Braxton Taylor
An active-duty airman in South Dakota has been arrested and is accused of murdering a Native American woman on Ellsworth Air Force Base who has been missing since this summer.
Airman Basic Quinterius Chappelle, 24, was arrested and is facing a federal second-degree murder charge, the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office in Rapid City, South Dakota, said in a Facebook post Saturday.
On March 4, the sheriff’s office announced it had found human remains in Hill City, South Dakota, after “a hiker in the area discovered the body.” The deceased was identified as Sahela Sangrait, a 21-year-old, who was last seen Aug. 10, according to a missing persons poster.
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Sangrait was staying in Eagle Butte with a friend, who said she was going to Box Elder, South Dakota, to “get some of her things, then planned to travel to California,” the missing poster said. Family and friends began to worry after not hearing from her.
The Pennington County Sheriff’s Office said “it has been determined Sangrait was murdered on the base.”
Sangrait’s disappearance and death mark an alarming trend. A historically disproportionate rate of murders and missing persons cases are from South Dakota’s indigenous communities, the state’s lone representative in Washington has said in the past. It also is nearly five years removed from the disappearance and murder of Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén, who was killed inside an armory at the Army’s Fort Cavazos in Texas, then named Fort Hood.
Tech. Sgt. Levi Rowse, a spokesperson for Ellsworth’s 28th Bomb Wing, told Military.com in an emailed statement that Chappelle entered the military on April 30, 2019, and served with the base’s 28th Maintenance Squadron as an “aircraft inspection journeyman.”
He could not be reached Monday at numbers listed for him in public records, and it was not clear whether he was being represented by an attorney.
Rowse did not disclose whether Chappelle had faced any prior punishments or adverse actions, stating “a military member’s disciplinary history, if one exists, is protected by the Privacy Act of 1974 and is not releasable.”
Chappelle is still being held at the Pennington County Jail in Rapid City, South Dakota, Rowse added. Given the alleged location of the murder at a military base, the U.S. attorney’s office is prosecuting the case.
Eric Carpenter, a former military lawyer who is now a law professor at Florida International University, told Military.com that, in addition to the jurisdiction, the U.S. attorney’s office may have also taken the case because it is better prepared to handle an alleged murder than military prosecutors.
“It’s really rare for somebody in the military to prosecute two murder cases, because they’re only in the job for a couple years and homicides in the military are really rare,” Carpenter said. “So, there’s not really a deep bench of people who’ve done complex murder cases, whereas in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, they may have several people that have that kind of experience.”
Those with information related to Sangrait’s death are advised to contact the Rapid City FBI office at (605) 343-9632. Col. Derek Oakley, the 28th Bomb Wing Commander said in an emailed statement that the base is cooperating with law enforcement on the case.
“First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers are with the friends and family of Sahela,” Oakley said in the emailed statement. “We hold airmen accountable for their actions, and if service members are found in violation of military or civilian law, they will be punished. We are working closely with the area law enforcement agencies.”
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