On the evening of August 28, 2020, Santino Majadit Makur Marial, a 41-year-old Black / African American male, was spending time with friends outside a garage at the Cheyenne Estates apartment complex in Fargo, North Dakota. The gathering was tragically interrupted when a drive-by shooting occurred. Marial was struck by gunfire and, despite receiving immediate medical attention, he succumbed to his injuries.
His two friends who were with him at the time were not harmed in the incident.
For more than a year, the case remained unsolved, with the Fargo Police Department continuing to seek answers, uncertain whether the shooting was a random act or if Marial had been specifically targeted. The investigation was a prolonged effort, involving numerous tips and countless hours of work by detectives. A significant breakthrough came over two years after the shooting when a cooperating defendant, who was reportedly inside the vehicle at the time of the incident, came forward with information. This new information proved crucial for the investigation and led directly to arrests in the case.
In September 2022, authorities arrested 30-year-old Joshua Brooks, charging him as an accomplice to murder and aggravated assault. The witness identified Brooks as the driver of the vehicle and the orchestrator of the fatal shooting. The following month, a second suspect, 29-year-old Jesse James Burnett, was taken into custody by a SWAT team executing a high-risk search warrant at a residence in south Fargo. Burnett faced charges of intentional murder, aggravated assault, and reckless endangerment.
The legal proceedings brought some resolution to the case. In August 2024, Joshua Brooks entered into a plea agreement and pleaded guilty to accomplice to murder; a charge of aggravated assault was dismissed as part of the deal. He received a sentence of 40 years in prison and will be eligible for parole after serving 23 and a half years. The investigation also uncovered a related witness tampering conspiracy, in which a federal witness was assaulted in the Cass County jail. This led to the conviction of Shaquiel Anthony Mendez and guilty pleas from others involved in the conspiracy. Jesse James Burnett has since been indicted on federal charges of Murder in Furtherance of a Drug Trafficking Crime and Conspiracy to Tamper with a Witness.
