Shayna Ritthaler was 16 when she vanished on October 3, 2019, last seen in Moorcroft, Wyoming, climbing into a Jeep-like vehicle outside a coffee shop. Not long before, she had connected online with Michael Gavin Campbell, a teenager from the Sturgis, South Dakota area, and the relationship quickly pulled her across state lines. Early in the search, tips and sightings pointed investigators toward the Black Hills—Lead, Deadwood, and Sturgis—while family and friends tried to make sense of how
a bright ordinary day could suddenly tilt into dread.
According to prosecutors' later account, Campbell drove to Wyoming, picked Shayna up that day, and brought her back to his home east of Sturgis. In that house, during what should have been the beginning of a long-imagined “running away” romance, an argument erupted and ended with a single gunshot to Shayna's head. Investigators tracked down Campbell's vehicle and made contact with him on October 6; the next day, after authorities served a search warrant at a residence in the Blucksberg area near Sturgis, they found Shayna's body in a basement bedroom. Campbell was taken into custody, and the horror of the search collapsed into the finality of discovery.
Shayna was White, and she was a female teenager whose disappearance and death immediately drew a fast-moving criminal investigation. Early on, officials said an autopsy was planned and withheld details while the case took shape, but Campbell's name emerged as he appeared in court and prosecutors moved to treat him as an adult. He was initially charged with second-degree murder, held on a $1 million cash or surety bond, and court records describing the crime were sealed, with reporting at the time emphasizing the case's sensitive nature.
As the case advanced, a Meade County grand jury indicted Campbell on alternative counts of first- and second-degree murder, and he entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. Behind the courtroom formality was a stark narrative investigators believed they could prove: Shayna had only met Campbell in person when she arrived with him in South Dakota, and in the span of days she was dead in the basement of the home he shared with his mother. Reporting on the later proceedings said the handgun used belonged to his mother and that she was not home at the time; the defense argued the shooting was not planned and said alcohol and drugs were involved.
In May 2020, Campbell pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in Shayna's killing, and the earlier second-degree murder charge was dismissed as part of the plea arrangement. A judge ultimately imposed a 55-year prison sentence, with both prosecution and defense asking for that term and the court agreeing; the plea deal also included giving up the right to appeal, and reporting stated he could seek parole after 27 years. By then, the case's public arc had narrowed to a blunt truth: Shayna had been found too late, and the person accused of bringing her to Sturgis had admitted in court that he was the one who ended her life.
