San José Teen Charged With Murder of 2-Year-Old Cousin

A San José teenager has been charged with the murder and assault of a 2-year-old who died in Santa Clara County’s embattled foster care system earlier this month.

The 18-year-old was charged Monday with murder for allegedly killing his foster brother, Jaxon Juarez, and assaulting him repeatedly, according to the District Attorney’s Office. The counts add to other sexual assault charges already brought in the case.

District Attorney Jeff Rosen said Monday that while the suspect, who was a minor at the time of Juarez’s death, is currently being tried in juvenile court, he has moved to have the case transferred to the adult criminal division. The juvenile court judge overseeing the case will decide on the motion, Rosen said.

“The rape and murder of a child are two of the most serious crimes that we prosecute. These crimes should be heard in our most serious criminal courts,” he told reporters following the suspect’s first court appearance on Monday.

Jaxon had been under the care of a relative, Bridget Michelle Martinez, the mother of the teen suspect, for just a few weeks before he died in the hospital on April 9. His “small, bruised and battered body” was found by San José police officers days earlier, on Easter Sunday.

The District Attorney’s office said evidence showed that after he was placed in the home in February, Jaxon had been repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted.

Martinez’s son, who is Jaxon’s cousin, was initially charged with multiple counts of sexual assault, including forced sodomy. During Monday’s short, emotional hearing, new rape and murder charges were added to the case. Among the assault charges, the suspect is accused of putting a hair tie around Jaxon’s neck, causing significant injury.

While no official cause of death has been announced, the DA’s office said it does have preliminary indications, but did not elaborate.

“He did not deserve this,” said Evangeline Dominguez-Estrada, a friend of Jaxon’s late mother, who was at the hearing on Monday. “He deserved to be protected. He deserved to be cared for. Every child deserves that. They need us.”

Jaxon is the third child who has died while under the care of the county’s Department of Family and Children’s Services in the last several years. The department has been subject to state oversight since 2023, when two other young children died under its supervision. Critics have accused the department of prioritizing family reunification over child safety, though in recent years, it’s been recognized for making progress under a corrective action plan that aims to rebalance focus between reunification and safety.

The DA’s office said it is still investigating whether it might bring charges against anyone else in connection with Jaxon’s death, both inside and out of the county agency. Martinez was briefly arrested but released.

“This is not the first time that this has happened,” Rosen told reporters after Monday’s hearing. “People in the public, and myself as the DA, would like to know who is responsible criminally, civilly, morally, ethically, systemically.

“Why are horrible and tragic crimes happening to children in the care and custody of the Department of Family and Children’s Services over and over and over again?” he said.

Rosen’s comments come after revelations about Martinez’s criminal history last week renewed scrutiny of the department.

According to court and police records, Martinez had a prior felony conviction for child endangerment, which prohibits the Department of Family and Children’s Services from placing a child in her care, even in an emergency, per the county’s own policy.

Martinez was convicted of felony child endangerment and a misdemeanor DUI in 2014, when she was found with “red watery eyes, slurred speech and a strong odor of an intoxicating beverage” while driving her 1-year-old daughter. At the time of her arrest, her license was suspended due to a prior DUI conviction in 2011. She was also charged with another DUI in 2020 in Stanislaus County.

It’s not clear if the Department of Child Services knew of the charges against Martinez. The county did not explain how Jaxon came to be placed under her care.

When he was born, Jaxon lived with his mother, Brianna Burton, and his father, Albert Juarez. Burton died of alcohol abuse last year, and he was placed in the county’s custody. Jaxon then lived with a foster family before he was transferred to a maternal grandparent near Sacramento for six months.

While there, the grandparent had to bring the boy to the South Bay for regular visits with his father, a requirement that prevented the grandparent from continuing to serve as a guardian. In February, Jaxon was transferred to live with Martinez.

Riley Wallace, Jaxon’s aunt, said she and family members in Arizona had asked the court to allow Jaxon to live with them, but were denied because of the distance from Jaxon’s father.

“It is completely unacceptable,” Wallace told KQED last week. “They did not protect a child, and that’s their job, that’s what they took the child for, to protect him. And they failed him so terribly.”

She said they were told they’d need to wait for Jaxon to be put up for adoption.

According to Wallace, the family plans to sue the agency, saying Jaxon never should have been placed with Martinez. The Department of Family and Children’s Services is already facing a lawsuit by the grandfather of another young child, 6-year-old Jordan Walker, who died in 2023. He was stabbed to death by a relative in a home in San José that August.

“This is not a one-off. It’s the third time, and that’s just murder,” Rosen said. “We’re not talking about the other children under the care of the Department of Family and Children’s Services who have been abused sexually and physically in the last few years.

“I think there’s important questions to ask officials at the highest level in the county,” Rosen said.

Both the San José Police Department and the Department of Family and Children’s Services are investigating Jaxon’s case, and the county has asked the state’s Department of Social Services to conduct its own independent investigation.

Martinez’s son is due back in court on May 21 to be appointed an attorney. According to Rosen, it could be months before the judge determines whether to grant the DA’s office request to transfer the case to adult court.

Outside the courtroom on Monday, Dominguez-Estrada and a high school classmate of the suspect were among a group calling for him to be tried as an adult.

“This should be in the court where people can see, and it’s open to the public,” she said.

KQED’s Joseph Geha and Ayah Ali-Ahmad contributed to this report.