MENOMONIE, Wis. — A Minnesota man will spend the rest of his life behind bars after pleading “no contest” in court to killing a Minneapolis woman he picked up hitchhiking five decades ago.
Jon Keith Miller was charged last November with first-degree intentional homicide for the killing of 25-year-old Mary Schlais. She was found dead in the town of Spring Brook, Wisconsin, on February 15, 1974. Miller was 33 at the time.
The case was cold for five decades despite a stocking cap being left at the scene and a witness seeing Miller’s car. The witness misremembered the car’s color, leading Miller to believe he “got away with it.”…