Just after midnight on August 17, 2021, police in Sioux Falls were called to an apartment in the 200 block of North French Avenue, where Dillion Shane Montileaux-Trevino, a 19-year-old Hispanic/Latino man, was found with multiple gunshot wounds and rushed to an emergency room, but he did not survive.
Accounts published afterward painted the hours before the shooting as a sudden, volatile turn inside a home that had recently opened its door to someone new.
Court records later summarized by local reporting said his mother told officers that Asher Wayne Parks had threatened her, demanded her son's car keys, and warned her not to call police after the shots were fired, before leaving on foot. Investigators later said Parks had been staying with the family after they encountered him panhandling near a convenience store only days earlier, a detail echoed in memorial writing that described the family's instinct to help a young man they had just met.
Police reported they were able to locate Parks not long after—walking near East 14th Street and South Seventh Avenue—though they did not find a gun on him during that contact; reporting based on court documents said the firearm was later recovered hidden near a business in the 500 block of South Cliff Avenue and matched the described weapon, including its serial number. In the first wave of charges filed as the case unfolded, Parks faced a broad slate that included first-degree murder, second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter, aggravated assault, and attempted robbery, and early coverage described a bond set at $1 million.
As the prosecution moved forward, an updated indictment filed later added drug-related counts, and a notice followed in February 2022 stating the state would not seek the death penalty. Jury selection for a murder trial was reported to be set for June 2023, with prosecutors pursuing life-imprisonment stakes if convicted on the top homicide counts.
Public reporting later indicated the courtroom outcome did not match the severity of the original accusations: Parks was reported to have been acquitted of first- and second-degree murder, while still receiving a sentence tied to a separate charge—described as four years suspended with credit for 675 days already served.
