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Sahela “Shy” Sangrait (GoFundMe).
A South Dakota woman who went missing months ago was found dead — and an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force has been accused of her murder.
Sahela “Shy” Sangrait, 21, was reported missing on Aug. 10, 2024, by her family, according to a press release from the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office. On March 4 — some seven months later — a hiker found a “badly decomposed body” in Hill City, South Dakota, and called police. Following an autopsy and an investigation by several different agencies, the remains were identified as belonging to Sangrait.
On Saturday, the sheriff’s office announced that it had named a suspect in her murder.
Quinterius Chappelle, 24, was arrested Friday on federal charges of second-degree murder. In its Facebook post, the sheriff’s office stated that authorities believed Sangrait was killed at Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City, South Dakota, placing the case under federal jurisdiction. Chappelle, who is an active-duty airman, was being held at the Pennington County jail on no bond before being transferred into federal custody under the U.S. Marshals Service.
Police said that the case will be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office out of South Dakota. The Sheriff’s Office stated that the investigation involved law enforcement on every level, including the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit, the FBI and the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
According to The New York Times, a missing persons poster that was distributed when Sangrait went missing said she had told a friend in Eagle Butte — which is located about 160 miles northeast of the Air Force base — that she intended to go to the city of Box Elder to retrieve some of her belongings before taking a trip to California. The poster stated that it was not known if Sangrait ever made it to Box Elder, which is near the Ellsworth Air Force Base.
While the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office did not provide details about how Chappelle and Sangrait were connected, The New York Times received a comment from Ellsworth Air Force commander Col. Derek Oakley. He told the Times, “First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers are with the friends and family of Sahela. We hold airmen accountable for their actions, and if service members are found in violation of military or civilian law, they will be punished.”
The missing persons poster also claimed that friends reached out to Sangrait’s family after having trouble filing a missing persons report for Sangrait, who was identified as Native American. According to a GoFundMe page for Sangrait’s funeral expenses, her loved ones believed that “South Dakota police failed her when they failed to take several attempts of missing person reports stemming from August 2024-February 2025. Our girl could still be here today had our efforts been taken more seriously.”
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