An airman was charged with second-degree murder for the death of a woman on an Air Force base, the police said.
The body of 21-year-old Sahela Sangrait was found on March 4, months after she went missing last year, according to a Facebook post from the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office on Saturday. Chappelle, 24, is accused of killing her.
A walker told deputies that they found Sangrait’s “badly decomposed body,” according to the sheriff’s office.
The active-duty airman Chappelle is stationed at Ellsworth Air Force Base in western South Dakota. The sheriff’s office says Chappelle killed Sangrait on the base. It was said that she was lost on August 10.
It wasn’t clear right away what Chappelle and Sangrait had to do with each other.
Ellsworth Air Force Base did not answer the phone or email right away when asked for feedback on Sunday night. The Air Force also didn’t answer the phone when asked for feedback.
The base’s spokesman told The New York Times that Chappelle joined the service on April 30, 2019, and was an airplane inspection journeyman with the 28th airplane Maintenance Squadron.
The paper was told by Ellsworth’s commander, Col. Derek Oakley, that military officials were working with local police on the case.
“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 told the Times.
A Facebook post about a lost person said Sangrait was Native American.
The last place anyone knew she was was with a friend in Eagle Butte, which is about 160 miles northeast of the Air Force base. She said she was going to Box Elder, where she was from, to get some things before her planned trip to California. Sangrait then left her friend’s house.
It’s not clear when she went to Box Elder, which is close to Ellsworth Air Force Base, or if she even got there.
The Pennington County Jail is where Chappelle is being held. He was taken on Friday, and jail records show that no bond has been set.
It wasn’t clear right away if Chappelle had a lawyer, and a message left at the jail on Sunday night asking for information wasn’t returned right away.
The sheriff’s office says that the case will be handled by the U.S. attorney’s office for South Dakota. When asked for comment on Sunday night, the U.S. attorney’s office did not reply right away.
The FBI, the BBI, the Rapid City Police Department, the South Dakota Division of Criminal probe, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit, and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations were all involved in the probe.
“This investigation has been an excellent collaboration of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies in our area,” said the sheriff’s office.
The office asked anyone who knew anything about Sangrait’s death to call the FBI office in Rapid City.
