Background: News footage of Rolan Delacruz during his sentencing on Oct. 20 (KMVT). Inset: Dax Richins (Gooding County Prosecutor”s Office).
An Idaho teenager who pleaded guilty to murder let the family of his victim know that he deserved whatever punishment he got.
Rolan Delacruz, 16, was charged as an adult for the 2024 murder of 18-year-old Dax Richins. Delacruz, along with 18-year-old Alexander Garcia, lured Richins to a remote area where they stabbed him, beat him, and then dismembered and buried his body. Garcia, who was 17 years old at the time of the crime, also pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 25 years to life on Oct. 8.
On Monday, Delacruz learned his fate after entering his own guilty plea. A Gooding County judge sentenced him to 23 years to life, bypassing juvenile detention and ordering him to serve out his sentence in the Idaho Department of Corrections.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
According to arrest affidavits obtained by local ABC affiliate KIVI, Delacruz and Garcia picked Richins up from a library parking lot in Jerome on June 24, 2024, telling him that they were going to a bonfire. Instead, the pair drove Richins to a remote area in Gooding County where they beat him with brass knuckles and stabbed him to death.
The next day, Delacruz and Garcia returned to where they had left Richins’ body and dismembered it, removing body parts that could have been used to identify him, before burying the rest of the body in a shallow grave. Investigators discovered that Garcia made Snapchat videos in which he discussed having to “Physically deform a human skull” and texted a friend that he “killed sum1.”
Investigators also found a bone in Garcia’s truck, which he said he “took as a trophy.”
Richins’ skull was found in September 2024 on the Snake River Canyon rim. His body was not far away.
Richins’ father, Rodney Richins, was in the courtroom for the sentencing and said, “It felt so senseless to me how these young men could take the life of my son and not think of the consequences it would have on both my family and theirs. I can’t imagine what Dax was thinking when his friends turned on him, attacked him, and stabbed him to death.”
Before learning his sentence, Delacruz also read a statement to the court that expressed his remorse. The teen told the court, “Every night, I relive that night where [Alexander] and I killed Dax. Every night, I’m not able to go to sleep because of it. I know what I did was wrong, and not only wrong, but a little psychotic. I know you’re thinking, ‘Good, let him suffer.’ I agree with you. Let me suffer.”
Gooding County District Court Judge Rosemary Emory sentenced Delacruz to 23 years to life in the Idaho Department of Corrections.
Another defendant in connection with the case, 23-year-old Nathaniel Felix, previously pleaded not guilty to accessory to murder and destruction of evidence. He is scheduled to go on trial on Feb. 3, 2026.
