Family, friends, and advocates of Brittany Shank, who has been missing since November 30, 2018, continue to urge that her case be transferred from the St. Joseph County Sheriff’s Office to the Michigan State Police.

Watershed Voice’s Thursday, September 19 article on the transfer request has been shared nearly 150 times on Facebook, mostly by visitors to the Our Sturgis Community page. Shank, who was 23 when she was last seen, had her cell phone ping for the last time near the intersection of Watt Road and Fawn River Road in Sturgis.

Chad Spence is the presumptive next sheriff of St. Joseph County. He previously spent 25 years with the sheriff’s office before retiring and later running for sheriff. Spence won August’s Republican sheriff’s primary, which had no declared Democratic candidates. The next sheriff will officially be determined in November’s general election.

Spence was asked Thursday about his future plans for Shank’s case.

“I know they would like the Michigan State Police to take the case over,” Spence said. “However, I’m pretty confident that the state police would never do that. We don’t tend to take each other’s cases over. That’s just something that doesn’t happen. But we do work together. That’s one of the reasons I was running, to get that collaboration back.”

Meetings between the St. Joseph County Sheriff’s Office and Michigan State Police will take place, Spence said. They will not entirely be about the Shank case, but it will be discussed. It’s possible that both agencies will collaborate again.

“I want justice for her, or just to know (what happened), just as much as the family,” Spence said. “When you have that case with you every single day, up to the time that you retire, and it’s not solved, that bothers you. It’s a loved one – she had kids. I learned a lot about her life, and it’s hard not to feel little personal feelings towards those types of cases. It’s just a really difficult case.”

In November 2018, Spence investigated homicides for the sheriff’s office. After about five months, the Shank case was transferred from the county road patrol to Spence’s jurisdiction.

“We tried to go back through it – the state police, the detectives, the Sturgis detective. We kind of went through it, to see where we were at. What was really hard was (how) that much time had gone by. We had no evidence. All that was lost by the time that we had gotten it,” Spence said.

Despite this, officers did receive leads. Several hundred tips related to the Shank case were reported and followed up on, Spence said.

“There’s just been no evidence yet to show whether there was or wasn’t foul play either way,” Spence said. “My idea is to get back – you know, technology changes all the time in investigations and forensics.”

Spence has spoken to some of the groups advocating for Shank’s case and its most recent leader in the sheriff’s office.

“I’ve communicated with Det. Sgt. (Jason) Auton, and he was working that case. They’ve since pulled him off of it and put him back on the road, so it’s kind of gone stagnant again,” Spence said.

Spence is optimistic that advanced technology and collaboration can further Shank’s case.

“I want nothing more than to be able to solve this and find out really what happened,” Spence said. “It will be whatever’s best for the case.”

Frank Stanko is a staff writer for Watershed Voice.