Sturgis teen to plead guilty in Wyoming girl's killing

STURGIS — Details of what happened when 17-year-old Michael Gavin Campbell allegedly killed 16-year-old Shayna Ritthaler may finally surface Thursday when the teen appears at a change of plea hearing in Fourth Circuit Court in Sturgis.

Meade County State’s Attorney Michele Bordewyk said Campbell is expected to plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter on Thursday after she and Campbell’s attorney reached a plea deal Monday. Campbell originally pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity.

Bordewyk said at the change of plea hearing the judge will ask Campbell for factual evidence to support his guilty plea.

“I would imagine there would be more details in that process,” she said.

Bordewyk said she was open to a plea deal because Campbell took responsibility for his actions and that the family of Ritthaler, an Upton, Wyo., teen, wouldn’t have to go through a trial.

“He allegedly committed a very serious crime, but he is also 17. I wanted to try to fashion a plea agreement that gives him the ability to be punished for what he did, give him some rehabilitation, and be eligible for parole when he is 47,” she said.

She said that would give him an opportunity to live a part of his life outside of the prison system.

Campbell originally was charged as an adult with alternative counts of first- and second-degree murder in the killing of Ritthaler.

Bordewyk and the teen’s defense attorney, Steven Titus, agreed to ask the judge for a 55-year sentence, but the judge does not have to agree to their recommendation.

Titus called it a “sad situation for everyone involved.”

Titus said he hopes the judge agrees to the sentence since it gives the teen “a light at the end of the tunnel” by making him eligible for parole in his early 40s.

Titus had planned on arguing that Campbell should be transferred to juvenile court, but that hearing was canceled given the plea deal. Titus said the plea deal also means he’s dropping the insanity defense, which argued that the defendant was not mentally competent at the time of the killing.

Ritthaler went missing Oct. 3, 2019, after being seen getting into a vehicle at a coffee shop in Moorcroft, Wyo. She was found Oct. 7 in the basement of the home Campbell shared with his mother east of Sturgis.

The prosecutor previously has said Campbell shot Ritthaler after an argument turned violent. The sheriff has said the victim died of a single gunshot wound to the head.

The arrest affidavit is sealed, and officials have not yet shared how the two met, their relationship, and the events leading up to her death.

Campbell remains in the juvenile jail in Rapid City on $1 million bond.