15-year-old Texas girl sentenced to serve time for burglary in Saginaw fatal shooting

A 15-year-old Fort Worth girl who was accused of being involved in a 2021 Saginaw homicide involving her boyfriend was sentenced on Friday to an indeterminate time at a Texas Juvenile Justice Department facility.

In a plea agreement with a prosecutor, the girl was sentenced on a charge of delinquent conduct/burglary of a habitation in the incident that led to the October fatal shooting of Adxel Melgar Caceres, 20, of Fort Worth.

A capital murder charge and another burglary charge were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.

Judge Alex Kim said Friday that officials at the state facility will decide on the length of the sentence, which could be until the girl is 19 years old.

“It’s a chance for a new life,” Kim told the girl during the Friday morning hearing in Scott D. Moore Juvenile Justice Center in Fort Worth. “Don’t become a problem.”

Kim warned the teen that he could change his decision on the sentence within 30 days if she commits any violations.

The girl, who is not being identified by the Star-Telegram because she is a minor, went to the Saginaw home of her former boyfriend to rob him of money and drugs and rode to the scene with Melgar Caceres and someone who was armed with a rifle, according to testimony at Friday’s hearing.

Melgar Caceres and his friend armed with a rifle walked into the Saginaw home while the girl sat in a pickup truck outside. Melgar Caceres was shot to death inside the house by one of the residents, according to testimony. The friend and the girl ran away from the scene.

“It was the hardest day of my life,” said Mercy Caceres of Fort Worth, Adxel’s mother, in a statement she made in Spanish during the Friday morning hearing. “And it was all over a stupid thing.”

The 15-year-old broke into tears when the prosecutor asked if she felt sorry for what had happened.

“Yes, sir,” the girl said on the witness stand as she fought the tears.

The teen’s mother also cried.’

“I knew she wasn’t going to get probation,” the teen’s mother said. “But it’s still a shock.”

The girl was 14 in the fall of 2021, and she didn’t previously have any criminal problems, family members have told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

She admitted on Friday morning that she had smoked weed and taken acid.

In the summer of 2021, she met two young men from Saginaw who were brothers, and had sex with one of them, which was videotaped, according to court documents and the teen’s grandmother. The brothers are Daniel Higuita Baquero, 20, and Jony Higuita Baquero, 17, who live in the house where the shooting occurred in Saginaw, according to court records.

The girl ended her relationship with Daniel Baquero when she caught him cheating with another girl, according to testimony.

The teen then met Adxel Melgar Caceres just weeks before the fatal shooting.

On Oct. 26, 2021, the teen, Melgar Caceres, and a 15-year-old friend of his drove to Saginaw to rob the brothers, she said.

The teen testified Friday morning that she tried to talk them out of it.

The girl stayed in the pickup truck as Melgar Caceres and his 15-year-old friend, who wore ski masks, went to the house in the 600 block of Oak Hollow Lane in Saginaw.

Within minutes, the girl testified Friday morning, she heard five shots and saw Melgar Caceres’ 15-year-old friend ran away from the scene.. She also fled the scene to a nearby store, where a woman gave her a ride home.

Saginaw police said they responded to the 600 block of Oak Hollow Lane on a report of a home burglary.

A man who lives at the residence told 911 dispatchers that someone had forced his way inside, and that he shot the intruder, according to police.

Upon arriving at the home, police said, they found Melgar Caceres dead from multiple gunshot wounds. His body was lying inside the entryway of the home.

Saginaw police initially said that others involved fled the area and that they believed the incident was “isolated and targeted.”

But police later arrested the two brothers who lived in the home.

Daniel Higuita Baquero and Jony Higuita Baquero were charged in December 2021 with murder in Melgar Caceres’ death, as well as with delivery of drugs.

The two also were charged with sexual assault of a child on Oct. 24, 2021, related to sex acts performed on the 14-year-old girl, according to police and court records.

Saginaw police also noted that the girl was arrested in connection with the fatal shooting.

In a February detention hearing, Kim ordered the girl detained because he said she was accused of “setting up” the situation that got Melgar Caceres killed.

Kim issued the order, telling the girl, “You set something up,” according to video of the hearing.

“I’m very concerned that you are the one facilitating everything, and it ends up with a dead person,” Kim said at the February hearing. “This is the gravest concern for me,” Kim addressed the girl’s mother before issuing his order. “The fact she and her ex-boyfriend or someone who wanted to be her romantic interest ... But for your daughter, this young man would be alive today.”

Kim called the girl the “linchpin” that held everything together.

For the past few months, family members of the girl had been seeking that she remain in partial hospitalization or released to family members.

She had spent days at the Perimeter Behavioral Hospital in Arlington after she attempted suicide twice and was assaulted by another juvenile, leaving her unconscious., family members said.