In the late hours of August 30, 2019, a heated argument outside the Days Inn hotel in Williston, North Dakota, tragically escalated, ending the life of 49-year-old Cesar Pineda, a Hispanic man from Colorado. The incident, which marked the fifth homicide in Williston that year, stemmed from a dispute that turned fatal.
Authorities were dispatched to the hotel just before 10:30 p.m. following reports of a fight.
Upon arrival, they discovered that Pineda had sustained a gunshot wound during the altercation and succumbed to his injuries shortly thereafter.
The Williston Police Department launched an immediate investigation into the shooting. Detectives utilized surveillance footage from the hotel which played a crucial role in identifying the primary suspect. This led them to 25-year-old Reginald Toussaint. Following an extensive search, law enforcement located and arrested Toussaint, booking him into the Williams County jail on a warrant for murder.
Initially, Toussaint pleaded not guilty to the charges. However, in January 2021, at the age of 26, he changed his plea to guilty as part of a plea agreement. His attorney stated that they had considered a self-defense argument but ultimately decided to accept the plea deal. The terms of the agreement proposed a 30-year prison sentence with 10 of those years suspended. Formal charges of AA-felony murder had been filed against Toussaint on September 3, 2019, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for October 2 of that year. Prior to this violent encounter, Toussaint had minor run-ins with the law in 2019, including a citation for hunting or fishing without a license and a subsequent bench warrant for failing to appear in court.
