Benjamin Donahue III, a 37-year-old Black male, was killed in the early hours of October 26, 2019, in downtown Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after a late-night confrontation outside Club David near West 10th Street and South Main Avenue. What began as a heated argument in the shadow of the club spilled into the street and a nearby parking area, where the tension between two men who knew each other boiled over in an instant.
Investigators said the suspected shooter was Max Bolden, a Sioux
Falls man who had been entangled in the victim's social orbit and whose relationship with Donahue had grown increasingly hostile in the months leading up to the shooting. Accounts of that lead-up described a bitter feud marked by threats and resentment, including claims that Donahue believed Bolden was involved with the mother of Donahue's child. By that Saturday morning, the simmering conflict turned into violence at close range: Donahue was shot in the head, dropped to the ground, and was shot again.
In the confusion that followed, Bolden fled, vanishing from Sioux Falls as police searched for him. Authorities also sought Krista Kruckenberg, alleging she had been with Bolden during the incident and left the scene with him afterward. She was wanted on charges tied to assisting after the fact, including allegations that she tried to influence at least one witness by urging them not to tell anyone what they had seen. Kruckenberg later surrendered and was taken into custody, accused of being an accessory to a felony in connection with the killing.
Bolden remained on the run for more than a year, with federal marshals and local investigators tracking leads across state lines. On March 2, 2021, he was arrested near Memphis, Tennessee, in a commercial area and held in the DeSoto County Jail while extradition proceedings moved him back to South Dakota. With Bolden in custody, the case shifted from a manhunt to the slow grind of court filings, hearings, and trial preparation.
Prosecutors ultimately pursued serious charges, including first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. At trial, Bolden argued that he acted in self-defense, but the jury rejected that account and found him guilty of first-degree murder and the firearm charge. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder conviction, with additional sentencing on the firearm count, and he was ordered to pay restitution and court costs.
Bolden appealed, arguing there was not enough evidence to support a first-degree murder conviction. In 2024, the South Dakota Supreme Court upheld the conviction, concluding that the evidence presented at trial was sufficient for a rational jury to find premeditated murder beyond a reasonable doubt, pointing to the close-range nature of the shooting, the second shot delivered after Donahue had fallen, and Bolden's immediate flight from the scene and efforts to distance himself from the weapon.
