Why would Nixa woman owe drug organization $40,000?

Authorities say a group of southwest Missouri residents, barely old enough to see an R-rated movie, ambushed and killed a member of a New Mexican drug organization last month in rural Webster County.

The motive, according to officials, was a debt of $40,000 that a 19-year-old Nixa woman owed to the meth distribution ring.

What officials haven’t said is how the local woman might have been indebted for so much cash to a criminal organization hundreds of miles away.

Court documents obtained this week by the News-Leader now show $40,000 worth of meth was confiscated from the woman by Springfield police 16 days before the killing.

Authorities say 19-year-old Brooke Beckley owed thousands of dollars to a group that was bringing meth from New Mexico to Springfield when she allegedly planned the killing of 24-year-old Oscar Martinez on April 25.

Martinez had come to southwest Missouri to collect, authorities say, and Beckley didn't have the cash.

The recently court documents say on April 9, police executed a search warrant at the Value Place extended stay hotel on Kingsley Street in southwest Springfield. Documents say police found Beckley in the hotel room along with four pounds of meth.

Sgt. Dan Banasik, a Missouri State Highway Patrol supervising sergeant for narcotics, said dealers in Springfield typically pay between $8,000 and $12,000 per pound for meth that is transported here from Mexico — meaning four pounds of meth could cost a dealer about $40,000.

The News-Leader contacted Webster County Prosecutor Ben Berkstresser to ask about a possible connection between the Springfield drug seizure and the drug debt referenced in the probable cause statement for the homicide, but Berkstresser said he had not received those details of the investigation.

Webster County Sheriff Roye Cole did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Documents say there were two people in the Springfield hotel room at the time of the search, Beckley and a man named Jourdan McGinnis. Neither of them has been charged in connection with the seizure, according to online court records.

Records indicate Beckley was arrested and booked into the Greene County Jail on the day of the search for a 24-hour hold. She was then released from jail the following day since immediate charges weren't filed.

Seventeen days later, Beckley and four other people — Joshua Applegate, 17; Anthony Donovan, 19; Nathaniel Lee, 18; and Yovanny Aroldo Mendivil-Balderrama, 21 — were charged with first-degree murder in connection with the killing of Martinez.

The probable cause statement used to charge the five suspects describes how and why they allegedly plotted the killing of Martinez, who had reportedly traveled to southwest Missouri from New Mexico with Mendivil-Balderrama.

According to the statement, Beckley met with Donovan on April 23 — two weeks after the four-pound meth seizure — at the Econo Lodge hotel on North Glenstone Avenue in Springfield and told Donovan she owed $40,000 to a drug organization based in New Mexico that was operating in Springfield.

Beckley said she could not pay the debt, but two men from the organization were on their way to southwest Missouri to collect, the statement says.

Beckley allegedly told Donovan she had found a way to buy herself some time in repaying the debt. She said she had worked out an agreement with Mendivil-Balderrama that if she killed Martinez then she would get more time to pay the debt and possibly get the debt lowered, according to the statement.

Donovan and two other men, Applegate and Lee, agreed to help Beckley kill Martinez, according to the statement. In exchange, Beckley allegedly agreed to pay Donovan $6,000.

The statement says a meeting was set up between Beckley and the men from New Mexico at Lee's residence on Hackberry Lane south of Fordland at 12:30 a.m. on April 25.

When Martinez arrived at the Webster County residence and stepped out of his vehicle, the statement says, Donovan opened fire.

The statement says Applegate and Lee opened fire after Donovan.

Martinez died at the scene.

The statement does not say whether or not Martinez had a gun.