{"id":120834,"date":"2026-01-16T18:05:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T18:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/120834\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T18:05:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T18:05:07","slug":"hialeah-teen-derek-rosa-pleads-guilty-to-brutally-stabbing-mother-to-death-in-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/120834\/","title":{"rendered":"Hialeah teen Derek Rosa pleads guilty to brutally stabbing mother to death in 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hialeah<\/a> teenager accused of brutally killing his mother in 2023<\/a> accepted a plea deal on Friday and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.<\/p>\n

Derek Rosa had been accused of brutally stabbing his mother, Elina Garcia, more than 46 times in their apartment when he 13-year-old.<\/p>\n

As part of the plea deal, Rosa will now spend 25 years in prison and will spend 20 years on probation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taped confession was set to be used at trial<\/p>\n

Rosa and his attorneys were in court earlier this month to try and get a judge to suppress Rosa’s taped confession<\/a> to be used at his murder trial, arguing in part that he was not competent at the time and didn’t fully understand his rights.<\/p>\n

Defense attorney Dayliset Rielo pointed to Rosa’s mental health history, telling the court he has been diagnosed with ADHD and autism and is emotionally and cognitively immature.<\/p>\n

State prosecutors pushed back, arguing Rosa’s words and behavior showed he was aware and comprehended.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Jonathan Borst highlighted Rosa’s calm demeanor during questioning, noting that when a detective asked how he was doing, Rosa responded, “Good,” rather than expressing confusion or distress.<\/p>\n

The Miami judge sided with the prosecution and ruled that the taped confession could be used at his trial, which was slated to begin in just a matter of days.<\/p>\n

State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle responds to plea deal\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

After the plea deal was accepted, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle released a statement regarding the “deep tragedy.”<\/p>\n

“With today’s guilty plea Derek Roda admitted what he had previously told a 911 operator and what he had confessed to police detectives, that he murdered his mother,” she said in the statement. “The pain Elina Garcia suffered from the 46 stab wounds could only have been surpassed by the knowledge that the person killing her was her own son.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0She went on to say that even though the case is now closed, it “doesn’t diminish the deep tragedy of Derek’s actions.”<\/p>\n

She said that when Rosa stole his mother’s life, “he also stole so much of his own future.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hialeah teenager accused of brutally killing his mother in 2023 accepted a plea deal on Friday and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[265,225,227,226,807],"class_list":{"0":"post-120834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-hialeah","10":"tag-hialeah-headlines","11":"tag-hialeah-news","12":"tag-south-florida"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}