Jon Keith Miller, 84, was sentenced to life in prison March 27, 2024 for the 1974 murder of Mary Schlais, who he stabbed more than a dozen times and dumped in a Wisconsin snowbank.
The sentencing culminated the 50-year search for her killer 鈥� and led investigators to Miller's Owatonna assisted living facility apartment, where he confessed to the murder.
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A Forum News Service investigation traced Miller's known history 鈥� from his high school graduation to the day of his arrest.
Public records and an interview with his first ex-wife helped fill in the gaps.
Click below to see documentation from his stay at St. Cloud's Minnesota State Reformatory for Men, stemming from two forgery convictions in 1959 and 1960.
Miller was paroled on Jan. 7, 1963, and discharged from parole on Jan. 22, 1965.
After being released on parole, he married his first wife on Oct. 19, 1963.
In an interview with Forum News Service, Miller's first wife said he inflicted severe acts of violence, including one incidence in which he severely damaged her jaw and dragged her body down a street.
In addition to violence, Miller would often disappear without communicating his whereabouts, according to his first wife.
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During one of those vanishing acts, while still married, Miller was arrested in Arizona for robbing the Flagstaff Auto Supply store on Sept. 1, 1965.
A newspaper article in the Arizona Daily Sun states that cigarettes found on Miller led Flagstaff police to contact law enforcement in Austin, Minn.
Law enforcement there were looking for a person who burglarized the DeBrock Service Station and stole $275, a shotgun and a carton of cigarettes.
Miller denied having anything to do with the Austin burglary, but admitted he kicked in the glass door of the Flagstaff Auto Supply store and burglarized it.
In 1966, Miller's first wife filed for divorce while he was in prison, citing cruel and inhuman treatment. Below is an excerpt from the divorce papers.
Miller, who was to serve a two- to three-year prison sentence, was released after 13 months.
By 1967, he had made his way to California, where, before his 1969 arrest for armed robbery, he was convicted for petty theft. He was also arrested for burglary, but that charge was dismissed.
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In 1969, Miller was convicted for armed robbery after he used a loaded gun to threaten a convenience store clerk.
Below are court documents related to his conviction and sentencing.
Miller was released from California's San Quentin prison on May 5, 1972. A marriage application filed in 1973 displays a Minneapolis suburb address as his place of residence.
On Feb. 15, 1974, less than two years after being released from San Quentin prison, Miller picked up 25-year-old Mary Schlais in Uptown Minneapolis. When she refused his sexual advances, he stabbed her more than a dozen times before throwing her body in a rural Wisconsin snowbank.
Samples of DNA were obtained from a winter hat left at the scene. Years later, forensic genealogy traced the sample to Miller. He was arrested on Nov. 7, 2024 at an Owatonna assisted living facility.
During his arrest last fall, Miller confessed to killing Schlais. During his March court hearing, he pleaded no contest and was sentenced in March to life in prison for Schlais' death.
Miller's known criminal history from 1974 to his arrest in 2024 includes just two arrests.
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In 1994, he was arrested and convicted for driving under the influence of alcohol. In 2014, he was convicted in Iowa for possession of drug paraphernalia and public intoxication.
Miller moved to the Owatonna assisted living facility just months before his arrest for Schlais' murder.
In the decade before that, Miller resided in an Austin, Minn. apartment building, located across the street from the Austin Police Department.
A representative from the Austin Police Department told Forum News Service they had no documented contact with Miller in his decade of residence.
Miller is currently serving his life sentence at the Dodge Correctional Facility in Wisconsin.
Miller's history is highlighted in
"Joli Truelson: Connecting the Dots," a 5-part series on The Vault podcast
.
The Trust Project
