VAULT - 1970s

Their grandmother vanished in the woods in 1975. They refuse to give up their search for answers

Tracy Briggs — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 20:00:00 GMT

BAD MEDICINE LAKE, Minn. — Like so many counties in Minnesota, Becker County is home to the familiar trappings of lake life — modern cabins, gleaming pontoons and jet skis that slice across the water.

But turn off County Road 37 and Black Bear Beach Road, and you’re in a different world.

The old logging trail seems a million miles from civilization.

The word "remote" doesn’t quite do it justice.

Here, near Bad Medicine Lake, it’s not unusual to spot a wolf or a bear, and the mosquitoes and ticks outnumber people by the thousands.

Still, on this dreary, overcast day, three Minnesota sisters have left the comfort of their homes to trek deep into the dense forest. They walk with the sheriff hoping to get closer to solving the case of their missing grandmother, a mystery that has haunted their family for 50 years.

June 17, 1975

In the early afternoon of June 17, 1975, former church secretary Milda McQuillan, 71, left her Round Lake home to visit friends at their cabin on Bad Medicine Lake, less than a half-hour away. It was raining, and the country roads were muddy.

A few miles into her journey, McQuillan's car stalled. A postman stopped to help her. Not long after, she took a wrong turn and was helped again — this time by a truck driver who pointed her in the right direction. He would be the last person known to see her.

That evening, when McQuillan didn’t return home, her sister Ida, with whom she lived, called Milda’s daughter, Carol Hinze. Carol then contacted her brother Dennis McQuillan, and the two drove from the Twin Cities to join law enforcement in searching for their mother.

Two days later, after an extensive ground and air search — including efforts from National Guard troops — Milda's pea-green 1968 Dodge sedan was found stuck in the mud on an old logging trail about three-quarters of a mile from her friends' cabin. A coat belt and plastic rain cap were found slung over some bushes nearby. There was no trace of Milda.

Then the trail went cold. For decades.

From dusty file to renewed search

In 1975, 9-year-old Todd Glander was growing up in Detroit Lakes, often hunting in the same woods where Milda McQuillan vanished. He never forgot her story.

By 2014, he was in a position to act — he'd just been elected sheriff of Becker County.

“I took those dusty case files, went to my investigative unit and I said, 'I want to do whatever we can do to find some answers',” he said.

That’s when he met the three women walking beside him in the woods today — Milda McQuillan's granddaughters: Lori Voigt of Arlington, Jo Cornell of Hackensack and Michelle Donahue of Mayer.

They were 17, 15, and 11 when their grandmother vanished.

They still remember the good times with their Grandma Milda — reading Raggedy Ann books, playing cards and helping her in the kitchen. Summers with her meant something.

Today, the sisters even wear matching T-shirts from the Ice Cracking Lodge, a local place they'd go for laughter-filled nights together.

“She’d get a Grain Belt and give us money to play the bowling machines. She was a lot of fun!” Voigt said with a smile.

A walk back to the woods

The sisters first joined Glander in 2017 at this site where their grandmother’s car had been found back in 1975. Now, they’re returning to the same logging trail, asking more questions, hoping something new will surface.

The forest has grown so thick that cars can’t pass. They ride with Deputy Adam Douglas in a side-by-side off-road vehicle to reach the swampy area where the Dodge was spotted a half-century ago.

In a twist of irony, the woods are stunning, lush and alive with color. Woodland ferns unfurl beside wild columbine and violets along the path, while cedar and birch trees either tower overhead or lie scattered across the forest floor. It’s both beautiful and heartbreaking.

“I’m going to cry. I’m so appreciative that the sheriff is willing to help us find some answers. He always calls back, always,” Donahue said, tearing up. “I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing to recognize the sheriff’s voice on the phone," she added with a laugh.

The sisters have compiled a detailed scrapbook of clippings and theories. Glander’s team has used cadaver dogs and sonar to search nearby lakes. Still, no definitive answers.

Puzzling clues and lingering theories

The most baffling detail, the family says, is how Milda’s car ended up so deep in the woods.

“There’s no way my grandmother would have driven her car out this far,” Cornell said.

The family suspects someone moved the car there, especially since aerial searches done the day before showed nothing in that location.

The coat belt and rain bonnet also appeared after earlier ground searches in that same area had turned up nothing.

“That cheap plastic rain hat could have blown from anywhere, but the belt had a heavy buckle on it, so I don't think we would have missed it the day before. We felt like that was planted out there to keep us in that area,” Hinze said.

Another theory involves two young men who were stealing boat motors in the area at the time.

“They recovered all but one of the stolen motors,” Voigt said in 2017. "So the theory is they used that last motor to sink her in the lake.”

The men were questioned and passed lie detector tests and were released.

Dennis McQuillan also shares a conversation he had with an Elbow Lake store clerk about his mother's disappearance. The clerk said she saw an older white woman matching Milda’s description come into the store with a 20-something Native American couple.

“The lady at Elbow Lake store told the older white woman that a lady of her description was reported missing and the lady said ‘I know — that’s me!’” said Dennis.

Hinze said the clerk even described her mother's blouse as having blue vertical stripes — details that had not been released to the public.

“Nobody ever discussed this with her (the store clerk) because they said she was known to make up stories. It made me mad,” said Hinze.

A family that won’t give up

The pain of not knowing has lingered for five decades. Dennis still remembers the heartbreak of leaving the area two weeks after the search.

“Leaving Round Lake/Bad Medicine after two-and-a-half weeks without finding Mom and feeling like I was washing my hands of my mom, who raised me. My mom never gave up on me, and now I was giving up on her,” Dennis said.

But the family never gave up.

Dennis and his wife recently visited from Florida just a week before the granddaughters came here from their homes in other parts of Minnesota. Hinze no longer returns to the site.

“I’m glad my kids still go up there, and I just can't do it anymore. I just can't. It was too depressing, wondering what happened. I just hope she didn’t suffer too much,” Hinze said.

They know, of course, that Milda is dead. She would be 121 years old today. Many of the people involved in the original case are also gone.

Still, Sheriff Glander and the family believe there may be someone out there — maybe even a child or teen at the time — who might remember the smallest detail from that overcast June day.

“We always feel that somebody knows something. We just hold out for a little bit of evidence that we can follow up,” Glander said. “We just want people to know that we’ll never quit searching. None of us will give up hope that we can find something, some kind of an answer to what happened.”

Did you see anything?

What: Disappearance of Milda McQuillan

When: June 17, 1975

Where: Near Bad Medicine Lake, Becker County, Minnesota

If you have any information, call the Becker County Sheriff’s Office at 218-847-2661.

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How a Halloween grave robbery led investigators to a dancer, two college students and a missing head

C.S. Hagen — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 14:55:00 GMT

WHITE ROCK, SD — As a senior in high school in 1969, Steve Johnson was a little bit of everything. He was a student and played wide receiver on the nearby Rosholt High �� football team. He helped embalm corpses at the local funeral home and drove ambulances. He worked the family furniture store business and he listened when a hysterical woman came in the day after Halloween.

“I was in the furniture store and we were unloading La-Z-Boys and this woman came in and she was really wound up. She said somebody dug up a grave at the cemetery. My dad said she was nuts, and I told him we better go out there anyway,” Johnson told Forum News Service in a recent interview.

The sight at Lake View Cemetery was true, and gruesome.

“We went out there and sure enough the grave was dug up, it was Halloween night they did this, and we called the sheriff and coroner. We buried this man. His name was Warner Wilson. He was a farmer and an old bachelor,” Johnson said.

“Usually, we buried people in cement vaults, but that was a wooden vault we used to bury him,” said Johnson. As he stood over the grave, he realized the culprits had to be close to home.

“Somebody had to have been at that funeral to know. They smashed that crate and took the head off,” Johnson said.

Johnson knew Wilson, a humble, elderly farmer and lifelong bachelor.

“We had buried him a couple years earlier, and this bothered me. The sheriff came out and the coroner, we took the body back to the funeral home in a body bag to try and find the head,” Johnson said.

White Rock

Wilson was born to Swedish immigrants, Swan and Hannah Wilson, who bought third class tickets on the S.S. St. Louis to Ellis Island, New York, in 1901, according to the U.S. Immigration records. Their ship was the same ocean liner that 38 years later brought more than 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi terror to American shores, but was turned away. Many of those on board were later sent to concentration camps, according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia.

A farmer, like his father before him, Wilson was 57 when signed up for the draft during World War II. By the 1950s, his younger brother, Ben, lived with him on the family farm passed down from his parents, and subsequent immigration records noted that they reported their birthplaces as Minnesota.

The township of White Rock, once a bustling frontier village along the Bois de Sioux River, which defines part of the border between Minnesota and both South Dakota and North Dakota. The town was named after a pale granite boulder lying near the Fargo line of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway.

Founded by Swedish settlers in 1884, it once had about 600 people who built churches, saloons, banks, stores and schools. When the railway moved, the businesses left.

By 1969, the year Wilson’s grave was unearthed, White Rock was nearly a ghost town. One watering hole, named Helen's Bar, was still open, and on the weekends it was a magnet for teenagers who hit the 18-year-old milestone from Minnesota and North Dakota, where the drinking age was 21.

“On certain nights of the week, two or three towns would meet in White Rock, and there were no police around. There could be 1,000 kids on the weekend there, they would come across the border to drink,” Johnson said.

The investigation

The Roberts County Sheriff’s Office told Forum News Service that they no longer had the case file on the grave robbing incident. The investigating officers, who have since died, spent two weeks investigating the incident, according to news reports in 1970.

Johnson remembered that one of the suspects was struck by a guilty conscience and confessed. Two students from the North Dakota �� of Science at Wahpeton, North Dakota, were given LSD or mind-altering drugs by a female nightclub entertainer who worked in Fargo, North Dakota, Johnson said.

“One of the boys, it was probably his conscience that got to him, came down off the acid, and he must have told somebody where the head was. It was out on a farm in an old shed,” Johnson said.

News reports at the time made no mention of why the head was taken, but Johnson said the crime was committed for a satanic ritual.

“She was a witch, she was into devil worship. She wanted that head for rituals. Those poor kids ... were stupid," Johnson said. "I’m sure she was cute. She found a couple kids, and I think their testosterone was going pretty well."

The two-week investigation started in a Wahpeton nightclub “first as a heckling of the girl’s act and then as a dare that magnified into a bizarre action,” The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead reported. Police arrested Eddeana Belle Wood, 22, Colorado Springs, Colorado, the Fargo night club entertainer better known as “Dusty” Wood; along with two college students.

All three were charged with “wanton and malicious removal of part or all of a dead body,” according to the Grand Forks Herald.

The trio were sentenced in South Dakota to serve two years probation and ordered to repay $1,090 in costs for their grave robbery.

“The three admitted entering a rural White Rock, SD, cemetery in the early morning hours last Oct. 30 and opening the grave of a man buried there. The head of the corpse was recovered several days later at a vacant farm near Breckenridge, Minn.,” The Forum reported on June 12, 1970.

The head of the corpse was about 80 years old, according to The Forum. A mound of fresh dirt attracted the attention of a passing farmer. “No attempt had been made to cover the coffin,” The Forum reported.

After their arrests, they all had to pay $2.50 per day for room and board while at the Roberts County Jail in South Dakota.

“It was sad. That poor man was very humble," Johnson said. "I knew him. And to have that happen is just sad."

Johnson continued: “Everybody knew what happened, and I don’t think they knew what to do with these guys. It sounds far-fetched, but that’s what drugs will do to people.”

Three years later

Wood was caught in a “large round up” of known drug offenders in Fargo in October 1972, according to The Forum.

Wood, whose last name had become Iverson, was caught selling amphetamine tablets, and was sentenced to one year in jail.

She spent part of her sentence aboard a state-owned airplane after Judge Ralph Maxwell sentenced her to the all-male North Dakota State Farm in Bismarck, North Dakota, a place where those found guilty of misdemeanors would sometimes go and work. The farm was renamed the Missouri River Correctional Center in 1991, according to the State Historical Society of North Dakota.

Before she could get settled in on the 45-man dormitory — which had no separate services for women — Robert Landon, the warden at the North Dakota State Penitentiary, sent her and another woman by car to a women’s prison in Yankton, South Dakota.

Not long after, Landon had to answer for his decision to Maxwell in court, and said if he had the chance to change his decision, he still would have sent them away, according to multiple newspaper reports in March 1973.

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The strides and struggles of North Dakota's first marathon

Rob Beer — Thu, 08 May 2025 18:55:00 GMT

GRAND FORKS — It was the little marathon that could, until it couldn’t.

But as it neared its 10-year anniversary, the North Dakota Marathon had a difficult time being recognized in its own community, even with front-page coverage in its daily newspaper. Five years later, as the number of runners dwindled, the marathon itself crossed its own finish line.

Running from 1972 to 1985, the North Dakota Marathon wasn’t a marathon to begin with, at least by distance. The brainchild of Eric T. Parker, a running enthusiast from East Grand Forks, Minnesota, he formed the first race in 1972 after running a 10-miler in Brainerd, Minnesota, and brought the idea back home.

Marathon running was just in its infancy around the region. A marathon in Brookings, South Dakota, was in its third year while Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth (1977) and the Manitoba Marathon (1979) were not even conceived yet.

Breakout Info

Did you know? Dick Beardsley finished second in the 1978 North Dakota Marathon. Four years later he famously finished second in the Boston Marathon.

In 1972, there were very few marathons in the U.S. to begin with, though the country was on the verge of a running boom with Frank Shorter winning a gold medal at the Olympics.

That year, the 10th-largest marathon, according to Runners World, was the Island Marathon in Portland, Oregon, with 173 participants. The 25th-largest marathon was at the Drake Relays in Iowa with 89 runners. Only the Boston Marathon had more than 1,000 runners at the time.

The first North Dakota Marathon in 1972 was a 15-mile run, captured by Marv Kluvers of Litchville, North Dakota, with a time of 1 hour, 22 minutes and 56 seconds. Forty-two runners began the race, 29 finished. Moya Cooley of Grand Forks won the women's race — she was the only female runner — and beat 13 men who failed to complete the race.

Kluvers was a middle-distance runner at Dickinson State University at the time, and with a cousin and her husband attending the University of North Dakota, Kluvers came to Grand Forks to run the race.

“It was a good excuse to get away from the farm work for a weekend,” he told the Sports Time Machine.

It was a grassroots effort, to say the least.

An illustration by Earl Battle that appeared in the June 26, 1981 Grand Forks Herald about the first North Dakota Marathon in 1972. Newspapers.com. Click on image for link to original story.

“No, I didn’t coordinate anything with the police,” Parker said in a 1981 interview recalling the first race. “Man, it (the race) was chaotic. But before we started, I sort of asked the runners if they’d try to run on the sidewalks.”

Chaotic indeed, like a Burlington Northern train that stopped some runners in their tracks during the run. The only water stop was Parker’s mom offering a water hose along the way. “I figured there were enough gas stations and places along the way that the runners could stop to get a drink,” Parker said in 1981. Or the fact Parker, who also was running in the race, had to stop his run and hitch a ride to the finish line so he could help his race official Mark Paulsen record times.

“All he had was a stopwatch,” Parker recalled. “I hadn’t given him a clipboard, paper or pencil to record the times and finishers and the first two guys were already in.”

By 1973, the race expanded to 20 miles. By 1974, runners went the full 26.2-marathon distance and became the state's first official marathon.

In terms of numbers, the highwater mark was in 1978 when 386 runners competed in the full or half marathon. Jim Miller, a former Grand Forks Red River cross country runner who won the half marathon in 1976, won the full marathon for the second year in a row.

Miller’s record-breaking 2:26:58 time in 1978 beat second-year marathoner Dick Beardsley of Wayzata by almost five minutes.

Four years later, Beardsley went on to finish second in the Boston Marathon, losing to Alberto Salazar by just 2 seconds in the famous “Duel in the Sun” race. Miller, meanwhile, also made a mark in the marathon world in 2000 when he joined an elite group of runners to have sub three-hour marathon times in six different decades.

The winning North Dakota marathon time continued to drop. Tom Stambaugh (2:26:40 in 1981) and Paul LeBlanc (2:26:17 in 1984) held the men’s record until ultra-marathoner Tom Zimmerman of St. Cloud finished with 2:25:02 in the 1985 finale. In the women’s division, Therese Vogel threatened to go sub-three when she ran a 3:00:18 for the standing record in 1982.

While the names of Miller, Beardsley, Clint Chamberlin, Larry Seethaler, Jan Arenz and Debbie Kosmatka all have their foothold on the marathon’s history, so do Tom Devine Jr. and Joe Cleary, who ran the race every year. According to the Herald, Devine woke up just 10 minutes before the 1985 event but arrived at the starting line in time and finished ninth. His best finish over the course of the North Dakota Marathon was second place.

The downfall

The North Dakota Marathon had a difficult time gaining a foothold in its own community, despite admirable coverage throughout the years in its city’s newspaper. The telling sign of the marathon was in 1981 when a Grand Forks Chamber of Commerce spokesman was asked about the economic impact of the race.

“What marathon?” was the reply.

This was after three of the marathon’s largest fields, including the 292 runners who ran in either the full or half marathon in 1981.

Grand Forks Herald executive sports editor Eric Kinkopf did a comparison of three marathons in this June 7, 1981 story. Newspapers.com. Click on image for link to original story.

By 1982, the New York City Marathon had grown to 13,599 runners while Grandma’s in Duluth was the nation's seventh largest at 4,086. The budget for Grandma’s had grown to $50,000 for the 1981 race.

Meanwhile, the North Dakota Marathon crept along with a $2,800 budget in 1981. It was a hard sell to advertisers and some runners.

“When runners call long distance (the race has been advertised in some running magazines) and ask about the race, I tell them it’s not a great course,” said Cal Murdock, the North Dakota Marathon race director in 1981. “I don’t want somebody traveling here from Colorado or Illinois and ending up being disappointed.”

“It’s a regional race,” Eric Parker said after the 1985 — and eventual final — North Dakota Marathon. “When we started this, the goal wasn’t to make it the biggest or the best or gaudiest race around. It was to have the runners come and enjoy themselves. And I’d certainly like to think that they do.”

The YMCA, the longtime sponsor of the race, was $600 in the red after the 1984 race. When the race didn’t return in 1986, Lyle Oechsle, the executive director of the Grand Forks Y Family Center, said no one seemed to care.

“Nobody has said a word to me about the marathon,” Oechsle told the Herald in 1986. “Nobody has asked why we aren’t running it. And that includes runners. We just haven’t developed a local interest in it.”

In 1982, Bismarck hosted its first marathon and is the state’s longest-running marathon. A year later, Fargo and Minot held marathons as well. In 2005, the Fargo Marathon began and became the state’s largest race.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Marv Kluvers.

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Records: Before he killed, Jon Keith Miller showed violent streak

Trisha Taurinskas — Mon, 05 May 2025 14:55:00 GMT

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 — and led investigators to Miller's Owatonna assisted living facility apartment, where he confessed to the murder.

A Forum News Service investigation traced Miller's known history — 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.

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.

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.

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Click the image above to view part 1.

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Click the image above to view part 2.

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Click the image above to view part 3.

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.

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.

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Read the investigative documents related to the 1972 slaying of Joli Truelson

Trisha Taurinskas — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 18:55:00 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS — Investigative documents related to the 1972 slaying of 16-year-old Joli Truelson show the Minneapolis Police Department destroyed and failed to document evidence.

Truelson was found dead on July 4, 1972 in the shallow waters of Minnehaha Creek, hours after she hitched a ride in Uptown Minneapolis . She died from blunt force trauma to the back of her head.

Her case has never been solved — and is now closed.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension report details three samples that were taken in for lab testing, including a hammer discovered in the trunk of a vehicle pulled over by law enforcement the day after Truelson's death.

There is no mention of the hammer — or the stop — in the Minneapolis Police Department file.

The hammer had what appeared to be possible spots of blood on the handle, according to the BCA report. Lab testing at the time determined the spots did not originate from human blood.

Samples from a pool of blood discovered near Truelson's body and a blood-soaked portion of a shirt found at the scene were tested.

The samples yielded two blood type results: Type A and Type O.

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Click the image above to view the BCA lab documents.

The Minneapolis Police Department investigative file for Truelson's case does not include results of BCA testing.

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Click the image above to view the Minneapolis Police Department report.

Minneapolis Police Department Sgt. Mark Suchta interviewed a potential suspect in Truelson's case in 2024, following the arrest of Jon K Miller for the 1974 slaying of 25-year-old Mary Schlais.

Both Truelson and Schlais were picked up while hitchhiking in Uptown Minneapolis. Schlais' body, which had sustained more than a dozen stab wounds, was found in a Wisconsin ditch.

Miller pleaded no contest and received a life sentence in March for the murder of Schlais.

The brief interview, featured in a recent Vault podcast series about Truelson, did not lead to a confession.

In an April meeting with the Minneapolis Police Department, family members of Truelson were told her case is closed — and they will not question Miller again.

Listen to the full five-part Joli Truelson: Connecting the Dots podcast series, which includes information found in these documents, by clicking here. The series is also available on all major podcast platforms.

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Podcast series looks to connect the dots in girl's 1972 murder

Trisha Taurinskas — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 13:40:00 GMT

It's been nearly 53 years since Joli Truelson was last seen alive by friends on July 3, 1972, when she hitchhiked a ride from Lake Calhoun in Uptown Minneapolis.

The following day, on the Fourth of July, her 16-year-old body was found — with fatal blows to the back of the head — in the shallow waters of Minneapolis' Minnehaha Creek. Her case has never been solved.

However, the case has striking similarities to another case that took investigators five decades to solve.

A new five-part podcast series takes listeners behind the scenes of a live investigation that examines circumstances surrounding Truelson's murder — and homes in on one potential suspect: Jon Keith Miller.

Police arrested Miller, 84, last fall for the 1974 slaying of 25-year-old Mary Schlais, who was also picked up hitchhiking in Uptown Minneapolis. Her body was discovered in a rural Dunn County, Wisconsin, snowbank hours later. She had been stabbed more than a dozen times.

Miller entered a "no contest" plea in March, and the conviction closes the chapter on a crime that went unsolved for more than 50 years.

The series, "Joli Truelson: Connecting the Dots," is the latest release from The Vault, a true-crime investigative podcast from Forum Communication Co.

The series features audio from Miller's Nov. 7, 2024, arrest — and confession — at an Owatonna assisted living facility for the murder of Schlais. Listeners hear that Miller first denied having anything to do with Schlais' murder, before eventually breaking down and confessing.

The podcast also includes audio of Miller being interviewed by a Minneapolis Police Department investigator for Truelson's death, along with audio from Miller's sentencing for the murder of Schlais.

In addition to the live footage, the podcast series takes listeners through Truelson's official Minneapolis Police Department investigative file, along with the corresponding forensics report, prepared by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Miller's criminal history — and timeline — is also on display in this series.

An interview with one of Miller's survivors — his ex-wife — illustrates the type of violence Miller inflicted in the past. Court documents related to his known crimes, including a 1969 armed robbery, give listeners insight into the mind of Miller, who told one probation agent he believed he should be committed to a psychiatric institution.

Throughout the five-part series, the podcast aims to connect the dots in Truelson's case and Miller's known timeline of events — all while asking the questions: Did Miller have the means, motive and opportunity to kill Truelson?

Truelson's family weighs in on that question, too.

"Joli Truelson: Connecting the Dots" is available on The Vault podcast. It can be found wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Killer's arrest footage featured in The Vault podcast series

Trisha Taurinskas — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 13:55:00 GMT

Jon Keith Miller’s confession to the 1974 murder of 25-year-old Mary Schlais can be heard on The Vault podcast’s current season, “Joli Truelson: Connecting the Dots.”

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.

Miller has been questioned by the Minneapolis Police Department in connection to the 1972 slaying of 16-year-old Joli Truelson.

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’s family members believed her murder could be connected to Schlais’ case. This series of The Vault examines the possible connections — and digs into Miller’s personal and criminal history.

In the midst of the quest to find out who killed Truelson, the podcast series captures audio from Miller’s sentencing hearing for the murder of Schlais — and his Nov. 4, 2024 arrest.

For more than 50 years, Miller flew under the radar while Dunn County investigators pursued Schlais’ 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’s Office investigators knocked on his door.

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’s 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?

The Vault can be found here and on all major podcast platforms.

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Jon Keith Miller sentenced to life in prison for the 1974 murder of Mary Schlais

Trisha Taurinskas — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 22:47:22 GMT

DUNN COUNTY, Wisc — Jon Keith Miller, 84, pleaded no contest Thursday, March 27 to the 1974 murder of 25-year-old Mary Schlais.

He was sentenced to life in prison.

Miller was arrested on Nov. 7, 2024, at an Owatonna, Minn., living facility — more than 50 years after Mary Schlais' death — on a charge of first-degree murder.

After initially denying any involvement, Miller confessed to Dunn County Sheriff’s Office investigators that he picked up Mary Schlais in uptown Minneapolis, where she was hitchhiking. Miller said he stabbed Mary Schlais more than a dozen times after she refused to engage in sexual acts.

After killing Mary Schlais, he drove to Dunn County, where he dumped her body in a ditch and covered her with snow.

Miller’s sentencing closes the doors on an investigation led by the Dunn County Sheriff’s Office, in partnership with the genetic genealogy program at New Jersey’s Ramapo College.

A winter stocking hat left near Mary Schlais’ body provided investigators with the DNA of the suspected killer. Forensic genetic genealogy led investigators to Miller, who confirmed it was his.

Mary Schlais' remaining family members were in court Thursday. Miller declined the opportunity to address the family.

The family issued a statement following the hearing, thanking the Dunn County Sheriff's Office and the team at Ramapo College for their work on the case over the course of five decades.

"Our family wants to be here not for what we just witnessed in the courtroom, and we have nothing to say to him, but we want to be here to express our gratitude," Nina Schlais told the room.

Miller's sentencing ushered in a new era for Mary Schlais' family members, who for decades have been dogged in their support for her investigation.

"Whenever we thought about Mary over the years, we always think of what happened to her," she said. "And I feel like now we can think about who she was as a person."

Mary Schlais was described in court as a gifted artist and a world traveler who was fluent in several languages.

A decades-long hunt

The hunt for Miller began when an eyewitness saw him as he was removing Mary Schlais from his vehicle in the winter of 1974.

The witness provided investigators with a detailed description of Miller, which was used to create a sketch of the suspect.

The witness told investigators the suspect was driving a newer model, gold-colored vehicle. Miller told investigators he thought he got away with it because the car he was driving was blue.

Miller evaded law enforcement for more than 50 years before DNA led law enforcement to his door.

In the decades before his arrest, Miller lived quietly in an Austin, Minn., apartment, located across the street from the police department.

Other than a 1994 conviction for driving under the influence, Miller flew under the radar.

His life prior to Mary Schlais’ murder tells a different story.

In the 1960s, Miller spent time at the St. Cloud State Reformatory for forgery-related convictions. After his release, he traveled to Arizona, where he was arrested in 1965 for attempted robbery. In 1969, he was arrested and convicted in California on charges related to armed robbery after threatening a convenience store worker with a loaded gun.

Court documents related to his 1969 conviction indicate Miller was released from California’s San Quentin prison on May 5, 1972.

Minneapolis City records from 1972 show a Jon Miller living in Minneapolis in 1972, although Forum News Service was not able to verify that this is Jon Keith Miller.

A marriage application filed in 1973 by Miller included a Hennepin County address in the Minneapolis suburb of New Hope.

Another unsolved case

Following his November arrest, Miller was questioned by a Minneapolis Police Department investigator on a separate case: The 1972 slaying of 16-year-old Joli Truelson.

Truelson was last seen hitchhiking near the formerly named Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. Her friend told investigators she entered a gold-colored vehicle on July 3, 1972 with a man described as in his thirties with mid-length brown hair. Fifteen hours later, she was found near Minnehaha Creek. She had sustained five blows to the back of her head, causing her death.

Truelson died almost immediately, according to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension forensic report related to the case. Her body was then likely dragged to the area where she was found.

Miller has not been arrested on any charge related to her death.

The Vault's podcast series, "Joli Truelson: Connecting the Dots" includes a thorough investigation into Miller's criminal — and personal — history.

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Famous Darwin Twine Ball had its start 75 years ago this month

Jennifer Kotila — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 17:00:00 GMT

DARWIN, Minn. — It has been 75 years since Francis A. Johnson wound the first piece of baler twine around two fingers to form a ball and for 29 years he kept winding, creating the largest ball of twine in the world made by one man.

Johnson, a bachelor farmer and carpenter, started winding the twine in March of 1950 and by all accounts spent one to four hours each day methodically wrapping the twine as perfectly symmetrical as possible.

When the ball of twine became too large for Johnson to wind and move manually, he began using railroad jacks — the kind used to lift boxcars — to move the ball around and keep it symmetrical as he continued adding twine.

The history of Johnson and the Darwin Twine Ball is widely known, and the Darwin Twine Ball Museum also maintains a pamphlet about the history. Various local and regional newspaper articles are on display at the museum, and many more can be found on the online newspaper archive at Newspapers.com.

Johnson completed his ball of twine in 1979 and it was recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, holding that title until 1994 when a twine ball formed by J.C. and Elsie Payne of Mountain Springs, Texas, overtook it.

But Johnson’s ball of twine is special — it is the largest ball of twine created by one man and is made completely of brown sisal twine. It weighs 8.7 tons, is 11 feet tall and measures about 40 feet around.

Another man, Frank Stoeber of Cawker City, Kansas, started winding a twine ball in 1953 to compete with Johnson, but he died in 1974, according to an Aug. 12, 2001, Star Tribune article. However, starting in the 1980s, residents of Cawker City held annual “Twine-a-thons” eventually surpassing Johnson’s record.

The Payne ball of twine in Texas that currently holds the record is a little more than 13 feet tall and a little more than 41 feet around. It was formed with the help of 70 people and is constructed of nylon twine, weighing in at 6.5 tons, according to an article in the Dec. 1, 1993, Star Tribune.

The article attributes Thea Underhill, then manager of the Darwin Country Store, as saying, “And therein lies the problem. It still stands that this was an original and this was made by one man. It was an accomplishment. The rest were all copies.’”

The article reported that the Paynes set out in 1989 to break the record and that Johnson knew his record would be broken someday. The article quotes Johnson from a previous interview regarding the Cawker City twine ball: “I told them they’re welcome to it. I can’t stop them.”

Johnson, born on April 17, 1904, in Kingston Township to Magnus and Harriet Johnson, lived his entire life in Meeker County and was known as an eccentric character who collected a wide range of various things, which Johnson himself attributed to his mother telling him to never waste anything.

His father was a Swedish immigrant farmer who served in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1930s and as a U.S. senator in the 1920s. He was active in the Farmer-Labor Party and Johnson often drove his father during campaign events, according to an article in the Sept. 18, 1992, Star Tribune. “The twine ball made Francis far more famous than his father,” the article states.

Johnson was also a talented wood carver and carved giant wooden pliers that contained sets of smaller and smaller wooden pliers.

One set of pliers was seven feet in length and contained 25 additional pliers ranging in size from 7 feet to 1 inch.

Each individual pliers opens and the basswood carving contains no pins, pegs or glue holding any of the pliers together. It is approximately 20 feet in length when fully open.

When Johnson died on Oct. 24, 1989, the twine ball and other collections, which included 7,000 wood pencils, 1,700 carpenters aprons, 20,000 old irons, toy sewing machines, ancient tools and other items, helped to revitalize the small town of Darwin, Minnesota.

“It’s genuinely touching, albeit a little bit surreal, to hear Darwin residents talk about how the product of Johnson’s whimsy gave the town something to rally around economically, and to see old TV-news footage of the twine ball being trucked to the town square for display after Johnson’s death,” read an article in the Nov. 18, 1993, Star Tribune reviewing the TV show “Only in Minnesota with Louie Anderson.”

During Johnson’s lifetime, the twine ball was located in his front yard just east of Darwin, north of U.S. Highway 12 and protected by the top of an old silo.

When the city of Darwin acquired the twine ball in 1991, its new home was a wooden gazebo with clear Plexiglas panels in the center of town. Johnson’s collections were displayed at various businesses.

For 20 years, Ripley’s Believe It or Not had attempted to buy the Darwin Twine Ball and also tried to convince the Darwin Community Club to give it up after Johnson died.

“Their ploy was, ‘Who’s going to see it in Darwin?’” Underhill is quoted as saying in an Aug. 12, 2001, Star Tribune article. “Our little club explained, ‘We’ll take care of that.’”

And indeed, it did — with a little help from Weird Al Yankovic, who recorded “The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota” on his 1989 album "UHF." Yankovic visited the ball of twine in 1996 and his fans also often visit the twine ball. The alley next to the Twine Ball Museum is Weird Alley.

People from all over the world travel to Darwin to see the largest ball of twine made by one man and it is estimated by the Twine Ball Museum that about 150 people visit it daily in the summer months.

The same year that the twine ball moved into town, Darwin began celebrating Twine Ball Days on the second Saturday of August. It is a daylong celebration with a race, volleyball tournament, parade and more. This year will be the 34th annual celebration.

This year will also be the 13th annual Darwin Night at the Ballpark at Saints Field in Dassel, honoring Darwin’s former town baseball team. The event takes place on the night that the Dassel-Cokato Saints play the Litchfield Blues, which this year is July 9, and folks wear Darwin baseball jerseys and there are twine ball races and other festivities.

In 2014, people in Darwin’s sister city Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, listened on the radio as Darwin, Minnesota, Mayor Josh Johnson told them the story of Francis Johnson and the Darwin Twine Ball. In July of 2015, Lord Mayor Katrina Fong Lim of Darwin, Australia, came to visit the twine ball, according to a July 27, 2015 article in the Dassel-Cokato Enterprise Dispatch.

Not only have people traveled from around the world to see the Darwin Twine Ball, the twine ball itself, along with Johnson, traveled to New York City in 1958 to appear on the TV show “I’ve Got A Secret,” according to an article in the March 4, 1994, St. Cloud Times. At that time, it weighed about 6,000 pounds, was only 8 feet across and it was estimated the twine would be about 930 miles long if unraveled.

The Darwin Twine Ball was also featured on the Pioneer PBS "Postcards" series. KARE 11 News also featured Darwin Twine Ball Day in a past news report.

In the 1993 Star Tribune article, Edward Meyer, then vice president of exhibits and archives at Ripley’s world headquarters in Orlando, Florida, lamented, “I really thought we would get that ball when Francis died.”

Although it was unable to acquire Johnson’s world-famous ball of twine, Ripley’s Believe It or Not did acquire the Payne nylon ball of twine and it is displayed in Branson, Missouri. It also acquired Johnson’s collection of carpenters aprons.

The old Darwin railroad depot was moved and sits behind the gazebo that houses the twine ball. The depot houses the Twine Ball Museum to display the history of Johnson and the town of Darwin. It also serves as a souvenir shop, which sells miniature twine balls, twine ball starter kits, T-shirts, hats, mugs and other twine ball souvenirs.

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New true crime podcast series, 'Joli Truelson: Connecting the Dots,' launched by The Vault

Trisha Taurinskas — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 17:47:11 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS — The Vault podcast has a new series.

“Joli Truelson: Connecting the dots” examines the devastating impact of a flawed investigation by the Minneapolis Police Department into the 1972 slaying of 16-year-old Joli Truelson –- and her family’s renewed fight for answers in the wake of a killer’s confession.

Truelson was picked up on the evening of July 3, 1972 in Uptown Minneapolis by a man driving a newer model, gold-colored, two-door vehicle. Her friend, who watched as she drove away, told authorities the man appeared to be in his mid-30s, with mid-length brown hair.

Truelson’s body was discovered 15 hours later in Minnehaha Creek, four miles away. She died from blunt force trauma to the back of her head, insinuating she was running away from her attacker. There were no signs of sexual assault.

In the months following Truelson’s death, critical evidence was thrown away, including the possible murder weapon.

Instead of a thorough investigation, Truelson’s slaying was used by the Minneapolis Police Department as a public service announcement, warning girls and young women of the dangers of hitchhiking.

Since then, her case has gone cold.

Truelson’s brother, though, always thought her death could be linked to a similar crime: the murder of 25-year-old Mary Schlais in 1974.

On Nov. 7, 2024, Jon K Miller, 84, confessed to picking up Schlais while she was hitchhiking in Minneapolis. When she refused to have sex with him, he stabbed her 15 times. He drove to Dunn County, Wisconsin — roughly 90 miles away — and dumped her body in a ditch before attempting to cover her with snow.

An eyewitness saw it all and called it in to authorities. He described the man as being in his mid-30s with mid-length brown hair. He described the vehicle as a newer model, gold-colored, two-door car.

With the help of Truelson’s family, this series digs deep into the life and criminal history of Miller, attempting to answer the question: Is there a connection to Truelson's murder?

Miller has been questioned by the Minneapolis Police Department in Truelson’s murder investigation, but has not been charged with any crimes related to her death.

The Vault podcast is available on all major platforms. Episodes in this series will be released on Fridays. Find more cold case and true crime stories at The Vault page.

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