An airman was charged with second-degree murder in connection with the killing of a woman on a U.S. Air Force base, authorities said Saturday.
Quinterius Chappelle, 24, is accused of killing Sahela Sangrait, 21, whose body was found March 4, months after her disappearance last year, the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook.
Deputies discovered Sangrait’s “badly decomposed body” after a hiker reported finding the remains, the sheriff’s office said.
Chappelle, an active-duty airman currently stationed at Ellsworth Air Force Base in western South Dakota, allegedly killed Sangrait on the base, according to the sheriff’s office. She had been reported missing on Aug. 10, 2024.
It was not immediately clear what the relationship was between Chappelle and Sangrait.
Ellsworth Air Force Base did not immediately respond to a phone call or email seeking comment Sunday night. The U.S. Air Force also did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.
A spokesman for the base told the New York Times that Chapelle was an aircraft inspection journeyman assigned to the 28th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, and that he entered the service on April 30, 2019.
Military officials were working with local law enforcement in the investigation, Ellsworth Air Force commander Col. Derek Oakley told the paper.
“We hold airmen accountable for their actions, and if service members are found in violation of military or civilian law, they will be punished,” he said, according to the New York Times.
A missing persons poster shared on Facebook indicated Sangrait was Native American.
She was last known to be staying with a friend in Eagle Butte, about 160 miles northeast of the Air Force base, according to the poster. Sangrait left the friend’s house and said she was going to Box Elder, where she was from, to get some belongings before planning to go to California.
It is not clear when she traveled to Box Elder, which borders Ellsworth Air Force Base, or whether she made it there at all.
Chappelle is being held at the Pennington County Jail. He was arrested Friday, and no bond has been set, according to jail records.
It was not immediately clear whether Chappelle had legal representation, and a request for information sent to the jail Sunday night was not immediately returned.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office will prosecute the case, according to the sheriff’s office. The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday night.
The investigation into Sangrait’s death included the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office, Rapid City Police Department, South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
“This investigation has been an excellent collaboration of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies in our area,” the sheriff’s office said.
The office asked anyone with information on Sangrait’s killing to contact the FBI’s Rapid City office.
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