White male Mark Arledge, 52, was found dead in his Lodgepole, Nebraska home after a sequence that began when Cheyenne County deputies were dispatched on April 19, 2018, to check on a report of elder abuse. The call led them to 819 Bondegaard Street, where they knocked and announced themselves, heard a woman reply Just a minute, and then a gunshot. Inside, they discovered Arledge and his wife, 51-year-old Michelle Lee Marlatt-Arledge.
Subsequent findings established that Mark had actually been killed three days earlier, on April 16.
According to the county attorney s office and coroner, autopsies determined that Mark died of multiple gunshot wounds and Michelle died of a single self-inflicted gunshot wound. Officials concluded the case was a murder-suicide, with Michelle the shooter in Mark s death. The couple s deaths were initially investigated as homicides when the bodies were discovered, but the ruling clarified the timeline and manner of death.
There were no arrests. Authorities identified Michelle as the perpetrator and indicated that she took her own life as deputies arrived on April 19, 2018. Mark s death was recorded as occurring on April 16, and local notices and obituaries later confirmed his passing and arrangements.
