Twenty-six years after a shotgun blast left 75-year-old James “Jim” Campbell dying on the main dock of Meramec Marina, Sunset Hills police are asking the public to dig back into their memories one more time. Campbell was shot on September 18, 2000, at the marina along Old Gravois Road and survived for seven weeks before he died, according to investigators. He told investigators his attacker was a white man in his mid-20s with blond, curly hair, but he could not recall who he had gone to meet that day.
The renewed appeal comes from the Sunset Hills Police Department, which wrote in a case notice that “someone knows something” about Campbell's unsolved murder. As reported by First Alert 4, investigators believe someone out there may still recognize the description of the shooter, or may know who was at or near the marina the day Campbell was killed. Police also believe someone may know exactly whom Campbell had planned to meet at the dock, a detail he could not provide himself because he was suffering memory loss at the time, according to investigators.
A Detail That Once Seemed Insignificant
According to the Sunset Hills Police Department, a detail that seemed insignificant a quarter-century ago could now help crack the case. Before he died, Campbell described his shooter in specific terms — young, white, blond, curly-haired — but the identity of the person he had arranged to meet at the marina that day slipped away from him because of his memory loss, per the department's account relayed by First Alert 4. Investigators have not identified the shooter, and the case remains formally unsolved.
Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Sergeant John Peisker at 314-849-4400 or email him at [email protected], the department said. Tips can also be submitted anonymously through CrimeStoppers at 866-371-TIPS (8477).
Why Missouri Prosecutors Can Still File Charges
Even after 26 years, prosecutors retain full legal authority to pursue a homicide charge in Campbell's killing. Under Missouri Revised Statutes § 556.036, there is no statute of limitations for murder or other Class A felonies, according to MRD Lawyers, meaning the case can be charged whenever investigators develop enough evidence to identify a suspect.
A Small Department Leaning on Outside Help
Sunset Hills is a small South St. Louis County suburb where the police department employs 26 sworn officers and seven civilian staff working out of a headquarters built in 1998 at Lindbergh Boulevard and West Watson Road, per the City of Sunset Hills. The department, established in 1973 and state-accredited since 2020, runs a detective bureau of just two officers. In February 2025, the city approved a partnership letting that two-person unit cross-designate as Homeland Security Investigations task force officers, giving the small team access to federal resources it otherwise wouldn't have, according to the St. Louis Call Newspapers.
Sunset Hills departments facing major or resource-intensive cases can also call in the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis, a multi-jurisdictional network of more than 500 investigators across Missouri and Illinois that maintains a clearance rate above 80%, according to the City of Chesterfield. Regionally, the St. Louis County Police Department's Bureau of Crimes Against Persons reported a 91% homicide clearance rate in the first half of 2026, a figure that includes solved cold cases, per the St. Louis County Police Department.
A Rare Crime for a Quiet Suburb
Homicides remain exceptionally rare in Sunset Hills. Monthly police statistics for July 2026 show zero murders, rapes, or robberies recorded in the city so far this year, according to the City of Sunset Hills, underscoring why Campbell's decades-old killing still stands out as a singular case for local investigators. That contrasts sharply with the situation across the county line, where a joint investigation by APM Reports, St. Louis Public Radio, and The Marshall Project found that more than 1,000 homicides committed in St. Louis City since 2014 remain unsolved.
The marina itself has been part of the local landscape for decades. Meramec Marina, Inc., at 13156 Old Gravois Road, has operated as a commercial boat dock along the Meramec River in South St. Louis County since at least 1979, according to federal records, making it a long-familiar riverfront stop for area boaters — and the last place Campbell was seen alive before he was found lying on the dock.
Part of a Broader Wave of Cold Case Appeals
Campbell's case is one of several decades-old St. Louis-area homicides that investigators have recently pushed back into public view. Hoodline has reported on the Norma Garrett case, a 1995 killing that remains unsolved, and on the ongoing search for whoever killed 18-year-old Richard Walters. Elsewhere in Missouri, a 1999 cold case in Cassville led to three arrests, showing that fresh tips can still break even the oldest files.
Sunset Hills police have not named a suspect and continue to treat Campbell's death as an open homicide investigation. For now, investigators are counting on the hope that somewhere in South St. Louis County, someone still remembers a young, blond, curly-haired man at the marina on September 18, 2000 — or remembers who Jim Campbell was planning to meet that day.
