Hialeah teen accused of killing mom, pleads not guilty. Will stay in adult jail, for now
A young Hialeah teen accused of the brutal stabbing death of his mother three weeks ago pleaded not guilty to the murder charge Tuesday and will remain in an adult jail — at least for the time being.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Richard Hersch said during Derek Rosa’s arraignment Tuesday morning that he didn’t have enough information on the 13-year-old to determine if he should be moved to the county’s juvenile detention center. Derek wasn’t in court Tuesday and is in lock-down in a private wing of the Metro West correction center. The judge set a new hearing for Nov. 9.
With family members, including Derek’s father and grandmother seated in the front row of courtroom 4-8 at Miami-Dade’s criminal courthouse, Hersch said he needs “a better understanding of this young man, this case,” before making a decision. The judge said he’d like more background on Derek and asked for information on a similar teen homicide in North Florida.
When the hearing ended the family quickly filed out of the courtroom, ducking from cameras and video recorders. One person who appeared to be a family member painfully shouted out in Spanish, “You don’t know him. He’s a loving boy.”
Though Derek was initially charged with second-degree murder, the next week a Miami-Dade grand jury found enough probable cause to indict the teen as an adult and up the charge to first-degree murder for the Oct. 12 stabbing death of his mother, Irene Garcia, 39. She was asleep at the time. A judge then ordered the teen held without bond and moved to the Metro West adult jail.
According to Derek’s arrest report, when police arrived they found Garcia dead on the bedroom floor of the family’s Hialeah apartment. Next to her, Derek’s 14-day-old sister, nestled in a crib.
Later that evening, police said Derek called 911 and confessed to killing his mother. The eighth-grade honor student at iMater Middle/High Charter School allegedly told police as they were escorting him to the juvenile detention center, that he wanted to take his own life.
Also troublesome was Derek’s call to 911. In it, he tells the dispatcher he took pictures of his mother after the stabbing and sent them to a friend he had made online.
“Was that bad?” he asks the dispatcher, WPLG Channel 10 reported.
Derek has no known prior mental health issues and police said they have never been called to the family’s home in the Amelia Oaks apartment complex. If convicted, Derek could spend life in prison. Though first-degree murder is a capital crime in Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the death penalty is unconstitutional for juveniles.
