A Florida jury will be allowed to view a video showing a 13-year-old boy calmly admitting that he stabbed his mother more than 40 times while she slept beside her newborn daughter and then sent photos of her body to an online friend, a judge has ruled.
Derek Rosa, now 15, is scheduled to stand trial later this month for the 2023 killing of his 39-year-old mother, Irina Garcia, inside their Hialeah home near Miami. He is charged as an adult with first-degree murder. During a pretrial hearing Tuesday, the court considered whether prosecutors could present jurors with a video of Rosa’s confession to investigators.
In the video obtained by local NBC affiliate WTVJ, Rosa told detectives he stood over his mother as she slept. Armed with a kitchen knife, he repeatedly stabbed Garcia in the neck, hitting an artery that caused heavy bleeding, according to an arrest affidavit.
“She was just screaming,” he told police.
His half-sister, who was only 14 days old, was sleeping nearby. After killing his mother, Rosa took photos of her body and sent them to an online friend, authorities said. He also sent another image of himself making a “hang loose” hand gesture, later acknowledging that his hand was covered in blood.
Defense attorneys argued the video confession should be suppressed, saying Rosa’s young age prevented him from fully understanding his actions during questioning. They also noted he had previously been diagnosed with autism and ADHD.
Judge Richard Hersch rejected the request, ruling that Rosa was capable of knowingly and intelligently waiving his Miranda rights. The judge also found that detectives did not use coercive tactics during the interview.
“I don’t find anything in the manner in which they addressed questions or presented questions which were coercive or demanding that he respond or colors this factual finding that it was a knowing and intelligent waiver of his rights,” Hersch said. “And of course, the one thing that does speak volumes is that when he came to something that he did not want to talk about, [detectives] terminated the interview.”
Rosa eventually asked for a lawyer when investigators began pressing him on why he stabbed his mother.
As previously reported, Hialeah police Lt. Eddie Rodriguez described Rosa as unusually polite during the 911 call placed after the killing on Oct. 12, 2023. According to Rodriguez, the teenager repeatedly responded with “Yes, ma’am” and “No, ma’am.”
Officers say released 911 audio captures Rosa calmly speaking with a dispatcher.
“Miss?” Rosa asked during the call.
“Yes?” the dispatcher replied.
“I took pictures and I told my friends about it,” Rosa said. “Was that bad?”
When asked who received the images, Rosa explained it was an online friend whose real name he did not know.
“I don’t know his real name because he’s an online friend who I play with a lot,” he said.
The killing “left everybody dumbfounded,” Rodriguez said, calling it a “huge tragedy” that left Garcia’s mother without a daughter and Rosa’s biological father essentially without a son.
Rodriguez described Rosa as an eighth-grade honor roll student at iMater Charter Middle/High School. Friends and family characterized him as a good kid and a straight-A student with no prior mental health issues. He reportedly had no disciplinary problems and got along well with his stepfather and infant half-sister.
Rosa has also drawn support from people who believe he is innocent.
“I completely believe that he is innocent of all charges,” Ariana Reyes, a Chicago mother who has traveled to Miami-Dade County to attend Rosa’s court hearings, told WTVJ and other outlets during a January 2025 press conference.
“He is a child, he can easily be manipulated by an adult,” she said. “I believe there was more than one person in that scene. We hear noises in the background of the 911 call, and I strongly believe that he’s innocent and was manipulated by someone else at that scene.”
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