Man Pleads Guilty To Killing 14-Year-Old Girl With Hammer, Gets 10 Years

A 21-year-old Texas man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to beating a 14-year-old girl to death in 2017.

Jordin Roache pleaded guilty Thursday to first-degree murder in the 2017 death of Kaytlynn Cargill in Bedford, Texas, according to an official release from the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office.

Roache was 16 at the time of the incident and was certified as an adult to stand trial in the case. He has remained in custody since his arrest in 2017 and will get credit for time served.

Cargill was reported missing on June 19, 2017, when she failed to return to her Bedford apartment complex after taking her dog for a walk.

Her body was found in the Republic Service Arlington landfill two days later.

An investigation by the Bedford Police Department led to the nearby apartment of Roache's girlfriend, where he lived. Roache reportedly lived with his girlfriend and her mother in the same apartment complex as Cargill.

Police found Cargill's blood on the apartment's walls and floor, as well as a claw hammer, which was allegedly used as a murder weapon.

Witness testimony and text messages revealed that on the day Cargill disappeared, she was meeting someone, later identified as Roache, in order to buy marijuana to make cannabis concentrate, the Dallas Morning News reported, citing court documents.

Roache was arrested on Sept. 1, 2017, and booked into the Tarrant County Juvenile Detention Facility in Fort Worth on charges of murder.

The case went through several delays in the past years due to various factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, police said.

Cargill’s cause of death was amended in August 2017 when officials ruled she died of homicidal violence, according to KXAS.

"On June 19, 2017, our lives changed forever," Cargill's mother, Trisha West, said Thursday. "The defendant brutally beat my daughter, terrorized and tossed her away like trash – a fate no human deserves, and especially not Kaytlynn."

"She no doubt would be an asset to society," West added. "You robbed me of seeing her bright future come to fruition."