Woman accused of killing man and leaving him in her front yard in Deer Park says she’s innocent

A man found dead in Deer Park, wrapped in a tarp and placed on an antique ironing board, had been dating the woman whose home he was found in front of, according to court documents.

Michael Ahlstrom, 54, was found dead Wednesday in the front yard of Gloria Redmann, 60, who was arrested in connection with his death Thursday. According to an autopsy report, Ahlstrom was shot in the upper chest and appeared to have been dead for several days. Redmann lives at 207 E. Meadowmere Way in a home she rents.

Ahlstrom was reported missing by his ex-wife on Nov. 22. The ex-wife, knowing that Ahlstrom had been living with Redmann, called the woman, who told her Ahlstrom had gone to Sandpoint to look for work.

Kelly Schwartz, Ahlstrom’s ex-wife of 20 years, said family members began to get worried after Ahlstrom failed to call or visit anyone on Thanksgiving.

Although Schwartz and Ahlstrom, who everyone called Todd, had been divorced since 2013, they remained close, she said. They first met when Schwartz was 7 years old. They had three children together and two grandchildren.

“I still loved him, he still loved me,” she said. “We talked all the time.”

After she filed a missing person report, she said, an officer went by Redmann’s home and knocked, but no one answered.

“If he had walked around and looked a little bit he might have seen something else,” Schwartz said.

On Wednesday, Redmann showed up at a bowling alley and asked some men at the bar to help her move things from her house. The men agreed and came over. They moved a large engine hoist from her driveway to a truck parked in front of her house. At that point they noticed “a pair of shoes sticking out” from underneath a tarp, according to court documents.

They left her house and called the police.

When police arrived, Redmann told them conflicting stories, according to court documents. She first told a deputy that Ahlstrom was her ex-boyfriend and he’d come over and was “causing problems so she called a friend” who promised to take care of it.

Later, Redmann told detectives she didn’t know anything about the body found in her driveway, court documents say.

At another point, she told the detectives that three days prior, Ahlstrom had come to her house but she wouldn’t let him in and told him to go away. Later, she said she looked out the window and she saw him lying dead in the driveway, court records say.

At that point, she said, she rented a large engine hoist to lift his body out of the driveway because she “wanted to park her truck under the awning of the driveway.” However, she was unable to get the hoist to work.

After the men from the bowling alley bar left, she placed Ahlstrom’s body on an antique ironing board and tried to drag the body into a nearby shed, according to court documents.

Redmann’s elderly mother lives in the house with her and told investigators she didn’t get Thanksgiving dinner because Redmann and Ahlstrom were fighting, according to court documents.

Ahlstrom’s son told police that Redmann had been violent on at least one occasion, although he wouldn’t give police more specifics, court documents say.

Schwartz also said Redmann was violent with Ahlstrom, and he had planned to leave her several times, most recently two weeks before his death, Schwartz said.

In 2000 and 2002, Redmann was arrested for domestic violence, although both charges were later dismissed. Schwartz said they sometimes got into fights when they were married and neighbors would call the police.

“He never did anything horrible to me or anything like that,” Schwartz said. “He was good to our kids, he loved our babies.”

Redmann is being held in jail on second-degree murder charges. Her bond is set at $1 million.