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A jury in Shawano-Menominee County Circuit Court found Michael Ingold not guilty of first-degree intentional homicide on April 28, 2026, in the death of his girlfriend, Sheila Laudon, 59. Ingold was not convicted, and no sentence applies.

Ingold, 57 when charged in 2022 and 61 in 2026, shared a home with Laudon in the Town of Wescott in Shawano County, Wisconsin. Shawano County sheriff's deputies were sent there shortly before 4:15 a.m. on June 25, 2022, after he called 911 and reported waking to find her dead. He told deputies he woke about 2:30 a.m. and heard her getting a beer in the kitchen, then woke at 4:01 a.m. and found her dead in the bedroom. He acknowledged they were the only people home and said he did not touch her. An autopsy found injuries consistent with manual strangulation.

Investigators interviewed Ingold more than once; he denied responsibility each time. He was charged in Shawano County with one count of first-degree intentional homicide with a domestic abuse modifier, punishable by life in prison. A judge set a $1 million cash bond at his August 1, 2022, initial appearance. He pleaded not guilty at his January 18, 2023, arraignment. Trial dates in 2023 and 2024 were canceled or adjourned several times.

During one interview, a detective told Ingold that Laudon's toxicology screen found none of the commonly abused drugs, only alcohol. Ingold said he came home from work in the evening, helped a neighbor, showered and lay on the couch. He said he woke about 1:30 a.m. and saw Laudon watching television on the bed. He repeatedly denied touching her and offered to take a lie detector test. A detective said Ingold had told a transporting officer to take him to jail for murder because he killed her. Ingold explained that he meant he felt to blame for not always being there to see how she took her pills.

Detectives later told him phone records showed no calls between the couple that week, only a text from Laudon asking for cigarettes on Friday afternoon. When a detective accused him of telling many lies, Ingold asked what he had lied about. Told that a neighbor saw him arrive home in his truck rather than on his motorcycle, carrying nothing, he disputed the account and asked about camera footage. The detective said there was none.

The jury trial was scheduled to begin April 7, 2026, and ran more than three weeks. Assistant District Attorney Laura Nelson told jurors Ingold told a witness "I'm going to kill her" about 12 hours before Laudon was found dead, and that his account kept changing. A revised autopsy report filed days before trial retained strangulation as the cause of death but attributed fractures around the throat to the medical examiner's instruments. Defense attorneys Albert Moustakis and Kelli Thompson argued that Laudon's health was failing, deputies initially believed her death was natural, and Ingold offered four times to take a polygraph. The defense described about 16 prescriptions in the home and said Ingold worked as a truck driver, commuting several hours from home five days a week. Thompson told jurors, "This was not a homicide, this was a tragedy." Jurors deliberated for a few hours before acquitting him.

Separately, Ingold was charged in March 2026 with 10 felony counts alleging threats against prosecutors, law enforcement officers and others involved in the case, based on recorded jail calls and jail conversations. Those remain allegations in a separate case handled by a special prosecutor. No disposition of those charges has been publicly reported. After the verdict, he remained in the Shawano County Jail on a $250,000 cash bond, with a hearing set for May 4, 2026.

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Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.