BILLINGS - An 18-year-old Rocky Mountain College football player from Florida was gunned down in Billings while trying to help a friend.
Charging documents filed against two Billings teens on Friday outline the events prosecutors allege led to the death of the college athlete, who was shot while driving away from a late-night house party on Oct. 28.
The teens were arrested the next day after police located a vehicle described as being involved in the fatal shooting at a residence on Sourdough Lane. They were charged as adults in Yellowstone County District Court on Friday.
The alleged shooter, 16-year-old Sidney Cruz DeCrane Jr., was charged with deliberate homicide.
Prosecutors asked for a $1 million bond, but Yellowstone County District Judge Ashley Harada raised that to $1.5 million, saying it was in the community interest.
Garrett Jarvis Door, 17, who prosecutors allege was driving the car involved in the shooting, was charged with deliberate homicide by accountability. His bond was set at $1 million.
The victim, Chandler Stalcup, was struck once in the head by a gunshot and was pronounced dead at a Billings hospital. Stalcup was a standout athlete from Florida who was playing for the Rocky Mountain College football team.
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Police have said the shooting was not gang-related, but the teens charged with the killing have gang ties. The fatal shooting was followed five days later by another shooting that claimed the lives of a 31-year-old Billings man and his 1-year-old son. The string of shooting deaths led Billings city officials to announce new efforts to combatwhat they described as the city's growing gang problem.
According to the charging documents filed against the teens, the Oct. 28 shooting happened at about 3 a.m. in the 900 block of Poly Drive. Officers responding to reports of a shooting located a vehicle with a bullet hole through the driver's side window and Stalcup was found "seriously injured" in the driver's seat.
A witness told investigators that prior to the shooting, he was at a house party in the area of 15th Street West when a fight broke out. He said he called Stalcup and asked him to come pick him up from the party.
Three other witnesses told police they went with Stalcup to pick up their friend and when they arrived at the house, they got out of the vehicle to look for him. At about that time, an older black sedan, which prosecutors describe as the "suspect vehicle," pulled up near the vehicle driven by Stalcup. The occupants of the sedan asked about the party, court records state, then asked where the occupants of Stalcup's vehicle were from. Some of the occupants in the sedan were wearing ski masks, witnesses said.
The sedan then pulled forward, court records state, and one of the occupants leaned out a window and fired numerous gunshots causing people to flee, including Stalcup and two others who returned to his vehicle and left the area.
Shortly after leaving, the occupants of Stalcup's vehicle noticed the suspect vehicle was following them. On Poly Drive, the suspect vehicle pulled next to Stalcup's vehicle and an occupant on the passenger side fired a single shot into Stalcup's vehicle, striking him in the head.
"There's going to be more and more developments that are ongoing in this case," Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito said Friday. "But we do believe that we have the two principal people involved in the death of Mr. Stalcup in custody and now have appeared in front of the District Court."
The judge stated that if convicted, each could face life imprisonment or a sentence of 10 to 100 years for the homicide felony charges.
DeCrane also would face a sentence of 2-10 years to be served consecutively, for the use of a weapon, if convicted.
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