In a chilling case unfolding in Florida, a judge has decided that a jury will be allowed to view a harrowing video in which a 13-year-old boy calmly confesses to the brutal act of stabbing his mother over 40 times. This attack occurred while she was asleep beside her newborn daughter. The boy also shockingly shared images of his mother’s lifeless body with an online acquaintance.

Derek Rosa, now 15, is set to go on trial later this month for the 2023 slaying of his 39-year-old mother Irina Garcia at their home in Hialeah, near Miami. He is charged as an adult with first-degree murder. At issue during a pretrial hearing on Tuesday was whether prosecutors could show jurors a video of his confession to investigators.

According to local reports from NBC affiliate WTVJ, the video captures the boy, Derek Rosa, recounting to detectives the chilling details of the crime. Holding a kitchen knife, he described how he stood over his mother and repeatedly stabbed her in the neck, hitting an artery that resulted in significant bleeding, as stated in the arrest affidavit.

“She was just screaming,” Rosa reportedly told the police during the interrogation.

His newborn half-sister, a mere two weeks old, lay sleeping nearby. After committing the murder, Rosa took photographs of his mother’s body and sent them to an online friend. He also sent a photo of himself making a “hang loose” gesture, which he later admitted was marked with blood, according to authorities.

In their defense, Rosa’s attorneys contended that the video should not be shown, arguing that due to his young age and his diagnoses of autism and ADHD, he may not have fully understood the implications of his statements to investigators.

But Judge Richard Hersch denied the motion, saying Rosa was intelligent enough to waive his Miranda rights. Detectives also were not coercive, Hersch said.

“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,” the judge 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 requested an attorney as detectives began to press him about why he stabbed his mom.

As Law&Crime previously reported, Hialeah police Lt. Eddie Rodriguez noted how Rosa was “so polite” even on the 911 call after he allegedly stabbed his mother to death on Oct. 12, 2023. Everything was “Yes, ma’am; no, ma’am,” Rodriguez said.

Officers say that’s the teenager speaking to dispatch in released 911 audio.

“Miss?” Rosa said in the call.

“Yes?” the dispatcher answered.

“I took pictures and I told my friends about it,” Rosa said. “Was that bad?”

When the dispatcher asked for elaboration on who received the pictures, Rosa simply said it was his friend.

“I don’t know his real name because he’s an online friend who I play with a lot,” he said.

The murder “left everybody dumbfounded,” Rodriguez said. He called it a “huge tragedy” that left Garcia’s mother without a daughter and Rosa’s biological father essentially without a son.

The lieutenant described Rosa as an eighth grader and honor roll student at iMater Charter Middle/High School. Friends and family described him as a “good kid” and a straight-A student. The teenager had no history of mental health challenges; neither did his family. There were no fights, and he got along with both his stepfather and half-sister, Rodriguez said.

Rosa has also attracted a cadre of supporters who believe he is innocent.

“I completely believe that he is innocent of all charges,” Ariana Reyes, a Chicago mom who has been traveling to Miami-Dade County to see Rosa in court, told WTVJ and other news outlets during a press conference in January 2025.

“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, I strongly believe that he’s innocent and was manipulated by someone else around that scene.”