Jordin Roache, 21, pleaded guilty in a Fort Worth courthouse on April 21 to the murder of a 14-year-old girl. Roache was sentenced to 10 years and has been in custody since his arrest in 2017.
By pleading guilty, Roache admitted that he killed Kaytlynn Cargill on June 19, 2017, in Bedford, Texas, according to Focus Daily News.
Cargill was reported missing that day after she did not return from walking the family dog around an apartment complex. Her body was found in the Republic Service Landfill two days later. At the time of the murder, Jordin Roache was living with his girlfriend in the apartment complex where Cargill went missing.
Police found blood splatter and a claw hammer believed to be the murder weapon in the apartment. They arrested then-16-year-old Roache in connection with the crime in August after conducting an investigation.
“On June 19, 2017, our lives changed forever,” said Trisha West, Cargill’s mother, in court, according to Yahoo News. “The defendant brutally beat my daughter, terrorized her, and tossed her away like trash — a fate no human deserves, and especially not Kaytlynn. She no doubt would have been an asset to society. You robbed me of seeing her bright future come to fruition.”
At the hearing, a statement from Bo Cargill, Katylynn’s father, was read.
“She was not yours for the taking, but you did it anyway,” the statement read. “I am tormented every day by what she endured. It plays out in my mind. My hope is that every day you remember what you did to Kaytlynn.”
According to True Crime Files, Cargill and Roache had arranged to meet that day so that Cargill could buy marijuana. An unnamed friend accompanied Cargill to meet Roache, but the sale did not happen at that time due to the friend’s presence. Later that day, Cargill and her friend went to a local dog park. Cargill left her friend at the park to meet with Roache but never returned.
Investigators identified Roache as a suspect through phone records and her friend’s testimony. He initially denied killing her and claimed that he went to meet her at the dog park, but she was not there. While interviewing Roache, police found numerous spots of blood that were swabbed and sent for testing. The swabs were identified as belonging to Cargill.
Jordin Roache was tried as an adult under Texas Law. He faced the possibility of a sentence ranging from 5 to 99 years for the murder but was given a relatively lenient sentence due to his guilty plea.
Additional controversy in the case involves the now-disgraced Tarrant County Medical Examiner who conducted the autopsy. Dr. Marc Krouse was fired by Tarrant County after an audit revealed a pattern of omissions and errors made in twenty-seven of the forty-one cases he examined. It is not clear if Cargill’s case was one of those in which errors were made.
“We’re grateful for the hard work and countless hours put in by Bedford police officers, detectives, and forensic investigators, along with the prosecutors from the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office,” Bedford Chief of Police Jeff Williams said in a statement to CBSNews. “The Cargill family remains in our thoughts as we reach the conclusion of this tragic case.”