FARGO — The man who barricaded himself in a Fargo hotel room and hid inside the ceiling, prompting police to call in SWAT and evacuate guests, is now facing additional charges after investigators connected him to two stolen vehicles during the time he was on the lam after escaping from a Department of Corrections transitional center in July.

Trevor Dale Nelson, 31, was serving a three-year sentence for theft and several probation violations on prior thefts and drug possession cases on July 7, when he left the Adult Transition Program at Centre Inc. in Fargo without permission. He had been transferred to the facility in late May from the minimum-security Missouri River Correctional Center in Bismarck.

On the day of his escape, Nelson was seen just before 3 p.m. running down the alleyway behind Centre carrying a backpack. A Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation official reached Nelson on his cellphone on July 18 and directed him to turn himself in, but Nelson did not do so.

In early September, according to court documents filed earlier this week, a Moorhead man reported his pick-up was stolen. The following day, surveillance footage at the Family Fare on 25th Street South in Fargo showed Nelson entering the store, shoplifting nearly $250 worth of groceries, and leaving in a pick-up matching the description of the one stolen from Moorhead.

Then, earlier on the day Fargo police received an anonymous tip that Nelson was holed up at the Best Western Kelly Inn, 1767 44th St. S., a woman reported her Ford Focus with Georgia plates was stolen from out front of the U-Haul on 13th Avenue South, just six blocks from the hotel.

A Red River Valley SWAT vehicle is parked Tuesday morning, Oct. 21, 2025, outside the Best Western Plus Kelly Inn & Suites hotel in Fargo.

WDAY News

The day after the SWAT operation to remove and arrest Nelson from the Kelly Inn, the hotel’s manager contacted police and said Nelson’s girlfriend had given him the keys to a car that was still parked in the hotel’s lot. Officers confirmed it was the Ford Focus that had been reported stolen, and interviewed Nelson’s girlfriend, who said officers who had cleared the hotel room after taking Nelson into custody had given her the keys but that the car was not hers and she wanted no responsibility for it.

Surveillance footage from the U-Haul when the car was stolen showed the suspect’s attire matched what Nelson was wearing when he was arrested early the following morning.

Nelson has preliminary hearings scheduled for the escape and both new theft cases in early December, according to court documents.

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