Joli Truelson

Joli Truelson was a creative and free-spirited 16-year-old girl with a flair for the ridiculous, remembered by her family for her sandy hair and a love for art, particularly painting and drawing. The daughter of Nora and step-daughter of Ray Truelson, who owned the popular Porky’s drive-in diners, Joli was one of six siblings. She was known for her fun personality and was often surrounded by friends. In the summer of 1972, she had just finished a year at Southwest High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was hopeful about finding her path. Her younger brother recalled a favorite memory of Joli putting him on the back of her bicycle and riding around the city’s lakes.

On the evening of July 3, 1972, Joli spent time with friends near Lake Calhoun, now known as Bde Maka Ska, in the city's Uptown area. She was wearing a red sweater with a musical-note pattern and olive-drab Army-style pants. Later that night, needing to get to her grandmother's house in St. Paul where she was staying, she began to hitchhike. A friend who was with her reported seeing Joli get into a two-door, gold-colored vehicle around 10:50 p.m. The car had reportedly passed two male hitchhikers before stopping for her. Joli gave her friend a shrug before getting in, and the car drove away. She never arrived at her grandmother's house.

The next morning, on the Fourth of July, Joli’s body was discovered in the shallow waters of Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis. An autopsy determined the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the back of her head. Investigators believed the weapon was likely a hammer. She was found fully clothed, and the medical examiner found no evidence of sexual assault. Near her body, police discovered two pools of blood and a blood-soaked piece of a white shirt. Forensic testing at the time confirmed the presence of two different human blood types: Joli's Type A and another, unidentified Type O.

The initial investigation by the Minneapolis Police Department moved quickly. The day after Joli was found, officers pulled over a man driving a car that matched the witness's description. The driver consented to a search of his trunk, where police found a hammer with brown specks on it. However, lab tests came back negative for the presence of human blood on the hammer. Within a year, the critical blood samples from the scene were destroyed, and the hammer was eventually lost by law enforcement, leaving the case with no physical evidence for decades.

For more than 50 years, the case grew cold. Investigators have explored possible connections to at least two serial killers. One was Harvey Carignan, known as "The Want-Ad Killer," who was active in the region and known to use a hammer to attack his victims. Another potential person of interest was Jon Keith Miller. In November 2024, Miller was arrested for the 1974 murder of Mary Schlais, who was also picked up while hitchhiking in the same Uptown neighborhood. Miller was convicted in 2025 and is serving a life sentence. When questioned by a Minneapolis police sergeant about Joli's murder, Miller denied any involvement.

A significant breakthrough came in July 2026, when authorities exhumed Joli’s remains. Because she had been laid to rest in a temperature-controlled mausoleum, her family and investigators were cautiously optimistic that viable DNA could be recovered. Her brother, Tryg Truelson, expressed hope that the controlled environment might have preserved DNA evidence that could finally identify her killer. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is conducting advanced DNA testing on the remains.

The case has been the subject of renewed public interest, featured in "The Vault" podcast series in episodes titled "Joli Truelson: Connecting the Dots" and "Crafting a Killer: The Harvey Carignan Story." As of September 2026, the Minneapolis Police Department confirmed that the investigation into Joli Truelson's homicide is still open and active following her exhumation. No charges have ever been filed in her death, which remains an unsolved cold case.