Manhunt On After Murder Of Wyoming Man Shot In Michigan On Easter

John Lusch grew up in Rock Springs and Saratoga before moving to Michigan five years ago. A tow truck driver, he was shot and killed on Easter attempting to collect on a car sale. Police have identified four suspects and his mom thinks she knows who did it.

JK
Jen Kocher

May 03, 20256 min read

John Lusch, 45, lived in Rock Springs and Saratoga before moving to Marshall, Michigan, five years ago, where he worked as a tow truck driver. He was murdered in what police are calling an ambush on Easter, April 20, 2025, and his killer remains at large.
John Lusch, 45, lived in Rock Springs and Saratoga before moving to Marshall, Michigan, five years ago, where he worked as a tow truck driver. He was murdered in what police are calling an ambush on Easter, April 20, 2025, and his killer remains at large. (Courtesy Lusch Family)

Sandy Christensen was in the hospital recovering from a life-saving surgery Easter morning when she learned that her 45-year-old son John Lusch had been murdered.

The call from the police was answered by her daughter, Tanya Face, as she raced behind the ambulance transporting her mother from a small hospital near their south-central Michigan home to a larger one in a nearby city. 

Once in recovery, Face and her brother, Stephen Kiehm, told their mother the bad news.

“It was like a kick in the teeth,” Christensen said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Fugitive On The Run

Lusch grew up in Rock Springs and Saratoga, Wyoming, but had moved with his family five years ago to Marshall, Michigan, where he worked for Bud's Towing. 

What happened that night is still unclear, and as of Friday morning there were no arrests for his murder.

Jackson Police Chief Christopher Simpson told Cowboy State Daily that Lusch had been confronted by several people in a home there, about 25 miles from where he lived, and was shot multiple times. 

Simpson said he could not say how many times he was shot pending an open investigation, but that police have identified four suspects they believe were involved in his murder.

Of those, two were arrested on warrants unrelated to the shooting, and a suspect believed to have played “an intricate role” in the murder is on the run with a state fugitive team searching for him.

He further said that Lusch had been found murdered in the home where four people were present Easter morning, April 20, 2025, after someone had called for a welfare check at the home. 

It’s not clear if the people there that morning are the suspects in question, nor would Simpson disclose the name of the person at large.

Christensen, however, believes she knows who killed her son.

John Lusch with his daughter Jolie.
John Lusch with his daughter Jolie. (Courtesy Lusch Family)

Car Deal Gone Wrong

She thinks it’s the guy who had recently bought his car. 

On the Saturday afternoon the day prior, Lusch had visited his mother in the hospital and said he planned to drive to Jackson to confront the guy who still owed him $1,000 for the car.

Lusch sold it for $2,000. The deal was that the man paid Lusch $1,000 up front with the promise to pay the rest four months later. In the interim, he was allowed to keep the car on good faith until he paid it off.

Four months later, however, the debt had not been paid, so Lusch planned to have a “polite conversation with the guy,” Christensen said, and to either repossess the car, collect the cash or strike some sort of agreement.

The easiest way to recover the vehicle would have been to get a new key fob, Christensen noted, but to do so would have cost around $800, which Lusch didn’t want to pay.

Whatever ensued during her son’s conversation with the other person is not yet known, though she believes her son was lured into the home and ambushed.

Wyoming values

Christensen said that Lusch had recently found some unsavory friends based on his budding relationship with a woman struggling with heroin addiction. The man in question to whom he sold his car ran in this circle, which is how the two met.

Lusch had an unfortunate tendency to want to save damsels in distress, Christensen said, especially drug-addicted single moms who were struggling.

Her son was new to this crowd, she said, and didn’t realize the danger he’d inadvertently put himself in by confronting a man about money.

“He was raised in Wyoming and was operating on Wyoming values,” she said. “He thought he could do things peacefully and just talk to the guy.”

He never would have anticipated anyone being killed over a dispute of $1,000, she said.

John Lusch and his mother, Sandy Christensen.
John Lusch and his mother, Sandy Christensen. (Courtesy Lusch Family)

Hard Worker

Lusch was born in Texas but grew up in southern Wyoming. 

He graduated from high school in Saratoga and went on to get his associate degree in engineering from Western Wyoming Community College. Back then, he was known as John Kiehm, after adopting his stepfather’s last name that he later changed back to Lusch.

After college he worked for Talco Trucking before going to work for Stoney Searle at Searle Bros. Construction, then moving to Saratoga to work for his uncle's trucking company. 

When Christensen’s health began to falter, the family moved to Michigan five years ago to be closer to her daughter and because the lower altitude was easier on her breathing.

The family found a great deal on a 15-acre property in Marshall and moved together, including Lusch’s 16-year-old daughter, Jolie, of whom he had primary custody.

Once in Michigan, Lusch found a job as a tow truck driver. 

Life had been going well for Lusch, Christensen said, until he lost his longtime partner Ginger Dailey, who’d abruptly died from a brain aneurysm three years ago.

He took her loss hard, Christensen said, and yearned for female company. This led to his friendship with a woman struggling with addiction.

He wanted to save her, Christensen said, as well as other females in the group who he feared were being sex trafficked. This may have been what led him into the house that night.

“If he thought one of those women were in danger, he would have definitely gone inside that house,” Christensen said.

Family In Distress

Now, the family continues to grapple with their loss in the wake of Lusch’s murder, including Jolie, who is taking her father’s death hard.

There are also the financial worries since Lusch was the family’s primary caregiver. Christensen, a nurse, was forced to medically retire due to her ailing health and lives on her Social Security.

Likely, she’ll have to sell the property eventually and move to a smaller home, though she’d like to remain where they are for one more year until Jolie graduates from high school.

“She’s doing so well here,” Christensen said. “She's got a good social structure, and she's getting straight A's. I don't want to uproot her right now.”

For this reason, Kiehm has launched a GoFundMe fundraiser to help his mother pay for Lusch’s funeral expenses and other living costs for the next year.

Christensen said she hopes people remember her son for the good person he was and not how he died.

She described him as an incredibly hard-working and smart man with a strong affinity for his family and friends and deep Wyoming roots that date back several generations. When he wasn’t working, Lusch found solace in searching for arrowheads to decompress and unwind.

“He was a good man, who would do anything for anybody,” she said.

Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.

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JK

Jen Kocher

Features, Investigative Reporter