MCS-2
The Case of the Smoldering Corpse
On April 21, 1985, at 6:10 a.m., a traveler on Route KK near Old Appleton in a rural area of Cape Girardeau County reported seeing something burning at the side of the highway. Further investigation revealed that the smoking item was the smoldering body of a white male, wrapped in carpet and plastic bags, and still burning.
The Major Case Squad was quickly activated for what would be its second case.
The victim had no identification on his body. He had died from a stab wound to the chest, which penetrated the heart. His hands were bound in front with binder twine. The murderer had wrapped carpet around the victim’s head and placed a plastic bag over the carpet. He had doused the body with a flammable substance and set it on fire.
The killer had outsmarted himself, though, because the combination of the carpet and plastic bag over the face had caused the face to remain unharmed while the rest of the body (70%) had been badly burned and charred. The ends of the fingers had burned off, making identification by fingerprints impossible. An open bag of lime, a shovel, and a beer can were found near the body.
Faced with the daunting task of identifying the victim, the Major Case Squad photographed the face of the victim and prepared a one-page flier that they quickly circulated throughout the Midwest. The face of the victim with a request to contact the Major Case Squad was distributed to law enforcement agencies and the media. It immediately ran on television and in newspapers. The Major Case Squad also circulated the flier at all truckstops, weight stations, restaurants, barber shops, gas stations, and other high-traffic areas from St. Louis to Memphis. The Squad hoped that someone who knew the victim would see the flier and contact the investigators.
It worked.
Three days later a security officer from McDonnell Douglas Corporation contacted the Major Case Squad. He believed the body belonged to a missing McDonnell Douglas employee, an aeronautics engineer named Dale E. Breckheisen, 27.
Later that day the brother of the victim identified the body. The visual identification was confirmed by dental records.
Teaming up with officers from the St. Louis County Police Department, Major Case Squad investigators began solving the mystery of the smoldering corpse.
After learning that Dale E. Breckheisen had been undergoing serious marital and child custody difficulties, and that he had a rocky relationship with his father-in-law, Milo F. Mracek, 58, investigators began checking the credit card records of Mracek.
They learned that he had rented an industrial-strength rug-cleaning machine from a rental business on the morning of Breckheisen’s disappearance. They visited the rental store and inspected the rug-cleaning machine. On its wheels they located a quantity of blood. It was typed and found to match the blood type of the victim.
Confronted with the evidence against him, Mracek ultimately confessed to hitting Breckheisen with a metal bar during a fight over a domestic matter, then stabbing him with a kitchen knife. Mracek admitted to taking the body to Cape Girardeau County in his effort to dispose of it.
Breckheisen and Mracek were both engineers at McDonnell Douglas Corporation. They worked in separate departments. Breckheisen was going through a divorce from Mracek’s daughter. They had been involved in a bitter dispute over the custody and alleged abuse of Breckheisen’s daughter, who was Mracek’s granddaughter.
The case was prosecuted by the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office since the murder actually took place in that county. Mracek ultimately pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter. St. Louis County Circuit Judge Melvyn W. Wiesman sentenced him to a 10-year prison sentence.