In a tragic turn of events on the afternoon of April 13, 2026, 15-year-old Dominik Papatu was shot and killed inside the Wingstop restaurant where he worked in Lawton, Oklahoma. The incident, which unfolded just after 2:30 p.m. near 72nd Street and Northwest Cache Road, cut short the life of a promising young man who was not only an employee but also a student at Eisenhower High School and a member of the varsity football team.
Lawton police were dispatched to the scene and found Dominik
in the restaurant's bathroom with a fatal gunshot wound to the right side of his face. The subsequent investigation quickly led to the identification and arrest of a suspect. Seventeen-year-old Jaylen Carter of Cache was taken into custody in connection with the fatal shooting and has since been charged with first-degree murder. He is currently being held at the Comanche County juvenile detention center on a $500,000 bond.
According to court documents, the shooting was the result of an alleged drug deal that went awry. An eyewitness who was with Carter at the Wingstop told detectives that Carter was there to purchase codeine cough syrup from Papatu. The witness stated that the three of them went into the bathroom, where both Carter and Papatu produced handguns and began passing them back and forth.
The situation escalated when Carter allegedly turned his gun on Papatu, demanding his firearm. When Papatu refused to comply, Carter is said to have shot him in what the witness believed to be the head. The eyewitness also claimed that Carter then turned the gun on him, at which point he fled the scene and his mother contacted the authorities. Surveillance footage from the Wingstop reportedly corroborated the eyewitness's account of the events leading up to the shooting.
