Jon Keith Miller 鈥檚 confession to the 1974 murder of 25-year-old Mary Schlais can be heard on The Vault podcast鈥檚 current season, 鈥淛oli Truelson: Connecting the Dots.鈥�
Faced with one count of first-degree murder, Miller, 84, pleaded no contest March 27 in a Dunn County, Wis. courtroom. He was sentenced to life in prison.
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Miller has been questioned by the Minneapolis Police Department in connection to the 1972 slaying of 16-year-old Joli Truelson.
Miller has been questioned in Joli Truelson's 1972 murder.
Both girls hitchiked in Uptown Minneapolis before being killed. Schlais' body was dumped in a Wisconsin snowbank. Joli's body was found in Minneapolis' Minnehaha Creek.
Jon Keith Miller was arrested for Schlais' murder in November 2024 after DNA analysis confirmed at the scene. Before confessing to investigators, he repeatedly denied killing Mary.
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Schlais was hitchhiking from Uptown Minneapolis to Chicago when she accepted a ride from Miller on Feb. 15, 1974. She was stabbed more than 16 times before her body was dumped in a snowbank on a rural Dunn County, Wis. road.
Truelson was last seen hitchhiking on July 3, 1972 in Uptown Minneapolis. Her body was found the following day in nearby Minnehaha Creek.
For decades, Truelson鈥檚 family members believed her murder could be connected to Schlais鈥� case. This series of The Vault examines the possible connections 鈥� and digs into Miller鈥檚 personal and criminal history.
In the midst of the quest to find out who killed Truelson, the podcast series captures audio from Miller鈥檚 sentencing hearing for the murder of Schlais 鈥� and his Nov. 4, 2024 arrest.
For more than 50 years, Miller flew under the radar while Dunn County investigators pursued Schlais鈥� killer. In the decades before his arrest, he lived quietly in an Austin, Minn. apartment, across the street from the police station.
Less than a month after being sent to an Owatonna, Minn., assisted living facility, Dunn County Sheriff鈥檚 Office investigators knocked on his door.
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In the end, it all came down to a winter hat Miller left at the scene.
DNA extracted from the hat led to a genetic profile. In coordination with the genealogy program at New Jersey鈥檚 Ramapo College, investigators were able to build a family tree, eventually leading to Miller.
In the wake of his sentencing, Miller is now being considered for a number of other cold cases from the Minnesota and Wisconsin areas.
Joli Truelson: Connecting the Dots asks the question: Was Schlais his only victim?
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