Man sentenced in federal cyberstalking case that left one person dead in KC
A Kansas City man was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison Tuesday 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, will serve an additional four years in prison for his role in a separate $1.1 million insurance fraud incident, according to a news release from Candice Jamoles, a public affairs specialist for U.S. Attorney R. Matthew Price of the Western District of Missouri.
Smith pleaded guilty on Feb. 11 to one count of cyberstalking resulting in death. 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.
Campbell pleaded guilty in 2023.
Through a signed plea agreement, Smith admitted he had been hired to kill Wiles in late January or early February 2019, Bailey Coulter, a legal assistant for Price, said in a previous news release.
Smith and Campbell placed a GPS tracking device under Wiles’ red Chevrolet Tahoe on March 5, 2019, Coulter said.
On May 16, 2019, Smith tracked Wiles to the grocery store. As Wiles left 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.
Kansas City police officers responded to the grocery store, where they found Wiles injured in the red Tahoe. He was taken to an area hospital in critical condition, where he later died.
A second person in the Tahoe was uninjured during the shooting, Coulter said.
Smith was paid cash for his role in the fatal shooting
