Margaret Ler’che was expected back in Iowa after packing her belongings, but her father grew concerned when she never arrived.
OSCEOLA, Wis. — Margaret Ler’che’s father had spent part of Jan. 22, 2024, helping his daughter pack belongings from the Wisconsin home she was leaving. She was supposed to return to Iowa that evening. When the 34-year-old mother did not arrive, he called authorities and asked them to check on her welfare.
That request set in motion an investigation that ended with Margaret Ler’che being found dead in the basement of the home and her husband, Jared Ler’che, facing a first-degree intentional homicide charge. More than two years later, Jared Ler’che, now 43, pleaded no contest to the charge on July 28, 2026. His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 22. Prosecutors have recommended 25 years in prison, according to a report citing court records. The judge has not yet imposed the final punishment.
The welfare call was rooted in a period of separation for the family, according to the criminal complaint described by news organizations that covered the case. Margaret Ler’che and the couple’s two children had been staying with her father in Iowa for about three months because she and Jared Ler’che were having marital problems. On Jan. 22, her father helped her gather possessions from the Osceola-area home. He then expected her to make the return trip with the children. When she did not appear, concern replaced what was supposed to have been a routine move.
Authorities received another troubling piece of information within minutes. About 10 minutes after the welfare-check request, St. Paul dispatchers contacted Polk County law enforcement and said Jared Ler’che had called a crisis line, according to the complaint. He was said to be driving around with the couple’s two children while reporting thoughts of suicide. The circumstances forced officers to pursue two urgent questions at once: where Margaret Ler’che was and whether the children traveling with their father were safe.
Investigators made contact with Jared Ler’che, but he did not provide a location for his wife, according to the charging allegations. Instead, he told police they could examine her social-media communications and “figure out which one of her boyfriends she might have ran off with.” He also accused her of having affairs with multiple men and made claims linking her to child trafficking. The public reports reviewed for this article do not establish those accusations as true, and the complaint’s descriptions of his statements were presented as part of the prosecution’s account of the investigation.
While officers communicated with Jared Ler’che, deputies also went to the couple’s property near Osceola in the town of Farmington. An officer looking through a basement window saw what appeared to be a blanket lying on the floor, according to accounts of the complaint. Authorities later entered the house. Beneath the blanket, they found Margaret Ler’che. Police said she had been shot in the back of the head. A cord was around her neck, and a .22-caliber rifle was on the floor nearby.
The finding provided an answer to the immediate question raised by her father’s call but opened a homicide investigation. Polk County authorities publicly identified Margaret Ler’che as the person who had died and Jared Ler’che as the arrested suspect on Jan. 24, 2024. Sheriff Brent Waak said the death had been ruled a homicide. A Polk County jail report from the same period lists Jared Ler’che as booked under Wisconsin’s first-degree intentional homicide statute.
Law enforcement, meanwhile, had arranged to meet Jared Ler’che at a Kwik Trip in Osceola. Reports based on the complaint said the two children were in the back seat of his pickup truck. Investigators said he continued talking about supposed affairs and other allegations concerning his wife but did not give a clear account of where she was. An officer also noticed blood on his clothing, according to the complaint. That encounter took place as other officers were working at the home where Margaret Ler’che was found.
Police said the meeting escalated when Ler’che repeatedly reached toward the floor area of the vehicle. Officers eventually removed and arrested him, according to the complaint. Investigators said they then saw a sawed-off shotgun on the floor near the area where he had been reaching. Clothing and footwear with apparent blood evidence were also seized. The reported criminal complaint described those details as part of the evidence gathered during the first hours of the investigation.
For more than two years after his arrest, the case remained a pending homicide prosecution. First-degree intentional homicide is among Wisconsin’s most serious criminal charges, and Jared Ler’che would have been entitled to require prosecutors to prove the accusation in court. Instead, on July 28, he entered a no-contest plea. Such a plea allows the court to enter a conviction without the defendant formally admitting the factual allegations in the same way as a guilty plea. It also means the case will proceed to sentencing rather than a trial on whether he committed the charged offense.
The plea changes the legal meaning of many details that had previously appeared in public reporting only as allegations supporting the charge. Before the plea, Jared Ler’che was an accused defendant and was presumed innocent unless convicted. After the court accepted the no-contest plea, a conviction could be entered on the homicide charge. The remaining dispute is no longer whether he will face a homicide conviction but what sentence the court will impose for Margaret Ler’che’s death.
The chronology also shows how several separate contacts with authorities converged during a short period on the night Margaret Ler’che died. Her father was waiting in Iowa and asked for help when she did not arrive. A crisis-line call placed Jared Ler’che on the road with the children. Officers began communicating with him while other deputies checked the house. His statements suggested Margaret had left voluntarily, according to the complaint, but the search of the basement showed that she had not left the property alive.
What happens next will occur in a courtroom rather than through another round of fact-finding about guilt. Prosecutors have recommended a 25-year prison sentence, but that recommendation does not itself determine the outcome. The sentencing judge is scheduled to address the case Oct. 22. As of Sept. 8, no final sentence had been reported, leaving the length of Jared Ler’che’s punishment as the major unresolved issue in a case that began when Margaret Ler’che failed to make it back to her father’s home.
Author note: Last updated September 8, 2026.