15-year-old Derek Rosa pleaded guilty Friday to killing his mother in 2023, four days before his first-degree murder trial was set to begin.
Rosa instead pled guilty to second-degree murder and received a 25-year sentence as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.
On October 12, 2023, Hialeah police said Rosa, then 13, stabbed his 39-year-old mother, Irina Garcia, 46 times while she slept next to her newborn daughter at their residence at 211 W. 79th Place.
Rosa just replied, “I’m sorry,” just before Judge Richard Hersch sentenced him to 25 years in prison.
Just before Rosa’s few words of apology, his stepfather, Frank Ramos, informed him in court, “Nothing justifies what you did,” as he spoke via a Spanish translator.
“Your mother was a loving mother and a dedicated person,” he told you. “Losing her destroyed our family and changed our lives forever.”
Following the plea, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle issued a statement in which Rosa “admitted what he had previously told a 911 operator and 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 told the reporter. “The resolution of this criminal case does not reduce the profound sadness of Derek’s acts. Derek not only took his mother’s life, but also a significant portion of his own future.
Rosa’s plea prevented him from facing a high-profile trial. Jury selection for the case was set to begin on Tuesday.
Prior to the trial, the defense team unsuccessfully attempted to have significant evidence, such as the teenager’s confession, thrown out.
In court pleadings, prosecutors claimed that Rosa was preoccupied with blood and gore in the days leading up to the murder.
In a court document, prosecutors stated that the day before the killing, he told a buddy that he wanted to be the violent, machete-wielding figure Jason from the horror film “Friday the 13th”.
They added that on the day of the death, he showed his girlfriend a “gruesome” suicide video of a US Army veteran on the school bus; she ended her relationship with him later that day.
Prosecutors claim Rosa took gory selfies and emailed photographs of his mother’s body to an out-of-state friend following the murder.
According to authorities, he confessed to the crime in both a 911 call and a recorded interview with Hialeah police.
Rosa’s plea agreement requires him to remain away from Ramos and his younger half-sister.