Red Herrings
Where history gets messy and the law gets loud.
Brittany and Joccoaa take turns serving up shocking crimes and unforgettable legal battles. One brings the past, the other brings the courtroom — and together, they bring the chaos.
It’s smart, a little unhinged, and full of twists you won’t see coming.
Red Herrings
A Town That Never Forgot - Part 2
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Welcome to Red Herrings!
This week, Brittany continues the story of the tragic murder of Mary Kay Heese...
Hosted by: Brittany Warren & Joccoaa Gray
Sound Engineer & Co-host: Christopher Brown
Edited by: Joccoaa Gray
If you would like to get in touch, please contact us at redherringspod@gmail.com.
Sources:
- CBS News
- Find A Grave
- NBC News
- Nebraska Public Media
- First Alert 6
- Crime Timelines
- Hounslow Herald
- 48 Hours, “The Girl from Wahoo”
- Adventures with Purpose
- Lincoln Journal Star
- York News-Times
- The Sioux City Journal
- Star-Herald
- Omaha-World Herald
- The Fremont Tribune
Welcome to Red Herrings. I'm Jacoa, Master's student in law and human rights, host of True Crime Club Newcastle, and creator of True Crime Forum Newcastle.
SPEAKER_00Hi, I'm Brittany. I have two degrees in history and 15 years experience in genealogy. We're the red herrings.
SPEAKER_02Well, well, well. What do we have here? Two red herrings and the catch of the day. Don't forget about me.
SPEAKER_01Hi Chris! We're the red herrings.
SPEAKER_02And Chris. Welcome back to Who killed this girl?
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_00Welcome back to part two. In part one, 17-year-old Mary Kay Hesse was found stabbed to death in a ditch outside Oahu, Nebraska in 1969. For decades, the case consumed investigators, terrified a town, and left her family without answers. The case had already been closed twice. Witnesses had died and evidence had faded, and after nearly half a century, many believed the killer would never be identified. For many investigators, that might have been the end. Then, in 2015, investigator Ted Green reopened the case once again. Wow. Unlike earlier investigators, Green immersed himself almost obsessively in the details. I have written here, photo of Ted Green. Clearly I've forgotten to get a photo of him because it's not in this and it's not in your thing. Oh fair enough. We're imagining him. You'll see him later because I have some videos to play. Great. Oh, okay. I know I went all out. Exciting. He gathered reports from every agency that had touched the investigation over the previous five decades. Boxes of records, forgotten memos, old witness statements, photographs, transcripts. Green studied them all. And slowly patterns emerged. Oh, they did? He found leads that had never been properly followed. Ugh. Witnesses who had spoken briefly once and then never again. Right. Contradictions buried deep in old paperwork. Green began tracking people down one by one. Okay. One witness told Green that Ambrose had spoken sexually about Mary Kay before the murder. According to the witness, Ambrose once watched her practicing baton twirling in her driveway and commented that he wanted to do her. Oh no.
SPEAKER_02Oh God.
SPEAKER_00Another witness described seeing Ambrose and Greaser arguing violently the night Mary Kay died, reportedly over some girl. Right. Then there was another chilling statement from a former co-worker at the slaughterhouse. According to the witness, Ambrose said after the murder, I can do six months, but I can't do life. To Green, the meaning was obvious.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. To get away with the murder. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00To Green, the meaning was obvious. He believed Ambrose feared returning to prison for attempted sexual assault or parole violations. According to Green's theory, Mary Kay attempted to escape when she realized where events were heading. Ambrose chased her down and killed her to prevent her from reporting him. The theory fit the evidence at the scene. The footprints, the abandoned shoes, the isolated road leading toward an area known locally as the Grove, a secluded party spot teenagers and young adults used for drinking and hooking up.
SPEAKER_01That might be why they wanted the boys from the school polygraphed, if that's where they thought they were headed.
SPEAKER_00Green believed Mary Kay had been taken there by Ambrose and Greaser. Then in 2019, Kathy Toll, remember, Kathy Toll is Mary Kay's cousin. She was nine years old when Mary Kay was killed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Kathy Toll's friend, Josh Eberhard, created a famous. Josh what? Eber. Eberhard. Eberhard? You're welcome.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, clearly I'm not on it as a push. Oh god.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Okay, sorry. Sorry, tell me. Americans just make up these names, too. It's a German name, Christopher. What do you mean? Is it E-E E B E No, sorry. E B E R H A R D T. That's a German name, okay?
SPEAKER_01Don't at me. Would the B not be pronounced as a V in German?
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01Oh, damn it.
SPEAKER_00Sorry.
SPEAKER_01That's disappointing. Very disappointing.
SPEAKER_00In 2019, Kathy Toll's friend, Josh Eberhard, created a Facebook page dedicated to Mary Kay's case. He hoped renewed public attention might generate tips after decades of silence.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00One did. Oh. And now I have a video for you. Excellent. I love it. Oh no, it's not a video. I apologize. I hate videos. Is it on here?
SPEAKER_02Oh wow, the Facebook page is still there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's why I linked the Facebook page is still there, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we can see that there's a Facebook page with a tip line. That's all we need to see, right?
SPEAKER_01That's all I want to show you. It's still there.
SPEAKER_02It's still live. Right, okay.
SPEAKER_01So the Facebook page is still there. And we've got her gravestone. Oh, with her parents. Yes. Oh, oh, she died on December 9th. Mm-hmm. It's my birthday. She was born on December 9th.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's my birthday.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. Maybe you're a reincarnation.
SPEAKER_00Don't scroll too far. I don't want you to get spoilers. Okay. Okay. But yeah, it's still there. You can go see it.
SPEAKER_01The Mary Kay Heese tip line. Hesi face boot.
SPEAKER_00I pronounced it Heath the first few times, and then I had to watch, like, it wasn't until I watched some of the later videos I was like, oh, it's Hesi? A source contacted the page claiming that shortly after the murder, men had dismantled and disposed of a vehicle matching the description of Ambrose's white and blue Chevy in a nearby reservoir.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00For years, investigators had wondered what happened to Ambrose's car.
SPEAKER_01Right, so it wasn't just that they didn't forensically test his car, it wasn't there to be forensically tested.
SPEAKER_00It just literally disappeared. Like I can't find anything on what happened to this car.
SPEAKER_02Well, that looks like a nice car as well. You wouldn't just get rid of your car if you know for no reason in a reservoir? Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Did they go find this car? Stay tuned.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00If it truly had been used during the murder, it could have contained blood evidence or even the murder weapon. Green spent years attempting to search the reservoir. Eventually, he enlisted the help of the YouTube dive group Adventures with Purpose, known for underwater recovery searches. Seen these guys on TikTok. Highly recommend them. Amazing.
SPEAKER_02See, we'd never heard of them, but then we watched the episode and it was so good.
SPEAKER_00It's a two-parter. So the next image you have is uh part of the excavations in the reservoir.
SPEAKER_02Is that ice?
SPEAKER_00Oh no, I think I think it's just Oh no, that could actually be ice.
SPEAKER_02I think it's ice, right? I think they've dug like a channel around them.
SPEAKER_01So it looks like they knew exactly where to look.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's like they've marked out a specific spot.
SPEAKER_00So I'm not really sure what's happening with this one because when we watch the video in a few minutes, they're a little bit farther within the reservoir itself. So I'm not really sure like what's happening in this one, but essentially, as I said, Green had been searching the reservoir for quite a few years prior to having them help. So, well, I'll just I'll just read the next sentence and then play the video. Divers located metal fragments and fibers consistent with the interior color of the suspected vehicle.
SPEAKER_01What do they search into YouTube to find it?
SPEAKER_00So it's Adventures with Purpose, Mary Kay Hesse. There is there are two parts, and so I just showed the introduction to part two, which summarized part one, and then I ch uh showed about two minutes from 5.51 to 7.30 of episode two.
SPEAKER_01So if you want to go and see that, listeners, you can go and do that now on YouTube. But basically, they're dredging parts of the lake where they believe that the car is, they're finding lots of tin, lots of things. Fabric of metal. But yes, under that they're actually finding very small amounts of light blue and dark blue fabric that they believe matches the colour that was inside the interior of the car. Yes.
SPEAKER_00What are your thoughts on the the dive? They found that blue material that could be the inside of the car, they found fragments.
SPEAKER_02I can't think why else there would be, you know, if given they've been told that spot by a witness, they've been told that the car was there, they found blue fiber that matches the car they're looking for. Why else would there be fibre at the bottom of a lake and metal? You know?
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02So for me it's adding up.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I agree. Perfect. Well, that was easy. I thought there was gonna be a big thing. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02I just I mean, at the same time, it's just a blue fiber.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, it it could honestly be anything, but what are the odds that it's the same exact color pattern of the interior of that vehicle?
SPEAKER_02Specific spot that this witness saw someone supposedly saw us someone dismantling a car. Okay.
SPEAKER_00So it was not enough to conclusively identify the car. Why can't they just bring the whole car out? Is that not possible? I didn't go into details about that, but it was just out of their resources, they were not able to.
SPEAKER_01That's so annoying. I know.
SPEAKER_00I know, but that's where that ends.
SPEAKER_01That's really annoying. No, I'm really, really pissed off about that. You should write to them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Come on. I know. I know what? Yeah. Get the fucking car out.
SPEAKER_02I mean, they're just pissing around with a dredger and a boat, just like just just go and get it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
unknownI know.
SPEAKER_02I mean they've they've like you can see in the photo, they've put an excavator around it. They've isolated the car, when they just pull it out.
SPEAKER_00See, I'm not really sure at what point what was the YouTubers' work and what was done like in the three or four years prior to them coming. But like But even still, like you the police department not pay for that.
SPEAKER_01I know I don't know. I know everyone's hard up for cash, but like if they right, if they had had that tip and followed that tip 30 years ago, would they have been able to put the money in to bring the car out? Or would they just have said no that costs too much? Like, come on. I know get a car. I agree with you. Or do something like pull whatever that tin is, pull that tin away, and then take like a thermal image or something. There's gotta be There's gotta be a way to put it. There's gonna be another way.
SPEAKER_00I know.
SPEAKER_02Is this related to the fact that like a lot of police officers are elected in the US? So maybe Are they? Yes. Not officers. No. No, not police officers, but like attorneys, commissioners. No, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01Sounded like everyone wanted an answer. Fair enough, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I just thought it might have been a money thing, like because it you said about the 250k being granted in these two cases specifically.
SPEAKER_00Well, no, no, it wasn't granted to these two specifically. It was granted to the Nebraska State Patrol, and they chose two cases. Right. Sorry if that came across different. So that's where we're at.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Thanks.
SPEAKER_00It was not enough to conclusively identify the car, but it reinforced Green's growing belief that Ambrose had deliberately destroyed evidence. In 2021, Green interviewed Ambrose again. During portions of the interview, Ambrose reportedly suggested that Wayne Greaser may have been responsible for killing Mary Kay before later backing away from the statement entirely. Classic deflection.
SPEAKER_02Does he still not have a lawyer with him?
SPEAKER_00No. See, I tried to find photos, I tried to find video of like all of his interviews, and I couldn't find anything. Granted, I didn't like deep dive on the internet, so it could be out there, but just a brief like search didn't bring up anything.
SPEAKER_01I'm also wondering if the giving of the blood sample was again this ignorance and naivety, maybe that he showed years before as well, not really having a full understanding, thinking, well, what are they gonna get from this not fully understanding how has come along?
SPEAKER_02Or maybe he he thought, well, I know my blood wasn't on her, I know my DNA wasn't on her, maybe. I don't know. I think it would be the Wayne guy. No, but if they're working together, if Wayne did all the you know active of, you know, I don't know, maybe.
SPEAKER_01I don't know. But then Ambrose had been the one who would reportedly said horrible things about it. No, you're right.
SPEAKER_00During questioning, Ambrose reportedly acknowledged blood had been present on the rear portion of his car around the time of the murder.
SPEAKER_01What an idiot.
SPEAKER_00He claimed the blood came from hitting an animal. Green did not believe him. Literally, the next like line is a quote from Green where he says, You don't hit a deer or rabbit on the left rear fender.
SPEAKER_01No, you do not.
SPEAKER_00No, you do not. Green believed Mary Kay's blood had ended up there during the attack.
SPEAKER_01How though? Because she was stabbed after she ran.
SPEAKER_00Maybe he somehow had her against the car at some point. I I don't know. Maybe he was covered in the blood and he touched the car.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Could be anything. I had imagined though that there was no blood in the car just because of the way it looked like he stabbed her after she ran away. Unless he tried to get her back in the car. I don't know. Okay, never mind. We don't know.
SPEAKER_00Then, in 2024, investigators made one of the most dramatic decisions in the history of the case.
SPEAKER_01To charge Ambrose with Oh.
SPEAKER_00Mary Kay Hessey's body would be exhumed. They're gonna exhume it. Her remains had rested in Blair Cemetery for 55 years. You can now see a picture of her tombstone, which you saw on the Facebook page, but it's there with her father and her mother. Can I make a prediction?
SPEAKER_01I think they're gonna find Semen.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01And I think they're gonna get him on that.
SPEAKER_00Okay. The family agreed, hoping modern forensic science might finally uncover what decades of investigation could not. Her body was remarkably well preserved, and a second autopsy provided far more detail than the original. For fuck's sake, why didn't the original? They just I I think it's just because they didn't have the technology at the time. Most significantly, forensic pathologists reportedly concluded some of the wounds w some of the wounds resembled techniques associated with slaughterhouse work. Oh however. Like what? I I think maybe just the way it could have been the knife, it could have been the way she was stabbed, it could have just maybe I I I don't know.
SPEAKER_02The throat being cut, sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01But her throat wasn't cut. Oh it wasn't, okay. How do you stab something like you would in a slaughterhouse? That's very concerning. Maybe it's just the knife. Maybe it's the a particular blade that is used a lot in slaughterhouses for whatever. Ugh.
SPEAKER_00To Ted Green and prosecutors, that detail mattered. Ambrose had worked directly on the slaughterhouse kill floor. The autopsy became another piece in the growing circumstantial case against him. And so prosecutors faced a difficult decision. The case remained deeply flawed. DNA testing had failed to place Ambrose at the scene. Some evidence contradicted the prosecution theory. But investigators also understood time was running out. Joseph Ambrose was elderly and in failing health, including diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia complications, and a history of lung cancer.
SPEAKER_01Ooh, he's not well. No good.
SPEAKER_00If they waited longer, there might never be the chance to prosecute anyone at all.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So prosecutors took the case before a grand jury in late 2024.
SPEAKER_01Oh, what did they say?
SPEAKER_00The jury heard testimony from witnesses, investigators, and even Ambrose's ex-wife, who reportedly admitted under immunity that she lied about his alibi decades earlier. So what she was with him at the time. I don't know what she lied about, to be honest. I think he had told her what he did and she lied for him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, makes sense.
SPEAKER_00I mean my assumption. Would you do that?
SPEAKER_01Bearing in mind, this isn't Chris we're talking about. This is like someone like Ambrose who's probably really scary. I wouldn't. I'd go right to the police.
SPEAKER_02I'd definitely lie for Brittany.
SPEAKER_01She's a scary motherfucker.
SPEAKER_02She is scary. I think she I'd be next.
SPEAKER_01We're all next. It's just who do I choose? Okay, yeah. I mean, I think I would, because I think uh I just in that position, if you're if they're that scary, you know. You what well what you probably think you'll take it to them and they won't believe you anyway.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And you the thing is, I feel like you can't make that decision unless you're in the situation.
SPEAKER_02Also he might not have told her that he necessarily did it. He might have just asked her to lie for him.
SPEAKER_00Yes, exactly. So she might not have known.
SPEAKER_02Because she isn't testifying that he told her he did it. She's testimony testifying that he she's lying for his Alibi.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. In November 2024, the grand jury indicted Joseph Ambrose for first degree murder. He was 77 years old.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00US marshals arrested him on November 18th in Ponka City, Oklahoma. He was later extradited back to Nebraska to face the charge.
SPEAKER_01Right?
SPEAKER_00For Mary Kay's relatives, the moment felt surreal. After more than half a century, deputies placed handcuffs on the man they had suspected for decades. And now we have a YouTube video. Oh.
SPEAKER_01So what we've just watched is a video on YouTube that basically interviews Kathy, the cousin. She's a much older lady now. Shows um a small interview with uh Mary Kay's mum who died in 2005. 2007. 2007. Um, and basically it was Kathy's account about exhuming the body, and also they found the necklace that appears on the photographs with Mary Kay. It's believed now that that was on Mary Kay's body when she was found, and then the mortuary has taken it off and sent it back to the family.
SPEAKER_02Um it must be a really hard decision to let them exhume your relative 50 years later.
SPEAKER_01I don't know why that would why is it difficult?
SPEAKER_02Oh, you know.
SPEAKER_00I'm on the fence about it. As in like, would I feel it's difficult or not? I would I think I would just sign the paperwork, do it. Yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_02I don't know. I I if if I thought it was gonna help, sure, but like what are they actually gonna get from some bones?
SPEAKER_00But you never know if you don't do it. I guess. You never know. Yeah. Joseph Ambrose was no longer the twenty-two-year-old slaughterhouse worker from nineteen sixty-nine. He used oxygen and struggled physically. Years of moving from state to state had left behind a scattered trail of addresses and temporary lives. And probably some more dead people. Probably. Probably some more dead girls. I thought that as well. Definitely. Yet prosecutors believed that behind the frailty stood the same man they alleged had chased a terrified 17-year-old girl down a Nebraska road. You can see his mugshot in the next photo. The arrest made national headlines almost immediately, and Mary Kay's story was suddenly everywhere again. News stations replayed grainy photographs of the smiling high school junior. Reporters visited the road where her body had been found. Interviews with investigators and family members appeared across television broadcasts and newspapers.
SPEAKER_01So this video that we've just watched is another one from YouTube. Um, and that is sort of Ted's account of um sort of his investigation and what he's found and how he's excluded everybody but this Ambrose guy. Um, and they talked a bit about the car in the lake, and we did discover that was actually gonna be four hundred thousand dollars. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Which is insane. I mean, just just go down, tie a rope around it, pull it out.
SPEAKER_01I mean, this is my thinking.
SPEAKER_00It's in pieces though. It's in pieces, it's just like it it'll just fall apart.
SPEAKER_01I guess, yeah. I mean, they obviously know more than we do about pulling cars out of lakes, but we want it to be that easy, don't we? Right.
SPEAKER_02Um also I'm shocked if since then people haven't gone themselves and like dived in that reservoir to try and find stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know? I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. And I just want to say those YouTube videos were the first alert six news channel, which I believe is a local news channel.
SPEAKER_01Lovely, thank you.
SPEAKER_00I've not heard of it, but that's what I found them on.
SPEAKER_01Great. And you can go and see them yourself, listen it. We should we put them in the show notes?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'll link them all.
SPEAKER_01Brilliant. Thank you for showing us those, Brittany.
SPEAKER_00For Kathy Toll and Mark Miller, the arrest brought emotions that were difficult to describe. Kathy had spent years refusing. Refusing to let the case fade away. Before Dorothy Hesse died in 2007, she promised her aunt she would continue fighting for answers. I told her that I would not stop, Kathy said, that I would continue. Now at last it seemed that promise had led somewhere. For Ted Green, the arrest represented the culmination of years he tracked witnesses, reopened forgotten leads, searched the reservoir, and reassembled a fractured investigation. To finally see Ambrose arrested after all that time felt like validation.
SPEAKER_01They still don't have DNA on him though.
SPEAKER_00No, they don't. But the prosecutor still faced major problems. There was no murder weapon, no eyewitness to the killing, and no DNA conclusively tying Ambrose to Mary Kay's body or clothing. In fact, DNA recovered from her clothing had identified two unknown profiles that did not belong to Ambrose. Hairs from an unidentified female were also recovered from her coat, and defense attorneys quickly seized on those facts. And there were other problems. Evidence collected in 1969 had passed through countless hands over decades. Some documentation was incomplete. Certain witness statements contradicted one another. The defense challenged the prosecution on multiple fronts. This is where we're gonna get into the legal stuff. Ask you questions, I can't guarantee I'll know the answer, but Christopher might.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00No pressure. Ambrose's attorney filed motions seeking to dismiss the indictment entirely, arguing prosecutorial misconduct and insufficient evidence before the grand jury. Defense attorneys argued prosecutors withheld evidence showing Ambrose's DNA had been excluded from testing on Mary Kay's bloody clothing. Did they? I don't know.
SPEAKER_02So this is the thing. In Nebraska, specifically in Nebraska, before a grand jury, only the prosecution gets to put evidence forward. Right. And now they're supposed to present evidence that is both for their case and against their case, like the police would hear. You know, they provide everything to CPS and CPS decides, blah blah blah. So the defen the usually other states in America, the defense also gets to say, look at this evidence against indicting our client. Right. You shouldn't indict him, and then the jury decides. Okay. But in Nebraska, it's just the prosecution. And his defense team was arguing that the prosecution didn't put forward this evidence, so the jury made their decision based on, you know, prejudiced evidence, and therefore it should all get thrown out. So that was their argument.
SPEAKER_00Well, did they not put that evidence in? I don't know. Because that is a huge issue. Yeah, it is a huge issue. But I don't know. Right.
SPEAKER_02Well, uh I we didn't it didn't get to the point where it was argued in court, did it? Because of what you're gonna come to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so be quiet over there.
SPEAKER_02I just wanted to answer your question.
SPEAKER_01No, okay.
SPEAKER_00We'll get there. The defense also sought to remove both the Saunders County Attorney's Office and the Nebraska Attorney General's office from the case while attempting to block lead investigator Ted Green from testifying altogether.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I hope that wasn't successful because that's ridiculous. No, it wasn't.
SPEAKER_00By that point, a special prosecutor from outside Saunders County had already been appointed to assist with the case. He claimed prosecutors had failed to present certain evidence and have relied too heavily on hearsay testimony from witnesses recounting statements made decades earlier by people who were now deceased. Yeah. One witness who was still alive claimed Ambrose kept a skinning knife in his car around the time of the murder. Another testified before the grand jury that just days after Mary Kay's death, a bloody knife allegedly slipped from beneath the seat of Ambrose's vehicle.
SPEAKER_01Right. And and that person's still alive.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. As of the time that they testified.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00The defense also highlighted Ambrose's polygraph history. Eh. Although lie detector tests are widely considered unreliable today and are inadmissible at trial, Ambrose had reportedly passed two examinations shortly after the murder. Only a later test in 1999 showed possible signs of deception. There was also dispute surrounding the exhumation and DNA findings.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_00The prosecution argued the case had grown stronger over time through accumulated circumstantial evidence and witness testimony. Well, that's true. Yeah. The defense argued the opposite, that the passage of 55 years had made a f fair trial nearly impossible. Yeah, that's true too. Yep. I know. It's like you can see both sides.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I was even gonna say with that with that first one, if the lawyers genuinely didn't put that evidence in, like technically it should be completely thrown out.
SPEAKER_00It should be. If they didn't include it.
SPEAKER_01And no hearsay evidence should have been. I mean, if you were going on the the European Convention of Human Rights, which I know they're not, but like you you can't you can't put that stuff in from well, I mean, in certain circumstances, yes, you can, but like Article 6, right to a fair trial, right? You have the you should have the right to be able to cross-examine your witness. You can't just put all that stuff in and and and just have no No backing to it. Yeah. Yeah. No credibility analysis, no nothing. That's yeah. You can't you can't put that in. Well, maybe you can in Nebraska.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. Never been.
SPEAKER_01You must be able to, I guess.
SPEAKER_02Have you ever been indicted in Nebraska, Brittany?
SPEAKER_01Cancer. Maybe that's why she's here.
SPEAKER_02Oh that made a lot of sense. I see.
SPEAKER_00As the pre-trial proceedings dragged, prosecutors began confronting a difficult reality. Their case was weakening, not strengthening.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, it really is.
SPEAKER_00And if they lost, Joseph Ambrose might walk away fully acquitted.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I can't right now say I don't hate that idea. Because I mean, I know it's shit, but like we we you can't we don't have enough. No, there's not enough evidence. We don't know that guy killed her, even after we really don't. It's all hearsay. Well, and circumstantial. Yes. There's nothing, yeah, no.
SPEAKER_02Like if they can't be bothered to pull the car out, just pull the car out, and then you'll know.
SPEAKER_01Even then, I don't think we'd get anything.
SPEAKER_02I mean, you could just say, Yeah, I just got rid of my car, we crashed it into the river, you know.
SPEAKER_01I guess you didn't want to deal with it. Well, yeah, I mean it's aga it's just circumstantial. Maybe I mean, yeah, some juries might might go for that, but if I was sitting on that jury, I don't know if that would prove it beyond reasonable doubt for me. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Hearings became increasingly complicated. At one point, proceedings were delayed after the battery powering Ambrose's oxygen equipment failed inside the courtroom.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00And so behind closed doors, negotiations began.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. So he's gonna do what, five years, ten years or something, and then out.
SPEAKER_00On July 31st, 2025, Joseph Ambrose entered a Nebraska courtroom and agreed to a plea deal. It was not the resolution Mary Kay's family had imagined. Instead of pleaing guilty to first degree murder, Ambrose pled no contest to the reduced charge of conspiracy to commit first degree murder.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00For Mary Kay's relatives, the plea felt less like resolution than surrender.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if he should have done that because I don't think he would have been convicted if he had gone to trial.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah. And I think that's why the state took the plea deal. Mm-hmm. But also I can see from his perspective, if he's only got like a year left of life, he's on oxygen, etc., does he want to spend all that time in a murder trial?
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02Or does he want to say, yeah, okay, whatever. Here we go. I'll I'll plead guilty, we'll skip the trial, and I can enjoy the rest of my life, whatever.
SPEAKER_01Enjoy the rest of his life, but he still would go to prison for a no contest, right?
SPEAKER_00A no contest plea meant Ambrose did not formally admit guilt. He accepted punishment without confessing to the crime. Even more painful for Marik's relatives, the plea agreement required no explanation of what happened the night she died.
SPEAKER_01Oh, well, yeah, my I mean you can't have an explanation because he's not he's not admitting didn't do it, but he's saying they have enough to potentially get me.
SPEAKER_00It offered the family little clarity about what actually happened or who was inside the car with her. The agreement identified Wayne Greaser, dead since 77, as the second participant in the conspiracy. It it yeah. Whoa. Yeah. Saunders County attorney Jennifer Yoakum acknowledged we may never know the full extent of his and others' involvement because of the passage of time, but his plea, conviction, and punishment accounts for his responsibility in this tragic loss. For Kathy Toll and Mark Miller, the news felt like another betrayal. We thought there would be answers, and we thought there would be closure, Kathy said. We spent our whole lives with this and our family and watched everybody go through so much pain throughout the years. Mark Miller added, it makes it look like they threw this whole case out just like they threw out the trash, just like he put her in the ditch and left her like trash. The family said they had not been consulted about the plea deal beforehand. Kathy Toll said the family had wanted the case to proceed to trial and felt blindsided by the agreement.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's bad. That's bad, yeah.
SPEAKER_00They believed prosecutors abandoned the possibility of a murder conviction without giving Mary Kay's relatives input. Outside the courtroom, protests erupted. People gathered carrying signs reading justice for Mary Kay. Demonstrators criticized the plea agreement and argued that Ambrose was escaping true accountability because of his age and failing health. But prosecutors defended the decision. In a public statement after the plea hearing, Jennifer Yocam said, There is no question based on admissible evidence that Joseph Ambrose participated in Mary Kay Hesse's murder.
SPEAKER_02I don't think that's right though. I agree. Yeah. I think I think there's definitely a way out of that for him. I don't think a jury could find with the unreasonable doubt that he was involved.
SPEAKER_00Completely agree. Yeah. She explained publicly that the realities of the case forced difficult decisions. After reviewing the evidence and legal up obstacles, prosecutors believed obtaining a conviction at trial was far from guaranteed. He didn't want to die in prison, Kathy Toll said. She didn't want to die March 25th, 1969, either.
SPEAKER_01Um I think two years for no contest is what do you think about that? Does that feel long enough?
SPEAKER_00Even the conviction carried painful limitations because of one crucial detail. The law required sentencing to follow Nebraska statues as they existed when the murder happened.
SPEAKER_01Oh, when the murder happened, how interesting.
SPEAKER_00Under Nebraska law as it existed in 1969, the maximum sentence for conspiracy was only two years.
SPEAKER_01I think it's the same here. It's like the no baxies rule. See, I didn't realize that.
SPEAKER_02I think it's called ex post facto in Latin, but no baxies.
SPEAKER_01No baxis. Yeah. Yeah. So okay. Yeah. I think it's the same here.
SPEAKER_00Combined with sentence reductions under Nebraska's good time law and the time Ambrose had already spent in custody, the deal meant he would likely be released within months.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that was actually okay. That was a good deal for him then.
SPEAKER_00For Mary Kay's family, the outcome felt unbearable. Oh yeah, that sucks badly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's one way of putting it.
SPEAKER_00He'll get to have Christmas, Mark Miller said. He'll get to do those things where we've been without. We can take flowers to the cemetery, but 56 Christmases without Mary Kay. We all know this isn't justice. On August 27, 2025, the courtroom filled for sentencing. Joseph Ambrose appeared frail, connected to oxygen, and using headphones to hear the proceedings. One by one, her family delivered victim impact statements. Mark Miller spoke about Mary Kay as a cousin who protected younger family members and never had the chance to grow old. Kathy Toll spoke about decades of grief and the promise she made to Dorothy Hesse. And throughout it all, Ambrose remained silent. When the judge asked whether he wished to speak before sentencing, he said no. He gave no apology, no explanation, and no acknowledgement of Mary Kay. He might not have done it. The judge then imposed the maximum sentence allowed under the 1969 conspiracy, two years imprisonment. But everyone in the courtroom already understood what that meant. Ted Green, who devoted years of his life trying to solve the case, was devastated by the plea agreement and sentencing outcome. There's no justice for Mary Kay, he said afterward. There's no justice for the family. Green felt so disillusioned by the result that he retired almost immediately after the plea was entered. I laid my keys on the table and walked out, he said. I signed the papers to exhume her, Kathy Toll said. For this? Even after accepting the plea, Ambrose continued maintaining his innocence through his attorney, who claimed the elderly defendant accepted the deal primarily because his failing health made surviving a full trial uncertain. On November 15, 2025, Joseph Ambrose was released from prison, almost a year to the day after he was arrested. After fifty-six years of suspicion, investigation, and public speculation, the man legally connected to her murder walked free. The case may have ended with a conviction, yet many questions surrounding her death remain unanswered. What exactly happened inside the car that night? Did she willingly agree to go with the men, or was she pressured? What was Wayne Greaser's precise role? Who inflicted the fatal stab wounds? And why, after all these decades, could no one fully explain the truth in open court? For her relatives, the emotional wound never truly closed. The plea agreement denied them the public reckoning they had imagined. Instead of certainty, they were left with fragments. But despite everything, she was never forgotten. In February 2026, CBS's 48 Hours aired a nationally televised episode titled The Girl from Wahoo, bringing attention to her story. Highly recommend watching this on YouTube for free. Millions watched as investigators, family members, and prosecutors revisited the events of March 25th, 1969. Viewers saw photographs of the shy teenage girl who wanted nothing more than to fit in at school and attend a dance. They heard about the frozen footprints, the abandoned books, and the years of silence. They heard about the aging investigators who refused to give up. And at the center of it all remained Mary Kay Hessey, forever 17. Wow.
SPEAKER_01Poor Mary Kay. Thanks for such a victim-centred episode as well. Like that we got to learn a lot about Mary Kay. I understand the feelings of the family with that plea deal. Yeah. I don't know that it would have been any different had it gone to trial.
SPEAKER_00I know.
SPEAKER_01I agree. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, American juries.
SPEAKER_02Fucking hang him.
SPEAKER_01But uh, but yeah, I I don't I I don't know if I could have convicted had I been on that jury.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I think there was also pressure because of the the um legal challenge to the indictment that we talked about, because that was never decided. The plea deal was taken before that was decided.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So that was also weighing on the prosecution. They obviously weren't 100% they were even going to win that case. Nah. Nah. It doesn't seem like justice that because he got out after a year, right?
SPEAKER_00He wasn't even in prison for a full year. Right. It was just a couple months.
SPEAKER_02Because it was time served and then Is it better to have that on his record, have someone convicted rather than go to trial and be acquitted? Be acquitted, or even have the entire indictment thrown out and it's definitely better than him being acquitted. Which I think would have happened if it gone to trial.
SPEAKER_00I think he would have been acquitted.
SPEAKER_02Even though I'm not, you know, I'm not 100% he did it.
SPEAKER_00Me neither. Like I may sound bad. I want to be. I want to say yes, we have the answer is yes, this is it genuinely may still not be. It might not be him.
SPEAKER_01Maybe he did put the car in the lake. Maybe it was because he heard that people had said that she got into a car similar to his and he freaked out. Yeah. It could be.
SPEAKER_02As much as it seems callous of him not to say anything at the at the sentencing hearing as well when he was asked. If he's innocent. Well, that's the thing. If he's innocent and if he's pleading no contest, anything he says there, they could say, Oh, well, you're you're saying sorry, that means you're guilty. And then I know. Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And maybe the fight between him and Greason that was seen was Greason being like, Did you do something to that girl? Because I've heard what you've been saying about her, and he's like, No, I really didn't, and they had a fight about it. Like, maybe do you know what I mean? Like, yeah. Just as much as we can pin it on he did it, we can also make sense if he didn't as well. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So it's just not.
SPEAKER_00We'll never know.
SPEAKER_01I mean, what do you think?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. I genuinely I don't know. Like, I want to believe that it was him. I mean, there's an answer to this thing that's gone unsolved for so many years. But realistically, he probably did. He probably did, but we don't have the evidence.
SPEAKER_01But we don't have the evidence. It's also it's not necessarily anybody's fault, even that we haven't been able to convict anyone of this murder in so long. At the end of the day, if she ran away before anyone could sexually assault her, then the DNA just isn't there. You know, if the if something happened to the car or whoever actually did it the car was never found, the evidence just isn't there. You know, if the if the if the evidence isn't there, like there's little you can do. I'm sure there's maybe some things like properly going down the path with the footprint, but even then it's just a standard boot, nine and a half. Like we can't pull evidence out our bottoms. Bottoms. Yes. You know, so I don't think it's necessarily anybody's fault that we didn't get there either. Except for the person who did it, obviously, but yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02What do you think, Chris? I don't think that well, certainly there's not enough evidence to say he did it. I'm I'm leaning towards maybe he didn't. Really? Really? I can certainly see the evidence well, I can certainly see the argument that he didn't do it. I think it might have been Wayne and he was somehow involved, which you know would make the conspiracy to murder probably the right conviction. Um it's a difficult one. Yeah. But they really need to get some more evidence. They need to stump up the cache, pull out that car, see if there's DNA or anything. I don't even know if there's a car in there, man.
SPEAKER_01I think it's just bits at this point. Well, no, I don't know if the car was ever put in there. Well, they found the evidence. They only found some blue fabric. Could be a quick one.
SPEAKER_02And there isn't actually a car down there.
SPEAKER_01Well, no, I think they believe there's a car down there. But I mean, I guess we don't know for sure there is one. Well what could well not be.
SPEAKER_00Both episodes on YouTube. Okay. Your mind might be changed. I do believe there's a car down there. There's a car down there, okay. Or something. Shall I read my sources?
SPEAKER_01Yes, thank you.
SPEAKER_00CBS News, Find a Grave, NBC News, Nebraska Public Media, First Alert Six, Crime Timelines, Hunslow Herald, 48 Hours, The Girl from Wahoo, Adventures with Purpose, Lincoln Journal Star, York News Times, The Sioux City Journal, Star Herald, Omaha World Herald, and the Fremont Tribune. Thank you. You're welcome.
SPEAKER_01Tune in next week for a real good tale.