A Tinder date gone horribly wrong ended with a Newcastle man dead with a hollow-point round in his chest and a South Dakota man facing a second-degree murder charge — and vastly different stories from the couple who had just met for a hook-up.
The woman Drake Alexander Ingalls of Belle Fourche, South Dakota, had driven nearly 90 minutes to meet this past weekend told investigators that Ingalls “did not need to shoot that gun at all.”
Ingalls, however, says he shot the other man in defense of his Tinder date after the woman screamed for “help” several times, according to an affidavit of probable cause written by Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation Agent Zack Miller.
The shooting happened a little before 5 a.m. Sunday, and Ingalls had his initial court appearance Tuesday, where a Weston County Circuit Court judge gave him a $250,000 cash-only bond and set an Aug. 19 preliminary hearing.
By the time Newcastle police responded to the home of the victim, identified in court documents as Jason Greene, he was lying face-down on the floor and obviously dead, wrote Miller.
An officer “entered the trailer home and located the victim … lying face-down on the floor between the hallway and living room with a large pool of blood underneath his chest,” the affidavit says. “Officers and emergency medical personnel confirmed Greene was deceased.”
What She Said
In separate interviews with the woman and Ingalls, both told investigators how they met on Tinder and had been talking for anywhere from a couple weeks (according to her) to a few months (according to him) before Ingalls drove to Newcastle on Saturday so they could meet up, the affidavit says.
They had a room at a local hotel and had been drinking for hours by the time the woman got a text from Greene calling her a “whore,” Miller wrote.
The woman then allegedly proceeded to claim Greene had mistreated her, but later told investigators that Greene had “never assaulted her and the two were not in any physical altercation,” the affidavit says.
Upset after getting the text, the woman asked Ingalls to take her to Greene’s place “so she could talk to him,” Miller wrote.
The woman “told Ingalls about the text message and that Greene had abused her in the past,” the affidavit says. “(She) told Ingalls that if he heard her yell for help to come and help her.”
Greene didn’t know they were coming to his residence, the document adds. Miller’s affidavit also doesn’t elaborate on how the woman and Greene knew each other.
The woman and Greene were in a “heated verbal argument” with her “yelling loudly,” which Ingalls reportedly heard, the affidavit says. So, he left his car outside the trailer and went to the woman.
The woman also told investigators that she didn’t actually see the shooting, “and adamantly stated Greene never assaulted her and the two were not in any physical altercation,” the affidavit says.
She continued to say that Ingalls “did not need to shoot that gun at all,” Miller wrote about her statement.
What He Said
That’s not how the confrontation went down, however, Ingalls said in his own interview with investigators, the affidavit says.
“Ingalls claimed he came around a shed and observed Greene struggling with (the woman) near the doorway threshold,” Miller wrote. “Ingalls described the struggle as Greene behind (the woman) and he had his arms hooked under her armpits and another hand on the back of her head or hair, and it appeared he was trying to pull (her) into his trailer.”
Ingalls said he tried to pull the door open, then pointed a handgun at Greene and demanded he let the woman go, according to his statement detailed in the affidavit.
“At which point, Ingalls said he fired his handgun,” Miller wrote. “Ingalls could only see Greene’s chest as (the woman) was in front of him and he believed he shot him right in the middle of the chest.”
That’s when Greene stumbled back into the trailer and fell onto the living room floor.
Ingalls had the gun because he had it in his car and grabbed it when he heard the woman yell for help, the affidavit says.
“Ingalls retrieved his 9 mm Glock 17 handgun from the center console of his car and chambered a hollow-point round into the handgun as he approached the side entrance of the trailer,” Miller wrote.
Ingalls and the woman then got back into his car and drove around the block before returning to the scene and the woman called 911.
If convicted of second-degree murder, Ingalls could get anywhere from 20 years ot life in prison, a fine of not more than $10,000, or both.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
