FARGO — Attorneys for the man accused of murder in a south Fargo apartment slaying have asked a judge to sever the case against their client, which includes charges related to two other shootings on two earlier dates.
The case filed by Cass County prosecutors against C’Aundre Douglas, 20, of Jamestown, includes 12 counts, nine of them felonies. The first two charges, AA felony murder as well as felony aggravated assault, involve the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Elijah Hughes outside Westwood Estates apartment complex on Aug. 3. In press conferences following the shooting, Fargo investigators indicated Hughes’ murder may have been in retaliation for another fatal shooting that occurred a half hour earlier in downtown Fargo.
Fargo police investigate outside the District 64 nightclub where three people were shot on Aug. 3, 2025.
Matt Henson / WDAY file photo
According to court documents, Douglas had “a documented history of feuding with Tyrque Jones, and others associated with Jones.”
Jones, 20, is wanted in the shooting outside District 64 Nightclub just before 2 a..m. on Aug. 3, which took the life of 19-year-old Azeem Holmes. Douglas was captured on video being downtown during the time of Holmes’ murder, although he was not in the immediate vicinity of the actual shooting, court documents said. He was seen on security footage leaving the downtown area in a red Chevy Cruze, and heading in the direction of Westwood Estates, where Jones lived, and where the fatal shooting of Hughes took place.
Poster for Tyrque Jones.
Contributed / Fargo Police Department
Nichole Bredahl, one of Douglas’ attorneys,
said the shooting was self defense, and that Hughes beat Douglas and broke multiple facial bones prior to the shooting, as well as having assaulted and threatened Douglas
numerous other times and “was known to carry a firearm.”
Five other charges in the case against Douglas are related to an incident that took place a month prior to Hughes’ murder, on July 6, when a man and a woman told officers they had been sitting in a vehicle in the parking lot of Bell Bank in downtown Fargo, when four people in ski masks approached and attempted to pull the man out of the vehicle.
The man managed to drive out of the parking lot, he said, but as he did, one of the suspects fired shots at the vehicle, court documents said. Officers found bullet holes in the driver’s side and hood of the vehicle, and casings were located in the parking lot at 15 N. Broadway, along with another car with a bullet hole in the windshield and the rear driver’s side headrest.
Investigators later matched the casings and bullets retrieved from that scene to the gun Douglas had on him when
Fargo officers who were searching for him in relation to the Hughes murder ran him down in a foot chase after he fled from them in Jamestown
on Aug. 4.
The five other charges — one for attempted murder, two for reckless endangerment, and two more for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon — filed against Douglas in the case are for a July 22 incident during which Douglas allegedly fired a gun at a group of people gathered in an apartment building parking lot near the 2700 block of 32nd Avenue in south Fargo.
A woman who was with Douglas during the incident said he climbed halfway out of the front passenger side window of a Nissan Altima that was being driven by another person through the parking lot, and began shooting over the roof of the car at the group of people, who then scattered “ducking and running,” according to court documents.
One man was shot in the leg during the incident. Douglas was identified as the suspect in that case by investigators using facial recognition technology to analyze security video, court documents said.
In a brief to the court filed Oct. 9, defense attorneys Bredahl and Jamie Schaible wrote that “the charges against Douglas stem from distinct and unrelated incidents, and do not qualify” to be tried as all part of one case.
They argue that the citizen witnesses, victims, locations and vehicles involved in the three incidents are “entirely different” from one other, and “the only commonalities … are the alleged use of the same firearm and ammunition.”
In addition, Bredahl and Schaible argued, joining all three incidents into one trial “is incredibly prejudicial because it affects the evidence introduced and the defense that will be presented.”
An assertion of self-defense in the murder case, for example, they wrote, “typically could not apply in an alleged aggravated assault during an apparent robbery or car jacking,” and it may require Douglas to testify, even though he might want to remain silent on the other allegations.
In addition, Douglas’s defense team argued trying all three incidents together as one case would confuse a jury.
“The jury may improperly consider evidence from one incident when deliberating on the charges related to the other incident,” thus violating Douglas’s constitutional right to a fair trial.
“The state cannot show that any of the incidents are actually connected,” the defense brief read.
Judge Stephanie Stiel ordered a hearing be scheduled on the matter for Nov. 19. Douglas is also slated for a contested preliminary hearing on all the charges this Wednesday. He is being held in the Cass County Jail on $1 million bail.
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