Derek Rosa, a Florida teenager accused of the 2023 murder of his mother when he was 13 years old, confessed just four days before his trial was set to begin.
Rosa pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and will receive a 25-year sentence through a deal he made with the prosecution, according to Local10.com.
Police in Hialeah, Florida, said Rosa – now 15 — stabbed his 39-year-old mother, Irina Garcia, 46 times while she was sleeping next to her infant daughter. The stabbing took place at her apartment on October 12, 2023.
At his hearing, Rosa simply said “I’m sorry” before Judge Richard Hersch announced his sentence.
Frank Ramos, Rosa’s stepfather, spoke during the hearing, telling him that “nothing justifies what you did.”
“Your mother was a loving mother and a dedicated person,” he said. “Losing her destroyed our family and changed our lives forever.”
Under the terms of Rosa’s plea agreement, he will have to stay away from both Ramos and his half-sister.
After Rosa agreed to the plea deal, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement that the teen “admitted what he had previously told a 911 operator and what he had confessed to police detectives, that he murdered his mother.”
“The pain Irina Garcia suffered from the 46 stab wounds could only have been surpassed by the knowledge that the person killing her was her own young son,” she said. “The conclusion of this criminal case does not diminish the deep tragedy of Derek’s actions. When he stole his mother’s life, he also stole so much of his own future.”
Jury selection for Rosa’s murder trial had been scheduled to begin on Tuesday.
In the months prior to the trial, Rosa’s defense team tried without success to have several key pieces of evidence prohibited from the trial. One of those pieces of evidence was a taped confession Rosa made while he was talking with 911 dispatchers.
His defense team also argued that he had been diagnosed with both autism and ADHD, and was emotionally and cognitively immature.
Prosecutors pushed back on those claims, saying his actions before the killing made clear he was aware of his actions. They painted a grim and disturbing picture of the teen in court documents prior to the trial. They claim that he was obsessed with blood, gore, and violence around the time that he murdered his mother.
They said the teen told a friend a day before the murder that he wanted to be like the machete-wielding slasher movie character Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th film franchise.
Prosecutors also said that, on the day of the murder, Rosa showed his girlfriend a disturbing video of a U.S. Army veteran dying by suicide. The girl reportedly ended their relationship the same day.
After he killed his mother, prosecutors say Rosa took photos with her body and sent them to a friend who lived out of state.
As noted by Rundle, Rosa made a call to 911 dispatchers in which he admitted that he had killed his mother. He also reportedly admitted to the killing during an interview with Hialeah police officers.
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