North Texas man pleads guilty to 2017 murder of 14-year-old Bedford girl
A 21-year-old man, who’s been in police custody since 2017, has pleaded guilty to the murder of a 14-year-old Bedford girl almost five years ago.
Jordin Roache pleaded guilty to killing Kaytlynn Cargill, whose body was found in an Arlington landfill in 2017. Roache, who was 16 at the time of Cargill’s murder, was charged as an adult in the case. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday, according to a news release from the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.
“She was not yours for the taking, but you did it anyway,” Bo Cargill, the teen girl’s father, said in a written statement read in court Thursday. “I am tormented every day about what she endured. It plays out in my mind. … My hope is that every day you remember what you did to Kaytlynn.”
In June 2017, the 14-year-old was reported missing after she never returned from walking her dog around an apartment complex in Bedford, the news release from the District Attorney’s Office said.
The girl’s body was found at an Arlington landfill two days later, and an investigation from the Bedford Police Department led law enforcement to an apartment where investigators found a claw hammer and Cargill’s blood on the walls and floors.
“The autopsy in this case was performed by Dr. Marc Krouse, who was later suspended from employment with the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office and then terminated,” the news release added. “The manner of death was listed as a generic finding by Dr. Krouse, and, in part, unknown to the Grand Jury due to the condition of Cargill’s remains.”
At the hearing, both parents recalled their favorite memories of their daughter, including watching the young girl participate in Easter egg hunts, or how she loved animals and enjoyed fishing, music and softball.
“The defendant brutally beat my daughter, terrorized and tossed her away like trash — a fate no human deserves, and especially not Kaytlynn,” Trisha West, Kaytlynn’s mother, said. “She no doubt would be an asset to society. … You robbed me of seeing her bright future come to fruition.”
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This story was originally published April 21, 2022 at 1:35 PM.
