Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Video spots girl leaving school, never seen again: What happened to Shayna?

Episode Date: June 4, 2020

16-year-old Shayna Ritthaler is seen on surveillance tap walking from school to a local hangout, The Coffee Cup. From there she gets into a vehicle, but no one knows what happens next. Where is Shayna Ritthaler?Joining Nancy Grace today: Mark Eiglarsh, Criminal Defense Attorney, Dr Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, Beverly Hills, follow on instagram at DrBethanyMarshall Cloyd Steiger - 36 years Seattle Police Department, 22 years Homicide detective, Author "Seattle's Forgotten Serial Killer-Gary Gene Grant" www.cloydsteiger.com Joseph Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics Jacksonville State University, Author,"Blood Beneath My Feet" Sierra Gillespie - Investigative reporter Crime Online  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. A 16-year-old little girl just scrubbed in sunshine, last seen leaving school, as she always does. She's caught on surveillance video walking away from school and heading to her favorite spot, the coffee cup, the local coffee shop, texting away like every other 16-year-old girl. And then somehow everything goes sideways and Shana Rithaller seemingly vanishes into thin air. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Shana Rithaller leaves school. Surveillance cameras show that, she walks toward her favorite coffee shop, the coffee cup, texting away, not looking at anything going on around her, and then goes missing.

I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories with me, an all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again. When I say that, I think of someone breaking down a car. I don't mean in the chop shop sort of way where you never can trace it again. I mean literally taking the case apart, bit by bit, word by word, polishing it, and then putting it back together again. So suddenly, it all makes sense, and the car runs perfectly. With me, Mark Iglish, renowned defense attorney. Mark, what's the name of your book? Be Happy by Choice. Happiness Guaranteed. Are your misery back available? Are your misery back?

Yes. At BeHappy.com. BeHappyByChoice.com. Got it. BeHappyByChoice.com. Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst to the stars, joining me out of Beverly Hills. You can find her at Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst to the stars, joining me out of Beverly Hills. You can find her at Dr. Bethany Marshall on Insta. Chloe Steiger, 36 years Seattle PD, 22 of that in homicide and author.

Seattle's Forgotten Serial Killer, Gary Jean Grant. ChloeSteiger.com. Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University. Author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. If that doesn't make you want to read it, I just don't know what does. Blood Beneath My Feet. And joining me right now, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, Sierra Gillespie. But first, take a listen to CrimeOnline's Dave Mack.

Wyoming police release information on a missing girl in the Black Hills area. They say that Shana Rithaller, age 16, could be traveling on foot in the area of Sturges or Deadwood, possibly with her hair dyed black. Police say students from Moorcroft High School reported seeing Rithaller missing after open lunch at the school. Surveillance video showed the 16-year-old walking towards the coffee cup, a local shop, and apparently texting. Then, at 12.36, two things happen. Police say her phone is deactivated. Its last location is in Moorcroft. Her social media accounts become inactive. She also does not get in touch again with family or friends. Also at 12.36, the video footage shows a gray, two-door, 1994 Jeep Cherokee

arriving. Riddholler gets into the vehicle on the passenger side and it drives off. I tried to absorb all of the details I just heard because every single one of them makes a difference in this case. First of all, here's my big question. What is open lunch? Her friends at school say she goes missing after open lunch. And I take that to mean you can leave campus or wander around at will during lunchtime, but you have to come back. I've never experienced.

Is that right, Jackie? How do you know that? Your son had open lunch? Yes. I've never been familiar with a school that allows the students to wander on and off campus at lunchtime until you're in college. Seniors. Seniors. Seniors get to do it. Well, I don't know that she's a senior. She's just 16. Maybe she is. Guys, this girl, just precious, Shana Rithaller, just 16 years old, goes missing during open lunch last night walking toward a coffee shop. You know, Dr. Bethany Marshall, I'm trying to remember at 16, I would, no, I would never have

dreamed of leaving the school at lunchtime, wandering off downtown, but there it was acceptable. Can't you just see her just walking along, texting away Dr. Bethany? At that time of life, you're worried about, are you going to graduate? Are you going to get to go to college or get a job? What's happening next? You're probably all wrapped up in the politics and the social drama happening in high school. Was not a thought in the world to going missing? Nancy, a couple thoughts come to mind. First of all, at 16 years of age, it's just on the cusp of still getting your parents' permission to do anything that's outside the normal routine. So normally, excuse me, I think a 16-year-old would say to the parents, hey, you know, I'm going to meet a friend for lunch today.

We have open lunch. Do you mind if I go to the coffee shop? So that the parents would at least know something. I think it's unusual for a young girl this age to go to the coffee shop on their own. At 16 years of age, you are beginning to separate from your parents psychologically, even though you're still getting their permission to do everything. So you're sort of rebelling from your parents a little bit, but you're bonding to your friends. Your friends are everything. You're texting, you're calling, you're spending hours on the phone with them. So the fact that she went to this coffee shop alone, I think is a little curious. And the third thing, Nancy, is she's beautiful and she's so

young. I'm looking at her picture. She kind of looks like a little girl. She looks a little younger than 16 years of age, although I know that no two 16-year-olds look alike, obviously, but she looks very sweet and very naive. Not like somebody who is... All these pictures we see on Instagram and social media, these teens with the fake eyelashes and the dyed hair and the long earrings, and they're all trying to look like the Kardashians. That was not this girl. This is a sweet little girl with no makeup, plain face, plain clothing, just probably minding her own business. To Sierra Gillespie, joining me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Sierra, tell me about the location, the town, the city, the area,

rural, suburban, urban. What can you tell me? She was in Moorcroft, Wyoming. So I know stereotypically when we think of those states out west, they are a bit smaller. But it was about an hour away from Sturgis South Dakota which is a relatively large town but again it's nothing huge so we do know that this girl is a small town girl anywhere out there in Wyoming she's definitely a small town girl small town girl Wyoming Nancy that jump in Nancy that's why I don't that's why I don't think this leaving for lunch is such a big deal first of all granted it's back in the Stone Age when I did it, but we're talking 9th graders to 12th graders at Miami Beach Senior High School.

We left liberally for lunch because we didn't want to be stuck with the lunch lady with the wart and the sloppy joe, and we went, you know, here and there. I was just going to make sloppy joes tonight. What's wrong with the sloppy joe? You too good for a sloppy joe, Eglarsh? Please. But you're talking about a small town in Wyoming. No big deal.

Goes down the street to the coffee shop. I just don't see anything nefarious or unusual about that. Agree. Agree. Although she did go missing. So, I mean, maybe you think that's normal too, Mark Eglarsh, and your criminal defense practice. Of course that's normal too, Mark Iglish, and you're a criminal defense practice. Well, of course that's normal.

Yes. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we're talking about, let me refresh you, the disappearance of a 16-year-old girl, Shana Rithaller, who just simply goes out to lunch. They have open lunch there at her high school. Take a listen now to our friend Dave Mack, Crime Online. Following leads on the Jeep Cherokee that picked up Shana Rithaller leads Moorcroft officers to the Deadwood area of South Dakota. They discovered the Jeep belongs to the mother of 17-year-old Michael Gavin Campbell. In talking with family, police learned Campbell and Rithaller had met online through a dating site called Badoo.

The two talked online for several weeks and at some point they planned to meet and she was going to run away and live with him in his house. But they argued. Through their investigation, police located Campbell's Jeep and made contact with the teen on October the 6th. Riddholler was not with him. Guys, it's just such an idyllic world at age 16 when you're talking about running away with someone and living with them. You know, Dr. Bethany Marshall, I was at home in Macon for some reason. Oh, I was trying to find something for Lucy in my old closet, in my old bedroom. And I found in there a picture drawn on notebook paper from my high school boyfriend who drew the farm that we were going to live in and the house and the trees and everything was there a little piece of notebook paper where we were going to live one day when we ran away together and got married so that's not that uncommon i don't think it's a little

delayed i mean i think for like 12 or 13, you might think you're going to run away. He drew it, not me. But I did keep it. Okay, I did keep it, obviously. I guess this speaks to, in my mind, to her being very young, vulnerable, and naive. If she thought that she was going to meet somebody and live with him, and she had all these hopes and dreams, it tells me that this was a very sheltered young woman. And she had all these hopes and dreams. It tells me that this was a very sheltered young woman. And developmentally, she was still daydreaming about her dream guy and her dream man and that her fantasies outpaced her capacity to think about the reality of the world around her. So, you know, maybe this is a young woman who hasn't watched a lot of TV,

hasn't watched a lot of crime stories, maybe has a really good family. Her friends are good. She's not a part of a mean girl group. So if she has a positive fantasy, there's no way anyone could poke a hole in it. She just imagines that if she thinks it's going to be good, it's going to be good. And she's not filling in all of the details. You know, when you go on a date with somebody, you know, we have the phrase, hey, he looks good on paper. And what that means is we have a cognizance that everything looks good on the surface, but that doesn't mean it's all going to stack up when you get to know that person better. At 16 years of age, she wasn't thinking

in that developmentally mature way yet. Sierra Gillespie, CrimeOnline.com. Let me ask you a question about the surveillance video. What exactly does it show? So this is pretty basic. We see her as many teenagers texting on her phone. Like you said before, she's not even looking up. And I know a lot of kids are like that once you're on your phone. So we're not sure exactly who she was talking to at the time, but clearly it was very intense. So we see her. She left school, and then she was at that coffee shop. And that is also where witnesses say they saw her get into that other vehicle.

Okay, let's talk about a search for a vehicle. To Cloyd Steiger, 36-year Seattle PD, 22 years homicide, and author of Seattle's Forgotten Serial Killer, Gary Jean Grant at cloydsteiger.com. Cloyd, there are, believe it or not, and I realized this the first time I went to APD, Atlanta Police Department, whole divisions regarding car theft. And there's a science to identifying a car. You don't have to have the tag number, although that really helps. But every year,

we were just looking for a minivan. Ours was well over 100,000 miles. Every year, something changes on a car. For instance, the taillights, there may be three circles instead of four, or they may be slanted upwards, or there may be one big light across the back. Everything, there's a subtle change, a subtle but important change to a vehicle every year. And that is how experts like cops can say, oh, that's a Saturn, that's a 2012 or 2017 Saturn because they know the subtle but distinctive changes in a car every year. So it's easy once you see the vehicle, you get the color, you get the make, you get the model, and you can determine even the year. Am I right, Cloyd? Oh, you're exactly right, Nancy. It brings to mind a case. I had a pretty high profile case up in Seattle where we had a video of a car taken on surveillance video. And we went to a junkyard

dealer 100 miles away because everybody said he's the guy. And he used calipers and all this stuff. And he said, this car is a, and he named the car. It was a relatively unusual car. He said 80 to 81. And when we got the guy, he was exactly right. and when we got the guy he was exactly right so that i mean that really changed the whole case because they're just invaluable uh you got to look out for experts outside the police department think outside the box go to people who would know cars shut dealer yeah you said he used a what calipers you know to measure so and so he had he like like any expert would do to measure anything. Smart, smart. Yeah, very good.

And Joe Scott Morgan, Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University. Joe Scott, another issue is very often you can see the vehicle, but as Sierra Gillespie just told us, it was very rudimentary surveillance video. I bet they couldn't make out the tag. And I always say, you know, NASA can learn a thing or two from Target

because they have incredible surveillance video. I'll never forget top mom Casey Anthony in her push-up bra going through the line at Target, as I recall, wasn't it Target, getting beer and lingerie lingerie oh with a forged checker for friends i mean you could practically make out each individual cap on her mouth there's such great surveillance video and i always wonder why isn't that sop standard operating procedure because so often you can't get the tag number no you can't And a lot of this goes to, you know, the quality of what the CCTV equipment actually that's being used. Listen, every cloud's got a silver lining. You know, if you didn't have the CCTV footage that they do have, you wouldn't have anything. All right. So

we have to be thankful for the fact that we can actually visualize what we can see. Sometimes they can digitally enhance this stuff. A lot of it depends upon the angle of the camera too. You can have a great profile shot, but if the camera is not panning left or right, moving left or right, you might not catch the tag as it's driving away. You might not see specific damage to the front end of the vehicle. And it's only after you find the vehicle that you can kind of tie these things back together. That's why it's very important. And it's only after you find the vehicle that you can kind of tie these things back together that's why it's very important and it's actually profitable the fact that we have an initial description of the vehicle when you just said damage to the vehicle remember that is how they caught the alleged killer of the jogger molly tibbets yes in home surveillance video you'd see

her jogging by and you would see a vehicle going back and forth and back and forth at the same time she was jogging. And they saw identifiable marks or scrapes down the side of his vehicle. That's how they found the vehicle, and that's how they found him. Yeah, and you have specific tiebacks. You know, this goes to specific—it's something in forensics that we refer to as individualization. That is, whether it's a firearm or whether it's a tool mark on a bone or whether it's an image, you know, like an image of a vehicle. You can have, say, we can have three specific Chevy vehicles that have been owned by three different people. Well, those three different people are going to treat that vehicle completely different.

And so there's going to be damage to some, and there might not be any damage to others. They might storm outside. They might storm inside. Hey, there might've been a tornado with hail that fell and it damaged that particular vehicle. So that goes to individualization. And so for police and investigators that are looking at these images, we're going to try something that has a specific, try to find something that has a specific tieback. And in this particular case, that's what they would be looking for. Tieback. Why do you keep saying tieback? What is tieback in your mind, Joe Scott? The tieback here is, for instance, if an individual, let's say the guy has a history of taking a vehicle off road. All right. He goes over specific surfaces. He goes, he goes through the woods.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Stop with the imaginary, the imaginary bargain. Yeah. Okay. You're saying tie back means something about that vehicle ties back to the person. Yeah, that is unique to the vehicle and the person. You're absolutely right. Now I get what you're saying. Guys, we're talking about the disappearance of a precious little 16-year-old girl, Shana Rithaller. She goes out to the coffee cup for lunch and is never seen again. She goes missing.

We're talking about a vehicle that she's seen getting into. Who owns it? Why did she get into it? Well, because of all the things that Cloyd Steiger and Mark Iglish and Joe Scott Morgan are saying, they tie it back to another teen, Michael Campbell, 17-year-old of South Dakota. They go, they find him. He's there at home where he lives with his family. He goes, yes, we met on an online dating site. We fussed and she left.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Shana Rithaller, she goes out to the coffee cup for lunch and is never seen again. She goes missing. We're talking about a vehicle that she's seen getting into. Who owns it? Why did she get into it? Well, because of all the things that Floyd Steiger and Mark Iglish and Joe Scott Morgan are saying, they tie it back to another teen,

Michael Campbell, 17-year-old of South Dakota. They go, they find him. He's there at home where he lives with his family. He goes, yes, we met on an online dating site. We fussed, and she left. To Sierra Gillespie, tell me about the online dating site that they met, where they met. So they met on the online dating site called Badoo. What? It's actually a Russian site. Look at that, Jackie. I want to see what it looks like. Way back in 2006. Why do two kids in South Dakota have to be on a Russian dating website? Help me out, Sierra. I know, it is kind of crazy because I was looking into it today because usually you hear

things about kids who are on Tinder or if they're on Bumble or things like that. This site, I had never even heard of. I'm looking at it right now. I'm looking at it right now, Sierra Gillespie, and it says 473,344,779 people. What does that say, Jack? Have already, have already what? Joined. Joined. Jump in. Jump in. And it's just a very plain sight. It's just a white screen with purple around. It says Badoo on the top. You don't see couples walking along hand in hand what happens after you join i'm very curious sierra yeah so i guess you meet up with people who you're interested in probably something like all the other dating sites are out there i don't think that it's specifically aimed at like hooking up like how some are aimed at just you

know hooking up this i, is more of a dating. Go ahead and say it. You mean sex, like Tinder or Grindr. Okay. Right, right. So this is more of the plenty of fish genre. Is that what you're telling me? Yeah.

Okay. What more do we know about that day? Because now we know she's last seen in this vehicle. We know that she was seen in his vehicle. She's texting. And so she has been seen with this kid that we know that she's been talking to for about, I don't know, several weeks. One thing I think is very important about this is this boy's 17 years old, which to us sounds like nothing, but to her, she's a 16 year old and that's an older boy. So that if I'm

putting myself back in my shoes as a 16-year-old, wow, that's awesome. An older boy is taking a look at me, that's great. So I think that's something we should consider as well. The fact that he's a year older, obviously they did not go to school together. So Dr. Bethany Marshall, that puts it in a whole nother genre. She's dating the older guy from another school. What's the dynamic? Well, obviously he wants anonymity. So he has chosen a website that maybe gamers would have access, I'm sorry, a dating site that is so unknown.

It's in Russia. And that perhaps his parents wouldn't know about it. Maybe he's a part of a gaming community that ties into that particular online community, but he's already under the shroud of anonymity because he's gone outside of his school and he has gone onto a dating site, so-called dating site that nobody has ever heard of. So it makes me, and it's all online. He's never met this girl before. As I'm looking through all the reports, it's not like they shared the same location for a prom. Or they had football games at a similar stadium.

Maybe his football team from his school played against her football team. And so they met up at games and they got to know each other. He did this all online. And it makes me suspicious of him because you know so many men groom women online. They gain the woman's trust. They make the woman feel special. Then they start to alienate the young woman from family and friends. They tell the young woman, hey, I understand you. Nobody else does. I can free you from your parents. Don't you feel your parents are being mean and abusive? And they slowly gain mental control over the victim through these

means. So, you know, it's tempting to think of this as, oh, high schoolers, a 17-year-old and a 16-year-old, but we know even the most common age of a child molester is age 13. Did you know that? That 13-year-olds can be pedophiles and molesters. So a 17-year-old can certainly groom a victim. It's interesting that you said that because as a matter of fact, Michael Campbell and Shana Ritholler had been communicating online for quite some time, but this was the first time that actually met that Fitz Hand and Glove and what you just said, Dr. Bethany. Well, so it tells me again that he targeted her. He was alienating her from her friends and her community. He was gaining her trust and boy, building big dreams, Nancy.

Do you remember, we covered a story about maybe six months ago of an 11-year-old who got in a car and drove like 200 miles because he thought he was going to go and live with an older man. He pulls into a parking lot of, I think, a jack-in-the-box and fortunately right next to a police officer who asks him where he's going. And he says, hey, I met someone online and I'm going to go live with him. Just 11 years old. Now we have 16 years old, only five years older, and you potentially have the same dynamic where she thinks she's going to live with this guy whom she has never even met. Guys, the disappearance of this young girl, a teen girl,

who simply goes out for open lunch at school, shocked the community, and then takes a sudden twist. Take a listen to our forensic KELO. Meade County Sheriff Ron Merwin says someone shot Shana Rithaller once in the head. 17-year-old Michael Campbell is facing a second-degree murder charge in her death. Prosecutors say he shot Rithaller during an argument. Someone found the girl's body in the basement of his house. CHARGE IN HER DEATH. PROSECUTORS SAY HE SHOT RITTHALER DURING AN ARGUMENT. SOMEONE FOUND THE GIRL'S BODY IN THE BASEMENT OF HIS HOUSE. MERWYN SAYS CAMPBELL ISN'T COOPERATING WITH INVESTIGATORS,

BUT THEY BELIEVE HE DROVE TO RITTHALER'S HOMETOWN OF MOORCROFT, WYOMING TO PICK HER UP. DETECTIVES ARE STILL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW THE TWO MET. THIS YOUNG GIRL SHOT DEAD, FOUND IN THE TEEN BOY, how the two met. This young girl shot dead, found in the teen boy Michael Campbell's basement. You hear reports that somebody found her in the basement. You know it was probably his mom. Can you imagine finding a body in the basement? To Chloe Steiger, 36-year Seattle PD author, Seattle's Forgotten Serial Killer, Gary Jean Grant, why is it that so often we find the bodies hidden in the basement?

It's almost a cliche. It is, but you know, that goes to the immaturity of this kid or the not thinking straight or knowing what to do. He had this body stuck. He had no idea what to do with it. So he just took it down to his basement and figured probably I'll deal with it later or something. Because, I mean, it's going to be found. Because, again, it's going to start stinking pretty soon. And his mother has access to the basement. So he's very unsophisticated criminal in this case.

Well, also, I think it's significant that she's found in a basement bedroom. So I'm betting you anything. He brings her home. She does not suspect a thing. They go downstairs. He wants to show her the house. They get in the basement. They go downstairs. He wants to show her the house. They get in the basement. He makes advances. She fights back and she ends up shot dead.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace guys a 16 year old little girl shana ritt hall are dead joining me crime online.com investigative reporter sierra this is as i understand it the first time the two had ever met in person? Yeah, I know. Isn't that pretty crazy? They had been talking for several weeks online, and this was the first time that they met when they met up at that coffee shop. And then he took her back to his home in South Dakota. So they truly hadn't even known each other that long. They'd actually been talking longer, like, online than they had seen each other in real life. The likelihood that she's going to be shot dead on a first date, it just sounds so unpredictable to Mark Iglish.

You know, very often we hear of someone being stalked. They've had a relationship. The girl breaks up. Here, this is the first time they ever even met. Mark, you don't see that coming, do you? No. Listen, I'm supposed to defend the guy because that's how you like me to play the role. But the reality is this could be...

Hey, you chose to wear the black hat when you got out of law school, okay? I'm not forcing you to do this. Fair enough. And you're making a pretty penny at it i might add okay i've seen pictures of your place go ahead so listen we don't know we no one knows at this point whether this was his evil plan to go to badu and find a victim or whether something spontaneous just occurred um that he didn't. He thought somehow this relationship would work out and then she doesn't act in a way that's consistent with what he envisioned. And then

you may not have sex with him. Yeah, all that. That was a fancy way of saying that. Or one of the many other scenarios. Who knows what else the guy wanted to do with her? No one was there. We don't know. But because he's equally consistent, that's something that we use to his advantage. We don't know if we're talking about the degrees of homicide that he's potentially facing. Dr. Bethany, jump in. Just because he's 17, we should not think of this as a relationship gone awry. I mean, apparently he says to the investigators that they got in an argument. What a big fat excuse or rationalization.

He's acting like they already have a relationship. If he were 24, 25 years old, what would he be thinking? Maybe he's a serial rapist that lured a woman offline. Maybe he is just simply homicidal. Maybe he's a serial killer and this is his first victim. Maybe he got caught at the get-go, right know, right at the gate. And his first act, the fact that he shot her, I would wonder if he was planning other crimes. Was he stockpiling weapons? How did he get access to a weapon? Were there other weapons in the home? I would want to look at his Facebook, all of his online accounts.

What was he writing about? Was he planning a school shooting? I know that may seem far afield, but I can bet you that this is not the only crime that this young man was planning. I think this is just the tip of the misery iceberg. And that mother who went down to the basement bedroom, I bet you she knows something. I mean, God bless her for reporting it to the police and not protecting her son. But I bet she was already worried about him, suspicious about him, and knew that things were just, you know, that he was a very troubled, troubled young man. Well, I would think. Hold on, hold on. I could defend him now. Or, or an entirely. Oh, here we go. Hold on. Or an entirely different scenario. If law enforcement

are saying it was a relationship, let's keep making assumptions. They then have both his social media and hers. They see maybe some text messages back and forth between the two. Numerous gathering of words would suggest that this might have been a relationship, and this was an isolated incident, and as a result, things went awry. I don't know that we're making him into be a serial killer just yet. Well, you'd think that the parents got a whiff of something wrong. But after having poured over the statements of parents in the Columbine shooting, they had no idea what was going on in the basement. No idea what was happening. I want you to take a listen now to our friends at KNBN News Center One News anchor Anya Muller. It's believed police have found the body of a teenager reported missing

from Moorcroft, Wyoming. Meanwhile, a juvenile suspect has been taken into custody. As we reported first on Sunday, Shana Rittaller was last seen in Moorcroft last Thursday of last week. Police believe she was in either Deadwood or Sturgis. The Meade County Sheriff's Office, along with agents from the State Division of Criminal Investigation, served a search warrant yesterday for a home near Sturgis. A teenage girl's body was found in a basement bedroom in the house, which is located in Blucksburg. An autopsy will be performed, but according to her mother's Facebook page, Shana was shot to death. The juvenile suspect has been taken to the Juvenile Services Center in Rapid City. Charges are pending.

We are also learning, according to police reports, that Campbell, Michael Campbell, was apparently on drugs and alcohol at the time. His mother had left briefly, and during that fateful moment, the son, Michael Campbell, allegedly using drugs and alcohol, retrieved a handgun that belonged to his mother. His words, quote, Back to Sierra Campbell joining me when asked if he was angry. He says, no, they've been having an argument. He's been asked about justification. He says very flatly, I shot her in the head. Do I have that right, Sierra? Yeah, that's exactly right, Nancy. It sounds like this kid didn't have very much emotion around surrounding this.

He said he shot her once in the head and that was pretty much it. We do know that drugs and alcohol were likely involved in this, but what led up to the fight or this incident or him thinking it was necessary to pull a gun that I don't know. But think about it.

Joe Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University. He had to go and retrieve the gun. Hold on his satellites down. Chloe Steiger. He had to go retrieve the gun. Yeah, you know, and that shows the level of premeditation in this case. But although to answer Mr. Eichlar, the state doesn't have to prove that he's a serial killer or anything because they charged him with murder too. And they didn't presume premeditation, although there is some evidence of premeditation in this case if he had to get the gun. Take a listen to KOTA TV News anchor Jack Caudill. A 17-year-old boy is charged with second-degree murder in the death of missing

16-year-old Shana Rithaller of Moorcroft, Wyoming. Rithaller's body was found in the basement of a home in Bloxburg, just southeast of Sturgis, on Monday. 17-year-old Michael Gavin Campbell was arrested Monday, made his first appearance in Fourth Circuit Court in Sturgis this morning. In arguing bond, Meade County State's Attorney Michelle Bordewich said that Campbell admitted to law enforcement that he and Rithaller had an argument. The argument turned violent and he shot her. The court sealed the probable cause affidavit in the case, cutting more details in the case. Campbell's attorneys asked for a $250,000 bond, but Circuit Judge Kevin Kroll set his bond at $1 million, saying the court finds the facts of the case particularly troubling. Campbell is set for arraignment a week from today.

He's being charged as an adult, but since he's a juvenile, he can't be sentenced to life in prison if he's convicted, but can only be sentenced to a set number of years. Guys, after attempting to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, the case winds its way through the system. Take a listen to our friend Dave Mack, Crime Online. A Meade County judge accepted the plea agreement for a Sturgis teen who has admitted to the 2019 killing of a missing Wyoming girl. Michael Gavin Campbell is 17 from Sturgis. If you remember, he pleaded

not guilty by reason of insanity back months ago. He is now admitted to shooting 16-year-old Shana Rithaller in the head after getting in an argument. Campbell pleaded guilty to the first degree manslaughter charge in Meade County courtroom as part of a prearranged agreement with prosecutors. Instead of facing the maximum penalty of life in prison, Campbell agreed to a 55-year sentence, and he agreed to pay restitution of $8,339.54. Restitution of $8,000 when your 16-year-old daughter has been shot dead in the head. Because this was a guilty plea, there will very likely never be an appeal. Prediction, this guy will be out in 10, 12 years.

While Shana Rithaler's family is sentenced to life in the hell without their daughter. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.