Justice Finally Served: Arrest and Conviction in the 50 Year Old Cold Case Murder of Mary Schlais

In February 1974, the body of 25-year-old Mary Schlais was found stabbed to death on a Wisconsin roadside. Five decades later, DNA clues left at the scene helped identify and convict her killer

Background

On the afternoon of February 15, 1974, the body of 25-year-old Mary Kathleen Schlais of Minneapolis, Minnesota, was found face down in the snow near a roadside in rural Spring Brook Township in Dunn County, Wisconsin.

She had been stabbed more than a dozen times and had a broken nose and other injuries. Despite the frigid temperature, when investigators arrived on the scene, her body was still warm. This meant that the murder had occurred very recently, possibly within the hour.

The police had received a call from a man who had observed what appeared to be two people fighting. When he returned to the area, he saw a body partially buried in the snow. Though he was able to provide a partial description of the suspect and his car, sadly, it would take another five decades for the killer to finally be unmasked.