Joshua Applegate of Sparta, Mo., walked free last week.
Nineteen months ago, the Ozarks teen was implicated in the slaying of a Mexican national linked to a drug cartel that rocked the small, southwest Missouri community where it happened.
Oscar Martinez-Gaxiola, 24, suffered gunshot wounds to the head. He had come to the state to collect a debt from a Missouri woman, 20-year-old Brooke Beckley, whose association with the cartel had gone sour.
The ambush-style killing led to guilty pleas by four others on federal charges, according to Webster County Prosecutor Ben Berkstresser.
But Applegate, now 18, spent less than two years in jail as part of an agreement with Berkstresser.
Once facing life imprisonment for first-degree murder, Applegate pleaded guilty to unlawful use of a weapon.
The felony can carry a 20-prison sentence, according to Missouri law, but Applegate was sentenced to just five years probation.
Rita Sanders, Applegate’s attorney, said the deal gave her client a second chance.
“Josh changed his life in jail. He absolutely became a different person,” Sanders said. “(Applegate) said, ‘As unpleasant as it’s been, I believe God placed me here so he could get a hold of me.’”
Berkstresser, in a phone conversation with The Star, said Applegate’s age and the circumstances of the slaying were factors in the deal.
“There were between 20 and 25 minutes from when Josh left the house and things went down. It was that shrinkage of time and his relative age that impacted me as well,” Berkstresser said, before recounting the “pretty fascinating story ... out here in the boondocks of Missouri.”
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With Berkstresser’s and Sanders’ accounts and Webster County court records, the following chain of events emerge:
In the days leading up to April 25, 2016, Brooke Beckley of Christian County was mulling how to pay back to the cartel a $40,000 debt — a debt she couldn’t make good on.
Beckley had become an associate of the cartel’s Yovanny Mendivil-Balderrama, 23. Mendivil was responsible for “periodically transporting large quantities of methamphetamine to the Springfield, Missouri area,” according to investigation records.
Sanders said he brought more than $150,000 worth of meth to Springfield and Kansas City each month.
Through their work together, Mendivil and Beckley had also developed a “sexual relationship.”
The Springfield News-Leader reported the source of Beckley’s debt may have been a drug bust at a Springfield hotel room in which Beckley was found with four pounds of meth.
Deep in the red with a drug organization, Beckley learned that her boyfriend would be joined by another cartel associate, Martinez, “as a potential show of force,” police records say.
“In response, Mendivil and Beckley hatched a plan to have Martinez killed. It was reasoned that in having Martinez killed, Beckley could extend her time in paying the drug debt back. Additionally, Mendivil and Beckley could potentially continue the romantic relationship.”
Their plan was simple enough. They would ambush Martinez, aiming to shoot and kill him, according to records.
Beckley and Mendivil enlisted the help of Anthony Donovan with the promise of a $6,000 payment, as well as Nathaniel Lee, who agreed to allow the use of his residence on Hackberry Lane in Seymour, Mo.
On the night it was all to unfold, Lee, now 20, decided to go to the Applegate residence for additional help. He asked Joshua Applegate’s brother to join him. The brother declined, but Joshua Applegate agreed to go.
“Applegate’s presence allowed for additional manpower desired by Lee,” records state.
Applegate brought along a Glock.
“Josh took his gun everywhere,” Sanders said. “He’d carried his gun since he was 9 years old.”
But he was unaware of the murderous plan until he made it back to Lee’s residence, just five minutes before the gunfire rang out, Berkstresser said.
Applegate was offered payment for his participation, according to records.
Sanders said Applegate’s life was threatened if he didn’t participate.
As Mendivil drove the vehicle into the residence, he stepped out, and a hidden Donovan and Applegate fired shots that pierced the night, compelling a nearby neighbor to call 911.
The investigation determined the first shot that struck Martinez’s head was “likely fired” by Donovan. At least one bullet from Applegate’s gun hit the undercarriage of the vehicle, the investigation found.
But Sanders contests Applegate had actually fled the home, firing bullets behind him as he ran into the woods.
“He fired it in the direction of Martinez,” Sanders said. “He thought he was being fired at and it was self-defense.”
She added his bullets struck Lee’s home but could not have struck the vehicle based on his position.
With Martinez incapacitated with a gunshot wound to the head, Donovan used a weapon to “finish Martinez with a headshot,” according to Sanders and court records.
A deputy arrived on the scene shortly after and gave a description of a fleeing vehicle.
Applegate, Mendivil, Lee and Beckley were all in police custody by the next morning.
All but Applegate, who was too young to face federal charges, have pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy resulting in a homicide, according to Berkstresser.
Melissa Applegate, Applegate’s aunt, told KY3 that the family fears retaliation from the cartel for Applegate’s role in the killing.
She contested her nephew would never shoot someone “for the simple fact because he knows how it feels to be shot. He has shot himself three times.”
A condition of Applegate’s plea agreement states he cannot possess a firearm until he’s 23 years old.
Martinez, whose body was found beneath a sheet of metal, had been armed with a Jimenez 9 mm.
The handgun was unloaded, and his extra magazine was discovered to have been tampered with to prevent the gun from firing.
Investigators concluded that he likely had never fired a single bullet.
Applegate intends to enroll in college, according to his attorney.
“You’ve given me a chance at a new life,” he told Sanders.
Max Londberg: 816-234-4378, @MaxLondberg
This story was originally published December 11, 2017 7:00 AM.