Teresa Sue Hilt

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Maryville Police Department (MO)

Offense Location:

Maryville, Missouri

Summary:

Teresa Sue Hilt, 22, was found murdered in her apartment in Maryville, Missouri in 1973. She had been stabbed in the chest, arm, and lower part of the body. Her killer has still not been identified. She was a graduate student at Northwest Missouri State University when she was brutally murdered in her apartment.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Offense:

On the night of Aug. 3, 1973, Tess Hilt spent the evening at a party with a group of friends off the Northwest Missouri State University campus. According to archival articles from The Maryville Daily Forum, it was around 1 a.m. on Aug. 4, 1973, when Tess left the party and headed back to her place at College Garden Apartments, present-day Horizons West. Around 5 p.m. the following day, Ed Happel, a friend of Hilt’s who had plans with her that evening and was one of the last people to see her the night before, went to her apartment after she didn’t answer the phone. Happel told police he found Hilt’s naked body face down in her bed, covered by a blanket with no sign of life. She had a pair of stockings wrapped around her neck, had been stabbed eight times in the chest, several more times on her left arm and had numerous other stab wounds to her vagina. Testing was inconclusive on if she had been raped.

Additional Details:

According to Forum archives, on Aug. 9, 1973, polygraphs were performed on Ed Happel and on a man involved in a motorcycle accident the weekend of the murder. Both were cleared of being involved in Hilt’s death. Another lie detector test, also passed, was given to an unnamed individual on Aug. 29 but reports say this individual was not a suspect.

Case Last Updated:

May 13, 2026