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The grandmother of a teenager responsible for the brutal stabbing of his mother, an act followed by a chilling selfie, has described him as an “angel.”
“Let them criticize me; it doesn’t bother me,” said Isabel Acosta in a heartfelt interview with Telemundo 51 on February 18. Her 15-year-old grandson, Derek Rosa, was convicted of murdering her daughter, Irina Garcia. Speaking through a translator, Acosta expressed, “You have to understand my feelings. He is my life, my grandson… he’s like another son to me. I can’t change how I feel.”
Acosta went on to call Rosa her “forever angel” during the interview.
On January 16, Rosa received a 25-year prison sentence for the 2023 murder of his 39-year-old mother, Irina Garcia. The horrific incident occurred in their Hialeah, Florida home, where Rosa attacked Garcia more than 46 times in her sleep. Miraculously, Garcia’s newborn daughter, sleeping in a crib beside her, was left unharmed.
In court on January 16 in Miami-Dade County, Rosa issued an apology, saying simply, “I’m sorry.”
Rosa initially pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, according to People, before accepting a deal to plead guilty to second-degree murder with a weapon. After his release, Rosa will serve 20 years of probation.
On Oct. 12, 2023, Rosa called 911 to confess that he had killed his mother, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by Oxygen—and a recording played in court—and sent photos of her corpse to a friend over social media.
Garcia was found dead on the bedroom floor, noted the affidavit, with multiple stab wounds to the neck. Her cause of death was due to sharp force wounds.
In a Nov. 2025 court filing viewed by Oxygen, prosecutors claimed Rosa also took a selfie depicting his bloody hand, and sent it to a friend, who told police that Rosa was “joking” and “laughing” about it. During an interview with detectives, noted the filing, Rosa admitted to cutting his mother’s neck in a place where “a lot of blood sprays out” and said he considered killing himself after the act, but decided against it.
Rosa would not provide a motive for the killing, per the filing, however a forensic search of his phone indicated that he allegedly searched the terms, “Where is the best place to stab someone” and “Can a knife cut through bone” among other queries.
Prosecutors argued in that filing that Rosa viewed murder as “a source of content and amusement” and had a “morbid fascination with blood, gore, and death.”
They pointed to the timing of the murder—shortly before midnight on Thursday, Oct. 12—and to Rosa allegedly telling a friend about his Halloween costume that year: fictional serial killer Jason Voorhees from the horror franchise “Friday the 13th.”
The defense called the Halloween theory “absurd,” in a Motion to Remand document viewed by Oxygen, adding that Rosa’s family has described him as a “sweet,” “kind-hearted” and “respectful” child, with no history of violent tendencies.
“Your mom was a loving mother,” Rosa’s stepfather Frank Ramos told the court on Jan. 16, with the help of a translator. “Losing her destroyed our family and changed our lives forever.”