Sioux Falls parent speaks out on son’s death by shooting
Crystal Boehrns spoke frantically, like sentences with no commas from a mother who hadn’t slept in days.
Like a mother who was tired of repeating herself.
“Please don’t tell me you’re sorry,” she said.
“Please just stop asking me what you can do,” she said.
“Nothing will bring him back,” she said.
“Please,” she said twice more.
Boehrns is a 37-year-old grieving parent who has more than 50 text messages on her phone, even more on social media, calls that keep coming, voicemails, knocks on her door, family “bombarding” and a copy-and-paste response for them all:
Please just let me be.
At about 3 a.m. Aug. 20, Boehrns awoke to the knocks that started it all, from two police officers at her door telling her that one of her children was in the hospital with a life-threatening gunshot wound to the face. It would be more than an hour before she got to see him.
Only then, it would be to say goodbye.
Deontaé Montrell Boehrns, who turned 17 last month, died that same morning when Boehrns herself had to take him off life support. He was the second of her seven children, a “spicy” teenager who “just wanted to be free, Mom.” She said he was handsome, a caring friend, hard-headed, a good brother, and “at the wrong house at the wrong time.”
“I feel like I could scream at the top of my lungs right now and then sit there for hours not breathing,” she said. “I’m just so angry. It’s a lot.”
Read about what happened:A Sioux Falls woman, her 13-year-old son charged after a 17-year-old dies in 'accidental shooting'
According to a written affidavit by Lt. Carter Hand, with the Sioux Falls Police Department, Boehrns’ son was the victim of what was investigated as an “accidental shooting” and later deemed a homicide in the bedroom of a 13-year-old while a few friends were playing video games in the middle of the night.
Two handguns were in the room, one of which was stolen from an unlocked car the week prior – the one that stole Deontaé’s life.
But, according to Boehrns, her son was “unfortunately” in a home he had never been in before and shot by a 13-year-old he never knew.
She said he went to the house with his best friend, went upstairs to an unfamiliar bedroom and sat on a computer chair next to a couple Xbox consoles. Boehrns said she was told that Deontaé wasn’t even aware there was a gun in the room until the 13-year-old started holding it up to her son’s face in jest.
“Accident or not," she said, “it still happened.”
Among the four or five kids in the bedroom where the shooting occurred, Deontaé was the oldest.
After initial statements from witnesses first reported that Deontaé “shot himself,” as noted in the affidavit, Boehrns said she was told the truth of what happened that night by her son’s best friend.
She said Deontaé’s best friend was the one who was sitting right next to Deontaé when he died, and he’s the one who provided an accurate account to the detectives after the 13-year-old’s mother was charged with false reporting. The mother, Savannah Randle, 33, of Sioux Falls, was also charged with accessory to manslaughter and nine counts of child abuse in relation to the case.
Boehrns said Deontaé’s best friend, who has had “a rough couple of days,” was at the ER with her, worried for his friend, and that he is the one she trusts.
“Everyone else was so scared to tell the truth,” Boehrns said, expressing frustration that detectives “didn't even get the story right” when they finally told her in the ER what had even happened to her son.
The mother of the best friend, age 16, could not be reached for comment, and the teenager was not publicly identified in court documents because of his age.
“I don’t know any mother who could sit by and allow my son to suffer the way she did just to cover her own son’s wrongdoing," Boehrns said. "It’s wrong.”
Support from schools
Two days later, Broehns awoke steadfastly to still ensure Deontaé’s siblings arrived at both Edison Middle School and Laura Wilder Elementary for their first day of school.
It’s where they are safest right now, Boehrns said. His younger siblings range in age from 6 to 13.
“I just want them to have recess,” she said. “I want them to go and make friends. I don’t want them to feel stressed. I want them to know that everything is going to be OK.”
As for Deontaé, he was a student at Axtell Park. Just two weeks ago, Boehrns said her son told her, “I’m going to make sure I finish school for you, Mom.” She said he had a new job, a new checking account they had just opened for him at the bank and that he wanted to “save up” to get his own home.
“This is what I want to do for you, Mom,” he told her before what would have been his first day of senior year.
Boehrns said she is grateful for the compassion that the schools have shown to her family and friends.
“My kids have nothing but the best support there," she said.
DeeAnn Konrad, the community relations coordinator at the Sioux Falls School District, says their crisis teams have skilled staff to respond to grief for both students and their families.
“It’s an unfortunate necessity we need to have,” Konrad said. “Of course, we always look at the academic needs of the child, but the social and emotional needs are critically important to help get them the best education they can. And if a student is having challenges working through their emotions, we make sure they receive all the support we have available.”
Tory Stolen, a multimedia specialist for the Sioux Falls School District, added that the crisis teams act as a liaison between the students and their families and local agencies, such as the Helpline Center, Southeastern Behavioral Health, Avera Counseling Services and the Sioux Empire United Way's PATH program, which provides counseling sessions at the schools for K-12.
'Not the city I grew up in'
Anthony Cortez said Deontaé was “a good kid.”
Deontaé had just started working for Cortez at Boston’s Pizza Restaurant & Sports Bar. They hadn't even been open a month when Cortez received a phone call about Deontaé.
“This has affected everyone here,” said Cortez, who is general manager at the new restaurant inside the Sioux Falls Ramada. “These kids are young, we’re still building bonds and connecting with one another.”
Deontaé has relatives who work at the restaurant and at the hotel, so the tragedy has been personal. A sign at the host stand shows a picture of Deontaé, with a GoFundMe link to support his family.
A new restaurant, still settling in, still meeting new customers, and in grief.
“This is just not the city I grew up in,” Cortez said, who has worked in management for nearly 20 years and is raising a family in Sioux Falls.
“I’m a gun owner myself, and I have three daughters,” he said. “They know the severity of what happens when guns are not dealt with properly.”
Cortez said that further community safety initiatives need to be in place as gun violence increases in our community and that local gun owners need to be sure their guns are secure.
An Argus Leader review in 2022 of stolen gun data reported that most guns in the state at that time were stolen from unlocked vehicles, like the handgun stolen in Deontaé’s case. South Dakota law enforcement officers also stated at the time that the number of minors involved in stealing those guns is increasing.
“We’ve seen a number of cases where juveniles are using stolen guns in committing different crimes,” said Sgt. Paul Creviston in the 2022 article.
Lastly, data from The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) showed in 2022 that the most commonly stolen gun in South Dakota in 2020 was a 9-milimeter handgun, the same gun that was used when Deontaé was fatally shot.
“Gun safety needs to be prioritized in education,” he said. “You see this in video games but, in reality, you don’t get to come back from that.”
Boehrns said that, before her son was shot, the kids in the bedroom were likely playing “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare,” a first-person shooter video game in which defenseless characters are killed with no motive. According to the Pew Research Center, over half of U.S. gamers younger than 18 play violent games like this.
The report, published in May, also states over half of teens who play video games do say the social activity helps with their problem-solving skills. Nearly half also share that they have made a friend online because of playing a video game. But 80% of young gamers think harassment and bullying while gaming "is a problem for people their age."
Cortez said his team appreciated Deontaé for who he was. “It’s just sad that it resulted in what it did,” he said.
Honoring a teenager's life
Stolen said that classrooms or classmates cannot organize vigils or memorials on school grounds for a friend who died. But Boehrns’ friends have set up a GoFundMe website to support her family, and they celebrated the life of Deontaé on Wednesday, at the George Boom Funeral Home in Sioux Falls.
“I want everyone to know that my baby deserves to be acknowledged,” Broehns said. “He was always finding the positive, and I want to give that back.”
Family and friends, more than 100 of them, all wore black and red to the funeral, with matching sweatshirts that said “Long Live Deontaé” on the back and a photo of him on the front. Another sweatshirt read, “Forever screaming, I'll forever rep yo name.”
There were red roses atop his casket, young kids consoling their mothers, and Deontaé’s siblings close by their mother's side while Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey’s “One Sweet Day” played in the background.
And I know you’re shining down on me from heaven
Like so many friends we’ve lost along the way
And I know eventually we’ll be together
One sweet day
“We got to find some light in this,” said Deontaé’s “unc” Joshua Durrah. Durrah helped Deontaé get the job at Boston’s and had been encouraging him to finish school and stay on the right track.
“In honor of my nephew, I want to start a nonprofit called Breaking Cycles,” he said. “The nonprofit will help to prevent gun violence, sexual abuse and all the other things that kids should not have to go through here.”
Among Durrah, gathered other aunts and uncles, cousins and siblings, dressed in sharp black tuxedos and huddling close together in mourning. People kept pulling into the parking lot, car by car, to go in and quietly honor Deontaé.
Durrah knew grief. He lost his brother, Deontaé’s father, in 2022, and he lost his mother the year before that.
“It's taking me a lot to be here today and to be in a right place,” he said, dressed in a bright red shirt and holding his daughter, Lou. “We have to channel this energy into a positive light and help to prevent this from happening to somebody else.”
Deontaé was on the right track, his mother said. She stood solemnly by her son’s open casket Wednesday and was surrounded by loved ones as she stood to greet guests at the visitation.
He was “happy in the last days of his life,” she said, and she was excited for him.
Now she’s without him, and she said she just wants to be left alone.
“I am grateful for all your support,” she said, speaking to all the calls and texts and thoughtful outreach. “But I’ve done this for 17 years by myself. I've never asked for any help. What you can do now is just … when you see me, just give me a hug.”
