West Virginia mother charged with murder after daughter found in shallow grave

A missing-person case in Richwood turned into a murder arrest after investigators found human remains in a shallow grave near Summit Lake, and the person accused is Ayla Wind’s own mother, Staci Wind.

Staci L. Wind, 50, of Richwood, was arrested Saturday and charged with first-degree murder in the death of her 26-year-old daughter, Ayla C. Wind. She was booked into Central Regional Jail without bond after investigators tied the disappearance to the grim discovery in Greenbrier County.

Ayla Wind was reported missing on May 18. State police said the investigation quickly widened when troopers with the Richwood Detachment responded to Summit Lake on Friday, May 22, after a report of human remains. Investigators said the remains were found in a shallow grave, giving the case a physical scene that transformed a weekend search into a homicide investigation.

The search effort had already been moving fast. On Tuesday, May 19, multiple agencies searched a wooded area in Greenbrier County connected to the missing-person case. The Greenbrier County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, West Virginia State Police, Richwood Police Department and West Virginia Fusion Center all took part in the coordinated response as investigators followed leads in the days after Ayla was first reported missing.

The timeline has only sharpened the focus on what happened before Ayla disappeared. One report said her last known contact came Friday, May 15, at 4:36 p.m., when she texted or called from a gas station and said she was stopping for snacks. Another account said she had allegedly gone camping for the weekend with an unknown friend at an unknown lake. Phone records reportedly showed she had been in contact with someone after the weekend began, suggesting investigators were already piecing together electronic evidence as the search unfolded.

No motive has been released, and investigators have not said how they moved from the missing-person report to the murder charge, or whether any other evidence was recovered at the scene. For now, the case centers on a stark reversal that began with a family member sounding the alarm and ended with that same family member in jail, accused in the death tied to the shallow grave near Summit Lake.