Man pleads guilty to cyberstalking in connection with 2019 murder plot
A Kansas City man pleaded guilty to cyberstalking charges in federal court Wednesday for his role in a murder-for-hire scheme that left one man dead outside a Kansas City grocery store in 2019.
Michael Smith, 39, pleaded guilty to one count of cyberstalking resulting in death, according to a news release from Bailey Coulter, an executive legal assistant for U.S. Attorney R. Matthew Price.
Smith and another man, 36-year-old Dontay Campbell, fatally shot 40-year-old Dontayus Wiles outside Wild Woody’s Happy Foods, a grocery store in Kansas City’s Ingleside neighborhood, on March 16, 2019.
According to the news release, Campbell pleaded guilty in 2023.
Through the plea agreement Smith signed, he admitted he had been hired to kill Wiles in late January or early February 2019, Coulter said.
Smith and Campbell placed a GPS tracking device under Wiles’ red Chevrolet Tahoe on March 5, 2019, Coulter said.
On March 16, 2019, Smith tracked Wiles to Wild Woody’s Happy Foods, according to the news release. As Wiles was leaving the store, he was fatally shot.
During the course of the shooting, Campbell unsuccessfully tried to remove the tracking device from Wiles’ car before leaving the scene, Coulter said.
Officers with the Kansas City Police Department responded to the grocery store, where they found Wiles injured inside the Tahoe. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition. He died shortly thereafter.
A second person in the Tahoe was uninjured during the shooting.
Smith was paid cash for his role in the fatal shooting, according to the news release.
A sentencing hearing in Smith’s case is not scheduled, Coulter said. Smith’s plea agreement states that he faces 30 years in federal prison without parole.
This story was originally published February 11, 2026 at 10:01 PM.
