Abraham Morales-Santos

A Halloween party at the Central Station Bar and Grill in Dodge City, Kansas, ended in tragedy in the early hours of Sunday, October 29, 2023, claiming the life of Abraham Morales-Santos. The 28-year-old Hispanic man was one of two people fatally shot when violence erupted inside the establishment on East Wyatt Earp Boulevard.

The incident began shortly after 1:10 a.m. when an altercation broke out. A patron, Ricardo J. Cadena-Garcia, then 36, pulled out a handgun and opened fire. Antonio A. Cabrera, 29, was shot and pronounced dead at the scene. Morales-Santos was struck by gunfire along with two other men. Emergency responders rushed the three wounded men to a local hospital, where Morales-Santos was pronounced deceased upon arrival. A 40-year-old security guard, Austin Zink, was critically injured after being shot multiple times in the parking lot while trying to detain the shooter. A fourth man, 27-year-old Adam Murley, was treated for a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to his leg from an errant round and was later released.

After the shooting, Cadena-Garcia fled in a white Dodge Ram pickup truck, heading south into Oklahoma. A multi-agency effort involving the Dodge City Police Department, Ford County Sheriff’s Office, Kansas Highway Patrol, and Kansas Bureau of Investigation tracked his movements. The pursuit came to an unexpected end when Cadena-Garcia’s truck sustained a blown front tire.

Deputies from the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office in Oklahoma located the disabled vehicle about a mile and a half outside of Forgan. They found Cadena-Garcia waiting for assistance from a local tire shop and arrested him without incident. He was initially jailed in Oklahoma on a warrant for capital murder before being extradited to Ford County, Kansas.

During his trial, Cadena-Garcia claimed he had acted in self-defense. His defense team argued that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after a 2020 altercation with gang members and believed Morales-Santos and Cabrera were about to attack him in retaliation.

In July 2026, after a seven-day trial, a Ford County jury deliberated for five hours before rejecting his self-defense claim. They found that Cadena-Garcia did not have a reasonable or honest belief that he was in danger of great bodily harm or death. The jury convicted him of two counts of intentional second-degree murder for the deaths of Abraham Morales-Santos and Antonio Cabrera. He was also found guilty of attempted voluntary manslaughter for the shooting of the security guard and reckless battery for injuring the other patron.