Jared Ler’che suggested his wife had left voluntarily, but officers found Margaret Ler’che dead in the basement hours later.
OSCEOLA, Wis. — When police asked Jared Ler’che where his wife was, he offered a theory: officers should look at her social-media messages and “figure out which one of her boyfriends she might have ran off with.” Investigators soon found Margaret Ler’che dead inside the couple’s home. More than two years later, her husband has pleaded no contest to first-degree intentional homicide.
The July 28, 2026, plea brings the prosecution closer to an end while casting new legal weight on a sequence that had long been described in court allegations and police accounts. Jared Ler’che, 43, now awaits sentencing Oct. 22 in the killing of Margaret Ler’che, 34. Prosecutors are recommending 25 years in prison. The judge will determine the sentence. The no-contest plea permits a conviction without requiring Ler’che to expressly admit the offense, eliminating the need for a trial on the homicide charge.
His statements about Margaret Ler’che became a notable part of the original criminal complaint because they were made while authorities were actively trying to find her. Reports describing the charging document said Ler’che claimed she was having affairs with several men. He also made allegations connecting her to child trafficking. He did not give investigators a location for her, according to those reports. The accusations he made about his wife were not substantiated in the public reporting reviewed for this story and should not be treated as established facts.
The circumstances known to Margaret Ler’che’s family pointed in a different direction from the idea that she had unexpectedly disappeared with another person. Her father told authorities that she and the couple’s two children had been living with him in Iowa for about three months while the marriage was troubled, according to the complaint. On Jan. 22, 2024, he helped Margaret pack possessions at the Wisconsin home. She was expected to return to Iowa that evening with the children, continuing an arrangement already in place rather than beginning an unexplained absence.
Her father became worried when she failed to arrive and requested a welfare check. The call provided police with a concrete reason to look for Margaret Ler’che at the property. Within roughly 10 minutes, another dispatch came into Polk County law enforcement from St. Paul. Jared Ler’che had contacted a crisis line while driving with the two children and reported thoughts of suicide, according to the complaint. Officers were therefore dealing simultaneously with a missing woman, two children traveling with their father and a reported mental-health emergency.
The two investigative tracks began to converge. Deputies went to the home in the town of Farmington near Osceola as other officers worked to locate Jared Ler’che. At the house, an officer looked through a basement window and saw a blanket on the floor, according to reports on the complaint. When authorities later entered, they found Margaret Ler’che beneath the blanket. Police said she had suffered a gunshot wound to the back of her head. A cord was around her neck, and a .22-caliber rifle was found on the floor nearby.
Those findings directly contradicted the possibility, suggested in Jared Ler’che’s remarks to police, that Margaret had simply gone away with someone else. Investigators instead had a homicide scene inside the home she had been packing to leave. Polk County Sheriff Brent Waak identified the victim and suspect publicly on Jan. 24, 2024, and announced that the death had been ruled a homicide. Jail records from that week show Jared Ler’che booked on a first-degree intentional homicide charge.
Officers located Jared Ler’che at a Kwik Trip in Osceola, where he arrived in a pickup truck with the children in the back seat, according to accounts of the complaint. Police said he continued to give vague answers about his wife’s whereabouts. An officer noticed what authorities described as blood on his clothing. Investigators also reported that Ler’che repeatedly moved toward an area near the floor of the vehicle during their encounter, causing additional concern as they tried to take him into custody.
Police eventually arrested him and found a sawed-off shotgun on the floor near the area where he had been reaching, the complaint said. Officers seized clothing and footwear that they said had apparent blood evidence. Those details were included in the prosecution’s account of why authorities focused on Ler’che after finding Margaret dead. Before the plea, they remained allegations and potential evidence to be tested if the case went before a jury.
The no-contest plea avoids that trial. It also means jurors will not be asked to weigh Ler’che’s statements to investigators against the physical evidence and other circumstances outlined in the charging document. Instead, the court will move to punishment. Although a no-contest plea is different from an express admission of guilt, it allows the judge to enter a conviction. For the public record of this case, that distinction matters: Ler’che’s liability now rests on an accepted plea rather than only on the prosecution’s accusation.
Margaret Ler’che’s own actions before her death remain central to understanding the timeline. She had been living away from the marital home with the children, according to her father’s account in the complaint. She returned to collect belongings and was expected back in Iowa. Her father’s decision to contact police after she missed that expected arrival prompted officers to look at the house. The fact that the welfare request came from someone who had seen and assisted her earlier that day gave investigators a recent point from which to reconstruct her movements.
The crisis-line report concerning Jared Ler’che added urgency but did not initially tell deputies what had happened to Margaret. His remarks about supposed boyfriends appeared to offer one explanation for her absence. The basement discovery provided another, devastating answer. The close timing of those events became the backbone of the prosecution narrative: a woman expected to complete a move did not arrive, her husband said he did not know where she was, and officers found her dead at the property she had been leaving.
The sentencing hearing will determine how long Jared Ler’che is ordered to serve following the conviction. Prosecutors’ recommendation of 25 years is not binding on the judge, and the reports reviewed for this article did not show that a final sentence had been imposed. The Oct. 22 hearing is therefore the next confirmed milestone. Until then, the case stands at a point that differs sharply from its opening hours, when police were still asking where Margaret Ler’che had gone and her husband was suggesting she had chosen to disappear.
Author note: Last updated September 8, 2026.