The location where Sheila Ingold's body was found

This is the location where the body of Sheila Ingold was found.

Ingold was a victim of the "Kansas City Strangler," Lorenzo Gilyard.

Her body was discovered in an abandoned van outside of an autobody repair shop at 3740 Troost Avenue. An autopsy revealed that she had been strangled to death.

Investigators noted that she was missing two rings from her fingers. It is believed that her killer decided to take these rings as "trophies".

According to the police, the 36-year-old worked as a prostitute in the area.

Her body was discovered on November 3rd, 1987, when a man approached the owner of the repair shop and said that he was interested in purchasing the van.

Although the owner made it clear that it was a piece of junk and that he had been scavenging it for spare parts, the man remained keen on taking a look at it. The owner found this odd, as there were other vans in the lot at the time.

At that point, they opened the side door and saw Ingold's naked body sprawled out across the floor.

Later, it turned out that the "prospective buyer" was a 37-year-old man named Lorenzo Gilyard.

The police started to suspect Gilyard after they learned about his unusual interest in the vehicle.

During the course of the investigation, they discovered that he was dating the victim's friend. They also learned that he worked at a fish market across the street from the crime scene.

Although they arrested Gilyard and interrogated him, they were eventually forced to release him due to a lack of evidence.

However, before they did, they took a blood sample from him and kept it on file.

Roughly 16 years later, during a review of cold cases, the DNA from this blood sample was used to link him to the murders of 12 women.

In 2007, the "Kansas City Strangler" was found guilty of killing Sheila Ingold and five other women. He is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Further information is available in the "Photos" section below.

Photos

Photos of the site and other related images.

3740 Troost Avenue

This Google Street View image of 3740 Troost Avenue was taken in May of 2021.

Sheila Ingold

Sheila Ingold lived in the 3600 block of Troost Avenue, which was just north of the autobody repair shop.

Manheim Road

This Google Street View image was taken from Manheim Road, which is on the southern side of the property. The red ellipse highlights the exact spot where the van was parked.

News footage

Image source: KCTV 5 News

This is a screenshot from news footage about the crime. As you can see, the van was pointed south towards Manheim Road.

Van

The body was "found" after Gilyard pretended to be interested in purchasing the van.

His actions in this case suggest that he got some sort of psychological gratification from his victims' bodies being discovered. For example, he may have enjoyed hearing people talking about his crimes and seeing them on the news.

This theory is further strengthened by the fact that he dumped his victim's remains across the street from where he worked.

By doing this, he could watch the investigation unfold and listen to onlookers chatting about it.

It is possible that he expected Ingold's body to be found pretty quickly. However, after two days passed by, he started to grow impatient.

At that point, he decided to "engineer" the discovery of her remains.

Being the person who "found" the body may have also given him an extra kick, as he'd be in the midst of the investigation, hiding in plain sight.

However, in this case, he overplayed his hand by showing far too much interest in a piece of junk.

Crime scene

This is a police diagram of the crime scene.

Fish market

At the time of the murder, Gilyard was working at a fish market across the street.