour.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Right, and then you leave the scene not checking on
you know, maybe you're afraid for your safety, but.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I would say, if it looks like a body, you
may not want to go confront these people yourself. May
go alert somebody else who would. Yeah, And granted I'm
assuming this is relatively rural Wisconsin in nineteen seventy four.
There were no cell phones. There's not a payphone at
every court, So I get that, but maybe tell somebody.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, Well, we'll see what the truth really is. But
according to the newspaper, this passerby, which they didn't want
to name because of safety concerns, came back a few
minutes later and found, yes, it was it was a body.
(04:45):
This passerby was to was able to describe the assailant
in great detail, a white male twenty five to thirty five,
six feet tall, one hundred and eighty pounds, medium length,
auburn hair, with a thick mustache within I think. The
(05:05):
next day a composite sketch was published in the newspapers,
which turned out to be a very good composite sketch,
so the eyewitness, but we will get to that later.
And also a key thing. The assailant was driving a
(05:27):
late model orange or gold compact car. Okay, so out
there in pickup truck country, an Oranger gold compact car
should have been something you'd be able to track down
if it was somebody in the area. There apparently were
(05:48):
three other witnesses to at least this golder orange car.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
So they pack well, in other words, because they fit
a lot of stuff in that one little vehicle.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Like a body. Yeah, police do arrive. I will get
to how that all happened later. We're doing this chronologically,
and they find a young woman about five foot ten,
one hundred and thirty five pounds, light brown hair, hazel eyes,
(06:24):
and her she's not she doesn't have a jacket on,
she doesn't have her pocketbook. Those are missing, but there
are telephone numbers in her pocket, and through those they're
able to identify her as twenty five year old Mary
Schlace s c h l Ai s Schlice Slace, we'll
(06:50):
call her Mary. The dun County Sheriffs Darryl Spagnoletti, said
that Mary had begun hitchhiking at ten thirty am from Minneapolis.
And you know, back in seventy four, a lot of
(07:11):
people hitchhiked thought it was a good idea, but no,
it was never a good idea, particularly for an attractive
young woman alone bad idea. She was hiking from Minneapolis
to Chicago to go to an art show because she
was an artist. The autopsy, oh, she determined she had
(07:36):
died at noon, So just an hour and a half
after leaving, she's dead in a ditch. They believe she
was killed elsewhere and her body dumped. She had a
broken nose, multiple bruises on her face and body, and
at least fifteen stab wounds in her back, neck and
(08:01):
abdomen with a thin bladed knife. It could have been more,
but there were so many stab wounds, fifteen was more
than enough. Spagnoletti said it was a brutal attack. It
appears she put up a big fight before being killed,
(08:24):
so we have a very accurate description of the alleged murderer.
If she put up a big fight, this man may
have bruises or cuts right, probably scratched.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Punch walk for her defensive wounds.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, yeah, this was most likely somebody who knew the
area because of familiarity with this dead end street. Probably
just didn't say, oh, you know, let me drive somewhere
and here It happens to be a dead end street.
Probably knew just where they're going. Again her pocketbook, and
(09:04):
they found out she was wearing a furry three quarter
length coat that was gone. Probably still with the murderer,
maybe kept it as a trophy.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Who knows?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Who was Mary? While she had graduated with honors from
the University of Minnesota. She spoke German and Danish and
was learning Japanese. Wow, she was an artist. She had
received many scholarships, she had studied abroad. She had also
(09:41):
hitchhiked extensively across US and Europe. She was working on
a master's degree in art, and she had exhibited her sculptures, paintings,
and drawings. So a sweet talent did accomplished woman who
(10:02):
is beaten, stabbed and dumped like trash. Why don't we
take our first break before we get into the rest
of the details. This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Hudson River Radio dot com. Your dad likes us.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
We are back, Brian. Do you still see people hitch
hiking today?
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Not in town where I work, but when we travel
with the RV and all that. Every once in a
while you'll see somebody. Yeah, few and far between. I
remember seeing a lot more when I was younger.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
But yes, a lot of people hitch hike.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah, you know a lot of more panhandling at the intersections.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Right, Oh, yeah, there's still plenty of that. But yeah,
I remember a lot of a lot of girls doing that.
You know, lot of young you know, teenage girl. They
didn't have cars, and you know, we grew up in
a town that not a lot of bus service, and
you certainly couldn't afford a taxi, so you'd hitchhike to
(11:13):
the mall, or you hitchhike to your friend's house. Not
a good idea. Two days later, police have many leads,
but nothing pans out. Three days later they get word
of a broken down car that fits the description that
(11:34):
has been left at a mechanics in the town of Edgar.
Could it be the suspects car? Well, they stake out
this mechanic waiting for the owner to come back, and
then there's crickets in the newspaper. I can't find anything else.
Turns out, you know, finding out years later that was
(11:59):
not the car, so it was a hopefully didn't In fact,
the vehicle was never found.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Okay. Three months pass and in May the University of
Minnesota holds a fundraising event to establish a new art
gallery in Johnson Hall in the memory of Mary, which
was a very nice thing to do. Eight months later,
there's an anonymous note sent to the police saying, did
(12:30):
you ever think the man who found the murdered girl
put her there? Okay, that's you know, does this person
have inside information? Is this tall, thin man with the
big mustache all a fabrication and it's the passerby who
(12:51):
committed them?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
You know? Or is it an innocent suggestion?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, but it's something you need to follow up on.
So apparently the passerby, who later come to find out,
was named Dennis Anderson. He was very supportive and helpful,
(13:17):
and he even agreed to be hypnotized twice to see
if he could come up with any other details. You know,
hypnosis is doesn't usually work, but you know, you need
you try anything at that point. So the real accuracy
(13:38):
this passer by. He was driving with his dog to
the store, and you know how dogs love cars, and
so he decides, well, I'm gonna drive a little longer
and turns down this dead end street and at first
he thought it was two men fighting because he sees
a man and he doesn't realize at first it's a
(14:02):
body he's dragging. So he continues to the end of
the road, realizes something's really wrong, turns around, comes back,
and the body is in the ditch and the car
is gone. So he never fled the scene. You know,
(14:22):
they got all that wrong. He just continued driving because
he thought it was just two guys fighting and then
realized thought about what he saw and no. So he
does come back and the gold or orange car is gone.
But then, rather than going straight to the police this
(14:43):
is kind of odd, he goes home, gets a neighbor
comes back so they can both look at the bloody
body again, then go to a nearby house to call
the sheriff.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Wouldn't that be your first I wish I could say yes.
But I've also experienced people thinking they're doing the right
thing and they just mess something up. Yeah, I had.
Years ago. There was a safe that was recovered in
the woods. This guy found it. When you find it safe,
(15:18):
you presume it stolen from somewhere, right, you know it was.
It was dirty, and this guy took it home and
washed it with a soap and water. Oh my god,
and then called us to say that he recovered the safe,
and we're like, well.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Thanks, thanks for destroying all of the evidence than for.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
You know, pretty much removing any chance of finding out
where this came from.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Did you ever find out where it came from?
Speaker 1 (15:43):
No, No, it could very well have been something that
was just discarded. But who knows. Who knows? You know,
you presume it's linked with something. It's a safe, it's
not something you see on the side of the road
all the time.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Well, at least they didn't wash the body when they should.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
There you go, if it wasn't so cold, maybe they
would have. Yeah, but yeah, you know what people they're
well meeting.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
But yeah, So when Anderson and the neighbor come back
to the body, there is a Cullagan man who is
standing over the body looking at it. They stop and
talk to him and then for a few minutes and
(16:28):
then he leaves. There is no record of the police
ever interviewing the Cullagan man, which you know, I guess
rural police force, but you know, someone standing over the body.
They had tire tracks, but with all the snow, they
(16:51):
got very poor plaster casts and could never identify the tracks.
The tires but there was an orange and black knit
hat containing hairs, auburn colored hairs left at the scene,
so the murderer left the hat. All they could tell was,
(17:14):
you know, in nineteen seventy four, hey, it's hair and
it's auburn. Not a lot they could do, but perhaps
this will come in handy later. Unfortunately, months and then
years go by, but the police never forget or give up.
They did literally hundreds of interviews all the way to
(17:37):
two thousand and three, almost thirty years later. Craig Koser
of the Sheriff's Department was quoted in an article. I
tried to devote a little time each month to Mary's case.
In fact, he kept a photo of Mary on her
(17:58):
desk as a constant reminder. But you know, thirty years later,
you haven't solved case like that. Within months, with this
guy's picture plastered everywhere, it was in articles all across
the country, you know what car he's driving, you know,
(18:18):
he had to know the area, and still they came
up with nothing. Two thousand and nine, thirty five years
after Mary's murder, they actually exhume her body, hoping to
recover some additional DNA, and you know, one of the
(18:39):
detectives that detective detectives at that part said the worst
part of it all was that this guy could be
murdering other people all these years and mostly, I mean,
you don't commit a horrific crime like this, and that's it.
It's a one off.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Probably not.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
So more years pass and they have the hairs in
the hat, they have the fingernail scrapings that they had
originally took because she was scratching him. They go to
Body Technology. We've talked about them before, DNA Technology company.
(19:22):
They were actually able to get a decent partial profile
which they put into COTIS and unfortunately had no hits.
COTIS is the combined DNA index system doesn't mean this
guy has never committed another crime, he just hasn't been
(19:43):
put in the system for it. It then went to
Karen Binder of Ramapo College right here in New Jersey.
Lower College, though quite a few people have gone to
Ramapoe College.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, they're big on DNA research and all that.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I know that, yes they are. They have a cold
case team of students. And I've probably said this ten
times before, but if you're interested in forensics, having some
criminology career, and you have an interest in genealogy and science.
(20:26):
Please go into this field because you can really do
a lot of goods solving cold cases. So they're actually
through genetic genealogy. They match this profile to a relative.
They don't say, you know, how close, but it's definitely
(20:49):
a relative. I'm in the twenty three and me system,
and every couple months I get here's your new genetic relatives,
you know, and it's you know, Joe Smith and Omaha,
who's a third cousin. But still it's a starting point.
It's you know, the murderer is related to that person.
(21:16):
The team spends months going through every mail in the
family line. Nothing, nothing pans out. How could that be? Well,
let's take our second break and then find out. This
is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Well, all right, I've left everyone hanging.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yes, you are such an expert at that, and I
will never forgive you.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
So they know it's a male relative, but they've gone
through all the known males in the lineage. Brian any
guesses what what could it be?
Speaker 1 (22:06):
A female with a mustache.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Sash? Well? Possibly, okay, but someone thought, wait a minute,
what if someone some male child in the family had
been given up for adoption, okay, biologically related to the family.
I don't know how long that might have taken me
(22:32):
if I ever would have thought of that.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
That seems like a more plausible option than what I thought.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Well, hey, you know you tried, so that's that's a
great idea. So just in October. October nineteenth, twenty twenty four.
Oh wow, we are super recent, super recent. We are
recording this. In December, Binder's team gives the police a
(23:02):
name of someone who might help. So, some family member
or friend who may know about a male child who
had been put up for adoption. November fourth, Okay, very fair.
That's why I did this, because this was all in
(23:22):
the newspapers and in November and police identify a name,
an eighty four year old still alive in Oatana. I
hope I'm pronouncing that right, Oatana, Wisconsin, John Keith Miller.
(23:43):
November fourth, by the way, would have been Mary's seventy
sixth birthday.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Okay. On November seventh, police knock on John Miller's door.
He opens the door and says to them, I know
why you're here.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Wow. Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
He was promptly arrested and confessed. The details of what
and why have not come out yet. I'm hoping we
will get that at sentencing or at some point. But
police suspect he picked her up, he wanted to have
(24:26):
sex with her, she fought him and was murdered. What
will he be sent Well, he's eighty four, so hopefully
he spends the rest of his miserable life in prison.
And by the way, that sketch, granted he's eighty four
years old, now pretty accurate. I would love to hopefully
(24:49):
they'll get a picture of him in younger days. But
that passerby Anderson, he gave a really good, you know,
descript and it was a great sketch. I want to
know what did he do with the pocketbook and coat?
What did he do with the murder weapon? What did
he do with his car that it was? Did he
(25:11):
dump it in the woods or drive it into a lake?
How was it never found in all of these years?
So Ramakpo College started this program in twenty twenty two.
They have trained one hundred and fifty students in genetic genealogy.
(25:32):
And if this show inspires just one person to go
into that field, who then solves cold cases, I will
be very happy and it will be worth all our
time and effort. Seriously, people, if you've got the skills
and the desire wrote what an amazing field that's growing
in leaps and bounds. This team has provided seventeen leads
(25:57):
to law enforcement if they've all panned out, but you
know once you get to that point that you've matched
it to a family member or perhaps to an individual.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, seventeen leads in two years is phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
I thought so. I thought so. And also I strongly recommend.
I've said this before, if you have a loved one
or a friend who is missing or was murdered, get
your DNA tested. I know you're squeamish about that, but
in this case you're looking for.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Something, and squeamish not the blood part, squeamish about the
privacy part, right right, But that would be the exception. Yes,
if I was in that case, there would be right it.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Know, you have someone close to you who's missing or
is murdered, get your DNA tested, submit it to databases
like family Tree, DNA or jen Bank, because that's what
groups like this Ramapo College group look through and they
might be able to identify your loved one, or they
(27:10):
might be able to identify your loved one's murderer. So
after fifty years, of course, there was some relief for
the family at least they knew he was behind bars
and wouldn't hurt anybody else. But you have to wonder
what else did he do in those fifty years? Again, wonderful,
(27:34):
talented young woman. A absolutely pointless death. So took fifty
years to solve, but they finally got him. And the
more people get trained in this, maybe it won't take
fifty years next year, maybe it'll take two months. You know,
the more people working on this, the more then we
(27:55):
can get these people behind bars, and that's the ultimate goal.
So where we have it?
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Wow? All right, Yeah that was a good one.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, that was a I was so happy. I mean
I was on that in.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
A Heartbeat's right.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
When I heard fifty year old cold case solved through
genetic genealogy, I think I did a fist pump enough.
And it's important to cover this because it's, you know
what an amazing asset to law enforcement now as big
(28:34):
as DNA was to the field. And you can never
underestimate how huge that's been. You know, for prosecutors, now
this genetic genealogy, even if that person's not in the system,
you cannot hide your DNA. You can't hide your second
(28:54):
cousin twice removed.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
And yeah, you can at least make a link to
point you in some direction or something.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, particularly for these long cold cases where half the
witnesses or all the witnesses may be dead, you have
nothing to go on.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Well, thank god they save the evidence too, yes, yes,
also just as important, so you have something to work
with that the evidence is kept in stored properly because
so many cases did that not happen?
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Yeah, and you need that like that body technology. They
can take very rough samples. And you know, the where
DNA technology is now and ten even five years ago
is remarkable. So so that's my soapbox. You know, do it.
(29:47):
Do it if you're looking for a career. Wow, what
a great what a great thing to bring some relief
to families and keep these people from doing it again
to other people.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
So all right, that's there, we have it.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah, all right, Well, thanks again everyone for joining us
here on Murder in the Hudson Valley on Hudson River Radio,
and we will see you back unless the police nab
you through genetic genealogy. This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Listen to Hudson Riverradio dot com. Don't make us come
and find you.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Linda Zimmerman.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm Brian Harrowitz, and this is.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Murder in the Hudson Valley on Hudson Riverradio dot Com. Well, hello,
good evening, good morning whenever you're streaming this podcast. And
how are you, Brian.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm doing all right, I'm doing my notepad. I'm about
to be ambushed. I got the pen, I got the notepad,
I got the beverage. I'm ready, all right.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
So this is an old case but with something very new.
Oh okay development. So we are going to Springbrook in
Dunn County, Wisconsin, February fifteenth, nineteen seventy four, about one
(00:54):
twenty five pm. Probably a little cold in Wisconsin, Wisconsin.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Cold and cheesy, yea cold and cheesy.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Okay, what was it?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Now?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I love when you read initial newspaper reports and then
find out the truth. So I'm going to present this
as the public was learning about it. A passerby who
was near the intersection of four hundred and eighth Avenue
(01:28):
and nine hundred and ninetieth Street. That's a lot of streets.
Have you ever heard of it?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah? In farm country, you'll see numbers like that. Oh,
because you know, streets tend to run east west, avenues
tend to run north south. I'm assuming it's done the
same way there.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Okay, nine hundred and ninetieth Street, four hundred and eighth Avenue, right.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And there's enough numbers in between that if a field
gets broken up and another street gets added, they can
assign it a number.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh okay, well look.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
At you, mister. And actually, if you look at it
map here. This is a fun fact I learned because
on the other show I do, the Rock and Roll
history show, we go to farm made every year. So
I learned this from that. If you look at farm
streets that run north to south, if you look at
a bigger map, you'll see every once in a while,
one kind of jogs over to the east or the west.
Every once in a while. That's to make sure the
(02:18):
street continues to point to true north. Because the earth
is a sphere, regardless of what other people may try
to convince you the shape that it is. So in
order to make sure a straight street winds up pointing
to true north, they have to jockey it over one
way or the other just to make sure that it's straight. Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
See listeners, you never know what great conversation items you're
going to learn on radio.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Has a podcast for everybody, we do, I forgot how many,
but there's something for everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
You go. But I don't think we're going to have
a street naming podcast. We might not yet at least.
All right, fair enough, all right, so we've completely digressed
one line in. So that's where they are. This passerby
is he has driven down a dead end road by
Elk Creek Lake and at first he sees what he
(03:13):
says appeared to be a fight, but kept on driving,
and then he saw a man pull a body out
of the trunk of the car, drag it, throw it
in a ditch, and try to cover it with snow. Okay,
so initial newspaper reports say the passerby then backed his
(03:37):
car onto the main road and fled the scene, which
may or may not be correct. I mean, so I'm
outraged at this point.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I'm like, really, well, you're driving it slow enough to
see a fight, and then someone take a body out
of a trunk. You don't see that if you're driving
by a fifty five miles an hour.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Right, and then you leave the scene not checking on
you know, maybe you're afraid for your safety, but.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I would say, if it looks like a body, you
may not want to go confront these people yourself. May
go alert somebody else who would. Yeah, And granted I'm
assuming this is relatively rural Wisconsin in nineteen seventy four.
There were no cell phones. There's not a payphone at
every court, So I get that, but maybe tell somebody.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, Well, we'll see what the truth really is. But
according to the newspaper, this passerby, which they didn't want
to name because of safety concerns, came back a few
minutes later and found, yes, it was it was a body.
(04:45):
This passerby was to was able to describe the assailant
in great detail, a white male twenty five to thirty five,
six feet tall, one hundred and eighty pounds, medium length,
auburn hair, with a thick mustache within I think. The
(05:05):
next day a composite sketch was published in the newspapers,
which turned out to be a very good composite sketch,
so the eyewitness, but we will get to that later.
And also a key thing. The assailant was driving a
(05:27):
late model orange or gold compact car. Okay, so out
there in pickup truck country, an Oranger gold compact car
should have been something you'd be able to track down
if it was somebody in the area. There apparently were
(05:48):
three other witnesses to at least this golder orange car.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
So they pack well, in other words, because they fit
a lot of stuff in that one little vehicle.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Like a body. Yeah, police do arrive. I will get
to how that all happened later. We're doing this chronologically,
and they find a young woman about five foot ten,
one hundred and thirty five pounds, light brown hair, hazel eyes,
(06:24):
and her she's not she doesn't have a jacket on,
she doesn't have her pocketbook. Those are missing, but there
are telephone numbers in her pocket, and through those they're
able to identify her as twenty five year old Mary
Schlace s c h l Ai s Schlice Slace, we'll
(06:50):
call her Mary. The dun County Sheriffs Darryl Spagnoletti, said
that Mary had begun hitchhiking at ten thirty am from Minneapolis.
And you know, back in seventy four, a lot of
(07:11):
people hitchhiked thought it was a good idea, but no,
it was never a good idea, particularly for an attractive
young woman alone bad idea. She was hiking from Minneapolis
to Chicago to go to an art show because she
was an artist. The autopsy, oh, she determined she had
(07:36):
died at noon, So just an hour and a half
after leaving, she's dead in a ditch. They believe she
was killed elsewhere and her body dumped. She had a
broken nose, multiple bruises on her face and body, and
at least fifteen stab wounds in her back, neck and
(08:01):
abdomen with a thin bladed knife. It could have been more,
but there were so many stab wounds, fifteen was more
than enough. Spagnoletti said it was a brutal attack. It
appears she put up a big fight before being killed,
(08:24):
so we have a very accurate description of the alleged murderer.
If she put up a big fight, this man may
have bruises or cuts right, probably scratched.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Punch walk for her defensive wounds.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, yeah, this was most likely somebody who knew the
area because of familiarity with this dead end street. Probably
just didn't say, oh, you know, let me drive somewhere
and here It happens to be a dead end street.
Probably knew just where they're going. Again her pocketbook, and
(09:04):
they found out she was wearing a furry three quarter
length coat that was gone. Probably still with the murderer,
maybe kept it as a trophy.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Who knows?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Who was Mary? While she had graduated with honors from
the University of Minnesota. She spoke German and Danish and
was learning Japanese. Wow, she was an artist. She had
received many scholarships, she had studied abroad. She had also
(09:41):
hitchhiked extensively across US and Europe. She was working on
a master's degree in art, and she had exhibited her sculptures, paintings,
and drawings. So a sweet talent did accomplished woman who
(10:02):
is beaten, stabbed and dumped like trash. Why don't we
take our first break before we get into the rest
of the details. This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Hudson River Radio dot com. Your dad likes us.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
We are back, Brian. Do you still see people hitch
hiking today?
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Not in town where I work, but when we travel
with the RV and all that. Every once in a
while you'll see somebody. Yeah, few and far between. I
remember seeing a lot more when I was younger.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
But yes, a lot of people hitch hike.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah, you know a lot of more panhandling at the intersections.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Right, Oh, yeah, there's still plenty of that. But yeah,
I remember a lot of a lot of girls doing that.
You know, lot of young you know, teenage girl. They
didn't have cars, and you know, we grew up in
a town that not a lot of bus service, and
you certainly couldn't afford a taxi, so you'd hitchhike to
(11:13):
the mall, or you hitchhike to your friend's house. Not
a good idea. Two days later, police have many leads,
but nothing pans out. Three days later they get word
of a broken down car that fits the description that
(11:34):
has been left at a mechanics in the town of Edgar.
Could it be the suspects car? Well, they stake out
this mechanic waiting for the owner to come back, and
then there's crickets in the newspaper. I can't find anything else.
Turns out, you know, finding out years later that was
(11:59):
not the car, so it was a hopefully didn't In fact,
the vehicle was never found.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Okay. Three months pass and in May the University of
Minnesota holds a fundraising event to establish a new art
gallery in Johnson Hall in the memory of Mary, which
was a very nice thing to do. Eight months later,
there's an anonymous note sent to the police saying, did
(12:30):
you ever think the man who found the murdered girl
put her there? Okay, that's you know, does this person
have inside information? Is this tall, thin man with the
big mustache all a fabrication and it's the passerby who
(12:51):
committed them?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
You know? Or is it an innocent suggestion?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, but it's something you need to follow up on.
So apparently the passerby, who later come to find out,
was named Dennis Anderson. He was very supportive and helpful,
(13:17):
and he even agreed to be hypnotized twice to see
if he could come up with any other details. You know,
hypnosis is doesn't usually work, but you know, you need
you try anything at that point. So the real accuracy
(13:38):
this passer by. He was driving with his dog to
the store, and you know how dogs love cars, and
so he decides, well, I'm gonna drive a little longer
and turns down this dead end street and at first
he thought it was two men fighting because he sees
a man and he doesn't realize at first it's a
(14:02):
body he's dragging. So he continues to the end of
the road, realizes something's really wrong, turns around, comes back,
and the body is in the ditch and the car
is gone. So he never fled the scene. You know,
(14:22):
they got all that wrong. He just continued driving because
he thought it was just two guys fighting and then
realized thought about what he saw and no. So he
does come back and the gold or orange car is gone.
But then, rather than going straight to the police this
(14:43):
is kind of odd, he goes home, gets a neighbor
comes back so they can both look at the bloody
body again, then go to a nearby house to call
the sheriff.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Wouldn't that be your first I wish I could say yes.
But I've also experienced people thinking they're doing the right
thing and they just mess something up. Yeah, I had.
Years ago. There was a safe that was recovered in
the woods. This guy found it. When you find it safe,
(15:18):
you presume it stolen from somewhere, right, you know it was.
It was dirty, and this guy took it home and
washed it with a soap and water. Oh my god,
and then called us to say that he recovered the safe,
and we're like, well.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Thanks, thanks for destroying all of the evidence than for.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
You know, pretty much removing any chance of finding out
where this came from.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Did you ever find out where it came from?
Speaker 1 (15:43):
No, No, it could very well have been something that
was just discarded. But who knows. Who knows? You know,
you presume it's linked with something. It's a safe, it's
not something you see on the side of the road
all the time.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Well, at least they didn't wash the body when they should.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
There you go, if it wasn't so cold, maybe they
would have. Yeah, but yeah, you know what people they're
well meeting.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
But yeah, So when Anderson and the neighbor come back
to the body, there is a Cullagan man who is
standing over the body looking at it. They stop and
talk to him and then for a few minutes and
(16:28):
then he leaves. There is no record of the police
ever interviewing the Cullagan man, which you know, I guess
rural police force, but you know, someone standing over the body.
They had tire tracks, but with all the snow, they
(16:51):
got very poor plaster casts and could never identify the tracks.
The tires but there was an orange and black knit
hat containing hairs, auburn colored hairs left at the scene,
so the murderer left the hat. All they could tell was,
(17:14):
you know, in nineteen seventy four, hey, it's hair and
it's auburn. Not a lot they could do, but perhaps
this will come in handy later. Unfortunately, months and then
years go by, but the police never forget or give up.
They did literally hundreds of interviews all the way to
(17:37):
two thousand and three, almost thirty years later. Craig Koser
of the Sheriff's Department was quoted in an article. I
tried to devote a little time each month to Mary's case.
In fact, he kept a photo of Mary on her
(17:58):
desk as a constant reminder. But you know, thirty years later,
you haven't solved case like that. Within months, with this
guy's picture plastered everywhere, it was in articles all across
the country, you know what car he's driving, you know,
(18:18):
he had to know the area, and still they came
up with nothing. Two thousand and nine, thirty five years
after Mary's murder, they actually exhume her body, hoping to
recover some additional DNA, and you know, one of the
(18:39):
detectives that detective detectives at that part said the worst
part of it all was that this guy could be
murdering other people all these years and mostly, I mean,
you don't commit a horrific crime like this, and that's it.
It's a one off.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Probably not.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
So more years pass and they have the hairs in
the hat, they have the fingernail scrapings that they had
originally took because she was scratching him. They go to
Body Technology. We've talked about them before, DNA Technology company.
(19:22):
They were actually able to get a decent partial profile
which they put into COTIS and unfortunately had no hits.
COTIS is the combined DNA index system doesn't mean this
guy has never committed another crime, he just hasn't been
(19:43):
put in the system for it. It then went to
Karen Binder of Ramapo College right here in New Jersey.
Lower College, though quite a few people have gone to
Ramapoe College.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, they're big on DNA research and all that.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I know that, yes they are. They have a cold
case team of students. And I've probably said this ten
times before, but if you're interested in forensics, having some
criminology career, and you have an interest in genealogy and science.
(20:26):
Please go into this field because you can really do
a lot of goods solving cold cases. So they're actually
through genetic genealogy. They match this profile to a relative.
They don't say, you know, how close, but it's definitely
(20:49):
a relative. I'm in the twenty three and me system,
and every couple months I get here's your new genetic relatives,
you know, and it's you know, Joe Smith and Omaha,
who's a third cousin. But still it's a starting point.
It's you know, the murderer is related to that person.
(21:16):
The team spends months going through every mail in the
family line. Nothing, nothing pans out. How could that be? Well,
let's take our second break and then find out. This
is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Well, all right, I've left everyone hanging.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yes, you are such an expert at that, and I
will never forgive you.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
So they know it's a male relative, but they've gone
through all the known males in the lineage. Brian any
guesses what what could it be?
Speaker 1 (22:06):
A female with a mustache.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Sash? Well? Possibly, okay, but someone thought, wait a minute,
what if someone some male child in the family had
been given up for adoption, okay, biologically related to the family.
I don't know how long that might have taken me
(22:32):
if I ever would have thought of that.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
That seems like a more plausible option than what I thought.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Well, hey, you know you tried, so that's that's a
great idea. So just in October. October nineteenth, twenty twenty four.
Oh wow, we are super recent, super recent. We are
recording this. In December, Binder's team gives the police a
(23:02):
name of someone who might help. So, some family member
or friend who may know about a male child who
had been put up for adoption. November fourth, Okay, very fair.
That's why I did this, because this was all in
(23:22):
the newspapers and in November and police identify a name,
an eighty four year old still alive in Oatana. I
hope I'm pronouncing that right, Oatana, Wisconsin, John Keith Miller.
(23:43):
November fourth, by the way, would have been Mary's seventy
sixth birthday.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Okay. On November seventh, police knock on John Miller's door.
He opens the door and says to them, I know
why you're here.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Wow. Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
He was promptly arrested and confessed. The details of what
and why have not come out yet. I'm hoping we
will get that at sentencing or at some point. But
police suspect he picked her up, he wanted to have
(24:26):
sex with her, she fought him and was murdered. What
will he be sent Well, he's eighty four, so hopefully
he spends the rest of his miserable life in prison.
And by the way, that sketch, granted he's eighty four
years old, now pretty accurate. I would love to hopefully
(24:49):
they'll get a picture of him in younger days. But
that passerby Anderson, he gave a really good, you know,
descript and it was a great sketch. I want to
know what did he do with the pocketbook and coat?
What did he do with the murder weapon? What did
he do with his car that it was? Did he
(25:11):
dump it in the woods or drive it into a lake?
How was it never found in all of these years?
So Ramakpo College started this program in twenty twenty two.
They have trained one hundred and fifty students in genetic genealogy.
(25:32):
And if this show inspires just one person to go
into that field, who then solves cold cases, I will
be very happy and it will be worth all our
time and effort. Seriously, people, if you've got the skills
and the desire wrote what an amazing field that's growing
in leaps and bounds. This team has provided seventeen leads
(25:57):
to law enforcement if they've all panned out, but you
know once you get to that point that you've matched
it to a family member or perhaps to an individual.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, seventeen leads in two years is phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
I thought so. I thought so. And also I strongly recommend.
I've said this before, if you have a loved one
or a friend who is missing or was murdered, get
your DNA tested. I know you're squeamish about that, but
in this case you're looking for.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Something, and squeamish not the blood part, squeamish about the
privacy part, right right, But that would be the exception. Yes,
if I was in that case, there would be right it.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Know, you have someone close to you who's missing or
is murdered, get your DNA tested, submit it to databases
like family Tree, DNA or jen Bank, because that's what
groups like this Ramapo College group look through and they
might be able to identify your loved one, or they
(27:10):
might be able to identify your loved one's murderer. So
after fifty years, of course, there was some relief for
the family at least they knew he was behind bars
and wouldn't hurt anybody else. But you have to wonder
what else did he do in those fifty years? Again, wonderful,
(27:34):
talented young woman. A absolutely pointless death. So took fifty
years to solve, but they finally got him. And the
more people get trained in this, maybe it won't take
fifty years next year, maybe it'll take two months. You know,
the more people working on this, the more then we
(27:55):
can get these people behind bars, and that's the ultimate goal.
So where we have it?
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Wow? All right, Yeah that was a good one.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, that was a I was so happy. I mean
I was on that in.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
A Heartbeat's right.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
When I heard fifty year old cold case solved through
genetic genealogy, I think I did a fist pump enough.
And it's important to cover this because it's, you know
what an amazing asset to law enforcement now as big
(28:34):
as DNA was to the field. And you can never
underestimate how huge that's been. You know, for prosecutors, now
this genetic genealogy, even if that person's not in the system,
you cannot hide your DNA. You can't hide your second
(28:54):
cousin twice removed.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
And yeah, you can at least make a link to
point you in some direction or something.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, particularly for these long cold cases where half the
witnesses or all the witnesses may be dead, you have
nothing to go on.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Well, thank god they save the evidence too, yes, yes,
also just as important, so you have something to work
with that the evidence is kept in stored properly because
so many cases did that not happen?
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Yeah, and you need that like that body technology. They
can take very rough samples. And you know, the where
DNA technology is now and ten even five years ago
is remarkable. So so that's my soapbox. You know, do it.
(29:47):
Do it if you're looking for a career. Wow, what
a great what a great thing to bring some relief
to families and keep these people from doing it again
to other people.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
So all right, that's there, we have it.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah, all right, Well, thanks again everyone for joining us
here on Murder in the Hudson Valley on Hudson River Radio,
and we will see you back unless the police nab
you through genetic genealogy. This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
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