Abuse charges and a fatal shooting: Stepfather-now-husband accused in Wichita woman’s death
Deniq Jasmine Ingram was fatally shot in her north Wichita apartment days after a new trial was set for the man accused of abusing her family.
Larry Eugene Ingram Jr. — her stepfather, her common-law husband and the man accused of abuse — has been charged with second-degree murder in the Dec. 21 killing. He is also charged with violating a no contact order because Deniq Ingram was a state witness in the abuse case.
Her mother, Daniva Chandler, said she didn’t think the timing of her daughter’s death was a coincidence.
“He killed her so that she couldn’t testify,” Chandler said.
The suspect, 42, and victim, 23, lived at the apartment where she was killed. The two had a newborn together, according to an arrest affidavit.
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Larry Ingram initially told police he shot her because he thought she was an intruder. Then he said he found her shot on the floor, a detective wrote in an arrest affidavit.
She died shortly after a new trial date had been set for Larry Ingram, who faces 17 counts – including rape, aggravated liberties with a child, aggravated criminal sodomy and aggravated incest – that allegedly involved her family members. Relatives testified during a preliminary hearing that the abuse involved Deniq Ingram as well.
It’s unclear when Larry Ingram was notified about the new trial date.
Chandler said she found out about the new trial on Dec. 19 – more than four years after she reported the abuse to police.
She said she was frustrated about delays in the case and said her daughter would still be alive if the system hadn’t failed her.
Fleeing to safety
Chandler said she met Larry Ingram Jr. in 2010 and they got married a couple years later. He had been like a father to her children.
She said Ingram never hit her or showed any signs of abuse around her.
“He was pretending to be one person when I was at home but as soon as I’d leave to go to work, he’d turn into a monster,” she alleged.
When she learned about the abuse in September 2019, she contacted police. She left the state with some of her children.
Deniq Ingram was an adult by then. Chandler said her daughter told her she hadn’t been abused and stayed behind.
“She had got Stockholm syndrome,” Chandler said. That’s a coping mechanism where victims become bonded and can have positive thoughts about their abuser.
Chandler said she felt she had no choice but to leave, in order to save the other children.
She hoped the police would move quickly.
A timeline
It took more than 18 months for police to present the case to the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office in May 2021.
Larry Ingram was charged and arrested in August 2021. A judge approved lowering his bond if he wore an ankle monitor. He also couldn’t have contact with victims or witnesses.
Deniq Ingram was added as a witness later. Witness names are redacted in some of the documents; her name appears to first show up as a witness in January 2023.
Three trial dates were set for 2023 but all were continued, the first because the defense attorney had a conflict and “then twice more due to older cases with in-custody defendants taking precedence over (this case), in which Mr. Ingram was out of custody,” Deputy District Attorney Aaron Breitenbach said in an email.
A victim coordinator with the DA also told Chandler a state’s witness, an officer in Texas, was going to be out of the country, according to an email Chandler shared with The Eagle. The October trial was moved to May 2024.
The new trial date was set on Dec. 12. Chandler was notified about it on Dec. 19.
She emailed the victim coordinator back on Dec. 21, less than seven hours after her daughter had been killed.
“Because the state dragged their feet … my daughter Deniq is dead from the hands of Larry,” Chandler wrote.
She told The Eagle: “Someone needs to be held responsible.”
Andrew Ford, the police department’s newly hired senior public information officer, would not comment about the case but directed a reporter to make an open records request. The police department typically doesn’t comment on charged cases.
The DA’s office did respond:
“While the events ... are tragic and Mr. Ingram will need to answer for that, there is nothing about the manner in which his prior case has been handled by our office that indicates a lack of diligence in holding him ... accountable in accordance with applicable laws and court procedures,” Deputy DA Breitenbach said in an email, adding: “It is not uncommon for an investigation to take considerable time before the case can be presented to our office, particularly when the crime is originally reported in another jurisdiction and alleges conduct committed in the past. Beyond that, we cannot speak to the specifics of this investigation or the time that it took.”
Breitenbach added: “I am sure the trauma of the original case combined with the grief from the recent loss of her daughter are a lot for her to process at this time.”
Limited contact
Deniq Ingram’s aunt, mother and youngest sister described her as smart, athletic and protective over her siblings.
Ingram excelled at track and received an academic award as part of the U.S. President’s Education Awards Program before graduating from Heights in 2018.
She went on to study at Wichita State University. She aspired to be a neurosurgeon.
Deniq changed her last name to Ingram in 2018, noting in her request that “I would like to have the last name of the man that raised me my actual Dad,”according to court documents.
Family said they had limited contact with her after they left Wichita in 2019. There was a video chat once, some phone calls and emails, but family said it felt like she couldn’t speak freely.
When Larry was charged in the abuse case in August 2021, he was living in Nebraska and had to be extradited to Wichita. He listed that he was married and identified Deniq Ingram as his “other/girlfriend.”
Allegations of abuse
Court records detail some of the alleged abuse.
Ingram is being represented by the Sedgwick County Public Defender Office in both cases. The public defender’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
In April 2022, Chandler and two daughters testified during the preliminary hearing in the abuse case.
Chandler, who testified about working long hours to support her children and Larry Ingram, said he had her put cameras all around the house to keep her daughters from sneaking boys into the home.
But, she said, she now believes it was so he could monitor her children’s movement.
The daughters testified about the abuse, saying at times he held a gun and that he used the threat of killing them to keep them silent.
One of the daughters said Larry Ingram told her she was a “creature of light and that” she “needed energy” that she had to get from sex with him or “bad things would happen to me.”
The daughters said they were forced to have three abortions.
“He said it was the devil child,” one daughter testified. “So I was in (the) basement room ... he would have me hold the bar that was over my bed and ... I would have to sit there and take him punching me in the stomach to try to terminate (the pregnancy).”
But, she said, it didn’t work.
Another daughter said that he had her write on a Planned Parenthood form that she got pregnant from a boyfriend.
One daughter also said she read messages between Larry Ingram and Deniq Ingram talking about how they would get married and the colors they would use at their wedding.
‘I can’t wish this on my worst enemy’
Chandler had the body of her third oldest of seven children flown on Dec. 23 back to Las Vegas where her daughter grew up. She broke down in tears as she took clothes to the mortuary.
“I can’t wish this on my worst enemy,” she said. “After I feel my child’s body ice cold, I can’t wish it on anybody.”
Contributing: Amy Renee Leiker
