A Wisconsin Man Strangled His Wife to Death Because She ‘Rambled’ at Him

In early March 2025, emergency dispatchers received a concerning call: Mary Laakso was in trouble. 

But when police arrived at the Laakso residence in suburban New Richmond, Wisc.—a small town with roughly 10,000 residents located roughly 40 miles from Minnesota’s Twin Cities—they found no trace of Mary, a 68-year-old grandmother who was active in her church and the community. A few hours later, however, they found her body in a rural cornfield nearby. She had been strangled to death.

Prosecutors pinned the blame on Mary’s 70-year-old husband, Gordon Laakso, who had no prior criminal history. Since Gordon ultimately agreed to a plea deal, the case never went to trial, meaning many of the details surrounding the incident didn’t come to light—and likely never will.

Around 1:45 p.m. on March 2, 2025, officers with the New Richmond Police Department went to check on Mary after receiving a call about a possible domestic disturbance/welfare check. 

The 911 caller—later revealed to be the couple’s son-in-law—had said Gordon “made statements that led them to believe Mary may have been harmed earlier in the day,” according to a press release. The son-in-law told police that his wife had been video chatting with Gordon when he revealed that he and Mary had been having marital issues and that he had choked her to death. 

Gordon ran an insurance agency for more than four decades but had retired a few days earlier. His wife, meanwhile, was involved in her church and devoted to their grandchildren.

When officers arrived in the Laakso’s neighborhood, they initially called Gordon to ask a few questions. He told them he was alone inside the house and that “things got out of hand and he didn’t know what else to say,” according to the Pioneer Press.

When police searched the home, they didn’t find Mary—but they did discover a pair of gloves that appeared to have blood on them, as well as several firearms. When they questioned Gordon about Mary’s whereabouts, he said, “Oh, you didn’t find her?” Then, he admitted she was dead. 

Gordon, who had dried blood on one of his hands, explained that he and Mary had argued earlier that day. He said Mary had “rambled” at him for seven hours and started hitting him, according to WEAU. Things escalated, he said, and he ended up choking his wife. He knew she needed urgent medical attention but, instead of taking her to a hospital, he drove out to a cornfield and got rid of her body. Gordon offered to show officers where he had dumped Mary’s body and, at one point during the conversation, he began packing his suitcase and said he was going with them. Later that afternoon, investigators drove to a remote area of neighboring Polk County, located roughly 10 miles from the Laakso home, where they found Mary’s body.

“I just drove because I was panicking, ya know, and that's the way it ended up,” he said, as reported by KARE11. 

The next day, the medical examiner’s office concluded Mary had died of asphyxiation, and that the manner of death was homicide.

Prosecutors charged Gordon with first-degree intentional homicide, strangulation and suffocation with domestic abuse, and concealing a corpse.

In September 2025, Gordon pleaded guilty to a lesser charge—first-degree reckless homicide—and prosecutors agreed to drop the other charges. In December, Judge Michael Waterman sentenced him to 14 years in prison, followed by six years of extended supervision. Waterman also mandated that Gordon undergo a psychological evaluation and a domestic violence assessment.

Prosecutors did not publicly explain why they agreed to the reduced charge. However, they were pleased that the “individual responsible for Mary’s death was brought to justice,” according to a statement from the New Richmond Police Department. “Our thoughts go out to the family and friends of Mary on this day, and we hope today’s sentencing brings some resolution.” 

Friends and family, meanwhile, were left to grieve the loss of Mary, a beloved mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend. Mary was devoted to her family, including her three children and six grandchildren, and she was an active member in her community, according to her online obituary. She volunteered at a local Catholic school and spent many hours swimming with friends in the recreation center pool.

“She gave her time, energy and kindness to several causes and was always willing to lend a helping hand,” according to the obituary. “Her neighbors knew her for sharing her love of baking, cooking and flower gardening.”

Despite the resolution in court, much about the case remains shrouded in mystery—and the true circumstances surrounding Mary’s death may never come to light. 

However, experts say cases like this reflect broader patterns of intimate partner violence. Overall, men are more likely to be murdered than women in the United States. However, that pattern is reversed in cases of intimate partner homicide: Women, federal crime statistics show, are at greater risk of being killed by a spouse or romantic interest. 

And these crimes are rarely sudden or unpredictable acts, says Maleaha Brown, a clinical associate professor at the University of Houston Law Center and the chairperson of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence. Rather, intimate partner homicides are usually the culmination of an ongoing pattern of abuse that, if left unchecked, can escalate to lethal violence. 

“A significant portion of homicide victims, especially women, are killed by a current or former intimate partner,” Brown tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “These deaths often follow long histories of coercive control in the relationship which is often invisible to the legal system.”

The fact that Gordon strangled his wife—even though police found several firearms in the house—serves as another “psychologically significant” detail, according to Alex King, the founding attorney of First Coast Criminal Defense in Jacksonville, Fla. 

Strangulation is one of the most dangerous warning signs of escalating domestic violence, research shows. Experts widely consider it to be a high-lethality risk factor, both because it can cause serious injury or death in the moment and because it serves as a strong predictor of future intimate partner homicide. One study found that women who had been strangled by a partner were over seven times more likely to be killed by that partner than women who had not experienced strangulation.

As a killing method, strangulation is fairly rare. But it appears far more often in intimate partner killings of women than in other types of homicide: While strangulation makes up less than 1% of all murders, it accounts for roughly 6% of intimate partner killings of women, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.

Though Gordon had no prior criminal history, that “does not mean the relationship was free from abuse,” King tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “Many domestic violence cases, especially among older couples, go unreported.”