Edwin Junior Morales, 43, was fatally shot inside an apartment near 1940 South Chelton Road in southeast Colorado Springs on November 13, 2019. Relatives told reporters an argument began after Morales confronted his sons about disrespect toward their mother; during that confrontation he was shot twice and found gravely wounded. The El Paso County Coroner later identified him as the victim.

Detectives focused on one of Morales’s adult sons, 21-year-old Edwin Jay Morales, known as EJ. He was contacted during the initial investigation and arrested on a charge of first-degree murder; police linked the shooting to the apartment scene and made the arrest within days of the killing. In 2020 Edwin Jay Morales pleaded guilty to manslaughter, told the court he had acted in self-defense, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the November 13, 2019 shooting death of his father.