The Girl From Wahoo

48 Hours

CBS News

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.1 • 7.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2026

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A girl is murdered in Wahoo, Nebraska. More than 50 years later, how the pieces of a puzzle came together to make an arrest. Natalie Morales reports.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The murder of Mary Kay Hesse has been on the minds of the people of Wahoo, Nebraska, for 56 years now.
0:21.6	I remember being about nine years old, out in the front yard.
0:26.6	My mom came out and said, hey, get in this house right now.
0:30.6	A girl in Wahoo has been murdered.
0:32.6	And I remember that plaintiff's day.
0:34.6	It didn't happen that often in Nebraska. Murders were rare.
0:41.3	Mary Kay Hesse was a 17-year-old high school student from Wahoo, Nebraska, who was killed by stabbing in
0:50.3	1969.
0:52.3	The Mary Kay Hesse case is unique because of how many people have tried to solve it
0:58.0	and they just hit brick walls right and left.
1:01.0	I'm Bob Frank.
1:03.0	Back in 1999, I was a sergeant in charge of the Nebraska State Patrol Cold Case Unit.
1:16.8	She was running.
1:18.0	You could see the struggle.
1:20.5	The blood on the ground and the footprint showed there was a struggle in this area.
1:23.2	Her shoe and another spot of blood was found.
1:26.0	And then her body.
1:28.3	I'm hoping the integrity of the evidence is still there as far as it's not too old to test,
1:34.3	as far as DNA.
1:36.3	We're hoping after 30 years we can pull a fingerprint off those books.
1:42.3	The purse was found at the crime scene.
1:46.0	This stuff has been in here for the last 30 years.
	...

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