Samuel Louis Crockett, a 28-year-old White man from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, died on January 5, 2018, after a violent confrontation that unfolded in the early-morning hours outside the Rice Street Apartments at 700 West Rice Street. What began as a late-night effort to obtain methamphetamine turned into a planned robbery, and then into a gunfight that left two men dead.
According to court testimony later summarized by the South Dakota Supreme Court, the chain of events started the
evening of January 4, when Crystal Habben contacted Manuel Jesus Frias after Crockett asked her to acquire meth. Frias and others moved around Sioux Falls in the hours that followed, using meth and arranging where the transaction would happen, finally settling on the Rice Street Apartments. When Habben arrived there with Crockett, Crockett retrieved a handgun from the vehicle before following her inside. Habben had Crockett's money in her purse as the three of them—Habben in front, Frias behind her, and Crockett last—began climbing the stairs inside the building.
The confrontation erupted quickly and spilled out of the building. Prosecutors argued the meeting was never meant to be a straightforward drug exchange, but a “lick”—slang offered at trial to mean a robbery—backed by weapons brought to the scene. In the State's version, as tension rose on the stairs, Frias and Crockett struggled down and out of the building while Corey James Zephier raced after them with a rifle-style weapon, shouting demands for money. Crockett shot Zephier during the chaos, and then Frias shot Crockett outside the apartment complex. Crockett was still alive when police arrived—moaning in the snow—yet the evidence described in the opinion says Frias did not render aid and instead fled, later disposing of his gun and hiding from law enforcement. Crockett died after being taken to the hospital, while Zephier died at the scene.
The investigation quickly focused on multiple suspects. Arrest warrants and searches followed, and in the days after the shootings, police were still tracking down those they believed were tied to the robbery plan. Maria Shantel LeClaire was arrested in Red Wing, Minnesota, and faced a robbery-related charge at the time of her arrest; Crystal Habben was arrested for allegedly concealing a felony; and Frias was sought on a murder charge.
In the criminal case that followed, Frias was indicted by a grand jury and ultimately convicted by a jury of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter, along with additional offenses discussed in the Supreme Court's decision. Frias argued the killing was justified as self-defense, but the appellate opinion notes evidence the jury could rely on—multiple gunshot wounds, shots fired outside an inhabited apartment complex, and the fact that Crockett was struck in areas suggesting he was turned away—when it upheld the convictions. The same reporting around the case indicates Habben pleaded guilty to being an accessory to a felony and was later on parole, and LeClaire pleaded guilty to being an accessory to distributing a controlled substance and received a five-year suspended sentence while planning to testify against others charged.
