Plea and sentencing hearing scheduled March 27 for cold case murder suspect
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — Jon K. Miller, the suspect accused of killing Mary Schlais in the Town of Spring Brook in February of 1974, is scheduled for a plea and sentencing hearing in Dunn County Circuit Court on March 27.
Miller, along with his attorneys Shelly Tomtschik and Travis Satorius, appeared in court for a status conference before Judge James Peterson on February 21.
Miller will turn 85 years old in May.
Judge Peterson noted potential issues with him hearing the case since he had previously served as the Dunn Count district attorney, according to on-line court records.
Peterson served as the district attorney in Dunn County from 1989, when he was appointed by Governor Tommy Thompson, until he was elected as the Branch 1 circuit court judge in 2014.
Judge Peterson said during the time he served as district attorney in Dunn County, a file on the Schlais murder was never referred to the district attorney’s office, and that while he was running for election as circuit court judge, he had never campaigned on the issue of Schlais’s murder.
Judge Peterson said he did not believe there would be an issue with him hearing the case in his courtroom.
Satorius, Miller’s attorney, said he had reviewed the discovery in the case and believed that the court “is fine with hearing the matter.”
Satorius asked for a plea and sentencing hearing to be scheduled and said that a pre-sentence investigation is not being requested.
Dunn County District Attorney Andrea Nodolf asked for a two-hour hearing, and Satorius agreed.
The plea and sentencing hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. March 27.
Dunn County Circuit Court Judge Christina Mayer set bail at $1 million cash on November 12, 2024, and at the time of the status conference February 21, Miller remained in custody at the Dunn County Jail.
The Dunn County Sheriff’s Department issued a news release on Friday, November 8, that Jon K. Miller, age 84, had been arrested the day before in Owatonna, Minnesota, for the murder of Mary K. Schlais.
Miller is charged with one count of first-degree murder, which carries a penalty, upon conviction, of life in prison.
Criminal complaint
According to the criminal complaint, the body of Mary Schlais was found in a snowbank in a rural area of the Town of Spring Brook with multiple stab wounds on her upper body, including her back.
Schlais’s hands also appeared to have defensive wounds, and the autopsy report indicated that Schlais had bled to death from the multiple stab wounds.
In the road near Schlais’s body was an orange and black stocking cap.
Investigators seized the stocking cap as evidence, and hairs were collected from the cap that were later determined not to be Schlais’s hair.
News articles published at the time stated that Mary Schlais was an honor student and that she was on her way to Chicago for an art show.
Leads
The Dunn County Sheriff’s Department followed up on continuous leads over the next number of years but were unable to identify any suspects.
Scrapings taken from the black and orange stocking cap years later were used to develop a partial male DNA profile, according to the criminal complaint.
The Dunn County Sheriff’s Department then began working closely with Cairenn Binder of Ramapo College in New Jersey using “investigative genetic genealogy” (IGG).
After using the partial DNA profile to identify family members of the suspect, and after traveling to Casper, Wyoming, and East Tawas, Michigan, to interview the people related to the DNA profile, Dunn County investigators finally located a daughter of the suspect in Minnesota.
Finding Miller was more difficult than it might have been otherwise because Miller had been given up for adoption when he was a child.
After he was presented with the DNA evidence, Miller said he had picked up Schlais while she was hitchhiking.
At one point he had asked her for sexual contact, and Schlais had denied his request.
When Schlais leaned forward, Miller grabbed a knife he had stowed above the passenger seat visor and stabbed Schlais in the back.
Miller told investigators he exited off the highway and attempted to hide Schlais’s body in a snowbank, according to the criminal complaint.
He began to cover Schlais’s body with snow, but then another vehicle drove by, and Miller became scared and left the area.
When investigators showed Miller a photograph of the orange and black stocking cap that had contained his DNA, Miller said it was his hat, and he must have lost it, according to the criminal complaint.
Schlais’s body was located roughly 10 miles off Interstate-94.
Interview
KARE 11 news out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, published an interview with Miller on February 13 of this year.
According to the interview, Miller said that he did not know he had left the stocking cap until he had seen the photographs supplied by Dunn County investigators.
The witness who had seen Miller putting Mary Schlais’s body into the snow bank had apparently given an accurate description of Miller but had inaccurately described the color of the car, which was blue. The witness had said the car was orange or gold, according to the KARE 11 story.
Miller told the interviewer that he had “hardly ever” thought about the murder over the years, although he did recall that he had thrown the knife into a swampy area near where he had lived.
The story about the interview with Miller can be found WEAU 13’s website or KARE 11’s website. Conduct a search on the websites for either “Miller” or “Miller confession.”
