The Dangers of Online Dating - October 3 2025

(dramatic music) Crime doesn't take a day off and neither do we. I'm Katie Ring, self-defense instructor, advocate for victims, and host of Crime House Daily. Twice every day, Crime House Daily brings you the biggest crime stories as they unfold. Morning episodes give you the need to know the latest headlines, breaking developments, and where things are going next. Evening episodes go deeper into the people, the evidence, and the moments that matter the most. The pursuit of justice never stops. And with Crime House Daily, you won't have to either. Follow us at Crime House Daily on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss an episode. - There were two more murders 15 miles away. Police arrived, they found the telephones and electricity lines. We have a weird homicide scene described by one investigator as reminiscent of a weird murder. A cup of murder. - Online dating has become commonplace in today's world. Yet there are still dangers in the anonymity of meeting someone behind a computer screen. On October 3rd, 2019, a young girl met up with a boy she'd been talking to online. Someone who would turn out to be incredibly dangerous. So if you like your coffee hot, but your bones chilled, sit back and start your day with a morning cup of murder. Shayna Ritthaler was just 16 years old when she stumbled upon a website called Badu. It was 2019, she was living in Moorcroft, Wyoming, and the dating site was meant so that you could use the chat to connect, flirt, and arrange dates with people in your local area. That's how she met 17-year-old Michael Gavin Campbell. A young man who, that the site was meant to pair people closer, lived in Sturges, South Dakota, about 100 miles away from Shayna. Eventually the two began chatting every single day, from the moment they woke up until the second they fell asleep. For weeks this went on, and before long, those chats developed into real feelings for one another. They decided to make things official, becoming boyfriend and girlfriend, and Shayna told Michael that she desperately wanted to leave her life in Wyoming. They wanted to meet up, and seizing the opportunity to leave everything behind, the pair began discussing a plan for Michael to drive to Wyoming to pick Shayna up, so they could run away together back to South Dakota, where she could live with him and his mother. They were just teenagers, and it all seemed like the perfect plan, at least it did for Shayna. On October 3rd, 2019, she went to school with the plan to leave during her lunch period, head to the local coffee shop, and meet up with Michael for the very first time. At about 1.50 p.m., Moorcroft High School reported that Shayna Rithaler did not return from her open lunch period, and some fellow students told administrators that she was last seen walking towards the coffee cup. That's where surveillance cameras caught Shayna at 12.36 p.m., standing at the crosswalk, texting when a 1994 Jeep Cherokee pulled up to the shop's parking lot. That's when her phone deactivated, and she was last seen by a number of people getting into the car with a young man, allegedly making the 90-minute drive back to Michael Campbell's home in South Dakota. This was the last time Shayna Rithaler was seen alive and well. At 2.50 p.m., police put out an alert on Shayna and the Jeep. At 4.22 p.m., the National Crime Information Center classified her as a runaway, and days passed with no signs of Shayna. She wasn't active on social media, her phone was still inactive, and no one had seen her since that day at the coffee shop. Working with what they had, on October 5th, police in Moorcroft identified the unknown male in the driver's seat of the Jeep as someone believed to be in the Deadwood area of South Dakota. They notified police in Lawrence County, and the following day, the Jeep was located in the Sturges area, along with Michael Gavin Campbell. A search warrant was quickly obtained, but Shayna was nowhere to be found, at least not at first. They eventually made their way to his basement bedroom, where they found Shayna Rithaler's body. Michael was quickly arrested and while in custody, he confessed to murdering the teenager after they got into some sort of argument. He said that the fight began sometime after he picked her up from that coffee shop, and that it got quite aggressive and violent. At some point, he grabbed his mother's handgun and shot Shayna in the head. Because of Shayna's age, her cause of death and a lot of the details in the case beyond this were withheld. Michael Campbell, initially charged as an adult, was held on a $1 million bail while his attorney filed a motion to have the case moved to juvenile court. Though still charged as an adult, because he was a teenager, a life sentence was deemed cruel and unusual punishment, while the defense pushed to prove that the shooting was not at all planned, claiming that both drugs and alcohol were involved. He pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity to first and second degree murder charges, but some sort of plea was reached when it came to his sentencing. In the end, Michael was given 55 years in prison for pleading guilty to first degree manslaughter for the murder of Shayna Rithaler. In doing so, he gave up his right to appeal. He can seek parole after 27 years when he is 44 years old. Thank you for joining me in my morning cup of murder. Please join me again tomorrow to hear a terrible thing happened on October 4th. Don't forget to rate and subscribe and let me know how you like it. If you wanna help support the podcast, there's always Patreon or just sharing it with your true crime obsessed friends. And remember, stay safe.