‘Trying to clean up his own blood’: Boy shot to death over pair of jeans by teen who pretended to be his friend, dad says

Inset: Cayden Alston-Arnold (GoFundMe). Background: Cops investigate the 15-year-old Cayden”s shooting death in Raleigh, North Carolina (WTVD).

A North Carolina teenager allegedly shot and killed a fellow teen when the victim refused to fork over a pair of Ksubi jeans the suspect wanted to buy but would not pay for.

Cayden Alston-Arnold, 15, was shot and killed shortly before noon Friday at a home on Springshire Court in Raleigh. Police arrested a teenager for the shooting, but have neither released the boy’s name due to his age nor said what charges he is facing.

Cayden’s father Courtney Alston told local ABC affiliate WTVD and NBC affiliate WRAL the suspect and another teen came over to buy a pair of his son’s jeans.

Alston, who wasn’t home at the time of his son’s killing, said he reviewed Ring camera footage captured outside the house from before the shooting.

“I could tell by the way they were acting, they were a little bit kind of adamant about getting in [the house]. They [were] going around to the back of the house … asking which one was his window,” Alston told WTVD.

But the boys refused to pay for the jeans so Cayden would not give them up, Alston said. That’s when one of the boys allegedly opened fire on Cayden. At first, Cayden looked like he might survive his gunshot wound.

“My sister called me and told me that Cayden had been shot. She was like, she thinks he’s OK because he told her, ‘Auntie, I’m going to be good, I’m good,'” Alston told WRAL.

He was even able to move around.

“Cayden was in here running around … trying to clean up his own blood. From the bathroom, the closet door, the kitchen. Everywhere,” Alston said in his interview with WTVD.

But by the time Alston made it home, his son had collapsed. He was rushed to the hospital where he died.

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Alston started a GoFundMe to pay for funeral costs.

“On March 20, 2026 he was murdered in his home by so-called friends. His life was cut short behind some Ksubi jeans and envy,” he wrote.

Prosecutors have filed a petition for criminal charges against the suspect, but police have not released any other information.