Irene Rodriguez

The third member of the team that robbed and murdered Vic Milford was in court on Tuesday.

WAUWATOSA, Wis. -- A 16-year-old girl accused of driving the getaway car in a high-profile Milwaukee homicide was ordered to be held on $25,000 bail.

Miller Brewing executive Vic Milford was shot to death late last month in an armed robbery.

The mother of 16-year-old Irene Rodriguez did not say a word, sitting silently in the back of the courtroom as her daughter was told she could spend the next 60 years in prison.

Rodriguez did glance over at her mother as she was led into the courtroom at the Children's Court center in Wauwatosa Tuesday afternoon.

What would be going through that mother's mind, seeing her daughter led into the courtroom and hearing that she could be serving a 60-year prison sentence?

Did she do her best to discipline her daughter?

Does she feel that she failed as a mother?

Is she angry at her daughter?

I have no idea what their relationship is like. Maybe Rodriguez let down her good-hearted mother. Maybe Rodriguez takes after her mother.

She is charged as an adult with with one count of first-degree reckless homicide as a party to the crime in the shooting death of Milford on Jan. 26.

Rodriguez is accused of driving the two robbery suspects around that night, looking for someone to rob, and then driving the car away from the scene after the shooting.

Because she is eight months pregnant, medical concerns could lead her to be moved to the county jail.

But otherwise, she will remain in Children's Detention at least through her next hearing even though she turns 17 on Monday.

Eight months pregnant.

Rodriguez is in her third trimester and she's taking part in a crime. She's driving around a 21-year-old man with a gun, a murderer. And she's 16!

That really is mind-boggling to me.

She should be charged as an adult, this soon to be 17-year-old mother. She obviously rejected the role of a hard-working high school student. Instead, she chose to act like a thug.

"Whatever she did that night was a tremendous exercise in poor judgment, at the best, and at the worst, it was an ongoing criminal enterprise in order to find a victim, to steal some money," Milwaukee County Children's Court Commissioner Barry Slagle said.

I don't think what Rodriguez did was an exercise in poor judgment.

She thinks like a criminal and she acts like a criminal.

She's certainly not fit to be a parent to her own child, and she's a danger to the community at large.

She chose to be one of the bad, bad guys. Hopefully, she'll receive the punishment she deserves, many years in prison.