Man accused of killing MU student in 2000 is charged with first-degree murder

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A South Carolina man has been accused of murdering a woman in Boone County in February 2000.

Sentrell Wilson, 45, of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, was charged with first-degree murder in Boone County. He was arrested in South Carolina on Tuesday morning and is being held at the Spartanburg County Jail.

Columbia Police Department Lt. Matt Gremore said the victim was Candice Richie. Richie, 21, was a student at the University of Missouri.

Wilson is charged in South Carolina with being a fugitive from out of state. An extradition order was filed in Boone County on Tuesday, according to court filings. He will be held without bond when he is brought to Boone County.

A probable cause statement in either state was not readily available on Tuesday afternoon.

"As part of the arrest warrant, we started doing investigations into his whereabouts to locate him and develop a safe arrest plan for us," CPD Assistant Chief Lance Bolinger said.

Bolinger said Richie and Wilson were in a relationship.

According to Bolinger, police were originally called to the 2300 block of Whitegate Drive in February 2000 for a death investigation, where they found a woman dead. Bolinger said he could not go into detail about the extent of Richie's injuries or what police found on scene, citing the open investigation.

However, he said after receiving the report from the medical examiner's office, police determined the death was a homicide.

A bond motion claims Wilson asphyxiated a woman and left her body where it was not found for several days, then fled Missouri.

Bolinger said police always believed that Wilson was a suspect in the case and claimed the case was referred to the Boone County Prosecutor's Office in May 2000. Bolinger also said detectives from CPD interviewed Wilson in 2000, but an arrest was not made at the time due to the circumstances surrounding Richie's death.

"At that point, there were some concerns about the ability to establish a clear medical cause of death for the victim and based off of that concern, they were not able to issue an arrest warrant at that time," Bolinger said.

Bolinger said Wilson is the only suspect in the case.

Bolinger said the case got pulled up to CPD's cold case team in 2019 to investigate. A couple of years later, in 2023, he said police believed they had enough evidence to take the case back to the prosecutor's office for review.

A press release from the Missouri Attorney General’s Office says “a renewed focus” for the case started last year after a member of the victim’s family met with officials.

Bolinger said police constantly work to crack unsolved cases and bring closure to the victim's families. He said a retired police officer reached out and thanked them for solving the case and asked how they did so, but he said the case was already solved years ago.

"The investigators that work at the Columbia Police Department and at the Attorney General's Office, there's cases of unsolved homicides and missing person's that they review regularly, looking for any new developments, any new technology that has come out that they can dive into to help solve this case," Bolinger said. "The reality is that they already solved this case back in 2000 with all the work that they did at that time. Our investigators today put a lot of work into it, they championed it across the finish line."

Richie’s younger brother, state Rep. Mark Sharp (D-Jackson County), said he was relieved to learn of Wilson’s arrest as he reflected on the day his sister was killed.

“After 26 years, I was in eighth grade when this happened, and I was a kid, being dragged out of middle school to Columbia after we got the news,” Sharp said.  “So it's a very sobering day for us.”

He later added, "People need to know what happened to my sister Candice, and what really happened to her."

Sharp told ABC 17 News he was not given a specific reason for the decades-long delay in the case, but said he is grateful to the Boone County Prosecutor’s Office and the Missouri Attorney General’s Office for taking a renewed look at it.

“Once I found out, I was just in complete shock after 26 years. This isn't something that you expect to happen,” Sharp said. “I think on certain cases like this,  just having a second set of eyeballs look at the case can go a long way.”

Richie was remembered by her brother as a vibrant and engaged student.

“We grew up together. She loved singing R&B music, and we would dance all the time in the living room together,” Sharp said. “She was a cheerleader, a four-year cheerleader. She was in band from middle school all the way through high school. And of course, she was an arts and science major at the University of Missouri before she was killed her senior year. So she was always wanting to uplift the lives of the black community and was a very strong voice for making sure that black rights and rights for all people were recognized in the state.”

Last April, the University of Missouri hosted its annual MU Remembers ceremony, which honors students and faculty who have passed away. Sharp said he previously spoke with UM System President Mun Choi, who was not aware of his sister’s case and later made it a priority to ensure she was included. In a Facebook post, Sharp said Richie was formally recognized and was the only student honored at the ceremony.

“He wasn't aware of what happened to my sister,” Sharp said. “The actual ceremony didn't exist back then, so I appreciate very greatly him including my sister, so the university could formally recognize her and remember all the work that she did while she was a student at MU.”

Sharp said he hopes the renewed attention on the case sends a message to other families still waiting for answers.

“Any families out there that have had to experience violent crime where you may not have been able to get justice as fast as you want, do not give up on those cases,” he said. “Please continue to reach out to prosecutors. Having a different set of eyes look at a case can do a lot for an investigation.”

Sharp has also filed several House bills aimed at preventing similar cases in the future, including House Bill 2315. The proposal would require law enforcement to document whether a deceased person had a known history of domestic violence victimization, and conduct certain interviews before determining a cause of death, and allow families to request investigative records if a suspicious death is ruled not a homicide.