SERIALously - 147: Deranged 13-Year-Old Stabs Mother & Takes Selfie After?!
Episode Date: April 29, 2024A haunting 911 call was placed just after 11:30 PM on October 12th, 2023 in Hialeah, Florida. The caller’s name was Derek Rosa, and he was a 13-year-old middle school student, and he told the dispat...cher he had just stabbed his own mother to death. Shopify: Go to https://www.shopify.com/serialously to start a $1 per month trial Hiya: Get 50% off when you go to https://www.hiyahealth.com/ae Beam: Go to https://www.shopbeam.com/annieelise and use code ANNIEELISE at checkout for 40% off! Follow the podcast on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@serialouslypodcast Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise All Social Media Links: https://www.flowcode.com/page/annieelise_ SERIALously FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/SERIALouslyAnnieElise/ Shop the Merch: www.shop10tolife.com About Me: https://annieelise.com/ For Business Inquiries: 10toLife@WMEAgency.com Sources: WPLG Local 10 News CBS Miami Miami Dade Court Records Hialeah Police Arrest Affidavits Audio Credits: Law & Crime WPLG Local 10 News
Transcript
Discussion (0)
At first I cut her right here.
And her neck?
It's like a type of vein that goes through your neck right here on both sides.
Okay.
And you stab your glutes right here.
Do you know what that's called?
An artery or something.
An artery?
Yeah.
Okay.
You killed her?
Alright.
Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly.
Hey everybody, welcome back to an all new episode of Serialously with me, Annie Elise.
I am here to break down another true crime case for you.
Now if you're brand new and you have never listened to this podcast before, let me give
you the deets.
So over here, we like to talk about true crime, whether it's a case that's in the headlines or a case that is maybe on my mind for one reason or
another, and what I try to do is break it down in a way where it feels more
conversational. It doesn't feel like, you know, you're hearing this like flowery
formal language and you can't follow it. I want it to feel like we're just
friends. We're hanging out on my couch. Maybe we're having a glass of wine and
I'm talking to you about a new case that I heard of
or a Dateline episode I saw or something like that.
Now, if you're watching the video version
of this over on YouTube, I just wanna give a reminder.
YouTube, as you know, censors the heck out of everybody.
They restrict every single thing that you say.
So if you want these cases in an uncensored way,
because you can quite frankly handle the grownup language,
I highly suggest tuning into the audio version.
And the reason I say that too is I've said this before,
but I feel like when we're forced to water down the language
and not use actual legal terms, legal jargon,
it dilutes the case and it dilutes what these victims
had to experience and endure.
And in doing that, it almost in a weird roundabout way makes the perpetrator look less evil.
You know what I mean?
Like YouTube, for example, won't even let you say the word child abuse without flagging
you.
But that's what a lot of these abusers are.
They are child abusers. You also can't say the word pedophile.
So it's like these monsters who inflict these crimes on these victims, if they can't even be called out for what they truly did,
it's my opinion, it's just like it dilutes the severity of what the experience was for the victim. I think in turn
then the true accountability and justice isn't really there if you're not calling it for what it truly is for what really happened.
And that's not to say you have to get overly graphic or explicit, but the fact that you can't even use simple legal terms, it's just infuriating.
So sorry, I kind of went off on a rant there, but I feel like I just wanted to, you know, give that disclaimer,
especially if you are brand new here and you don't understand how all of that works because you are a YouTube watcher.
Anyways, let's get into today's case
because obviously that is what you are here to talk about.
Now, usually when I dive into a murder case,
the big question is always who did it, right?
Of course, that's not the only thing that we wonder.
When we hear about a violent death
or a situation like so many of these cases have,
we wanna know all of
the five W's.
The who, the what, the when, the where, and the why.
And that's also the main principle that they teach in journalism.
If you can answer the five W's, then you know exactly what happened in whatever story
you're telling.
And determining the who is the big central issue that you need to know in order to then
press charges or get a conviction.
You have to be able to say who committed a murder, even if you don't know exactly what
weapon they used, where it happened, or when.
But with no suspect, you've got nothing.
Zero zilch nada.
Except that is not the case with today's case.
Everyone, including the police, knew exactly who did it right from the very beginning.
But even now, months after this investigation, it's still really unclear why he did what
he did. It all began with a 911 call, which was placed just after 1130 p.m. on October
12th, 2023. And it's one of the more bizarre 911 calls that we've covered here. So I just
want to break it down for you piece by piece. Are you by yourself with your mom? Yeah, no, my baby sister. She's sleeping.
Did you kill your mom?
OK, where is the knife right now?
I put it. Let me check wait.
I put it on the floor inside of the.
We know where is it.
I can't find the knife.
It's a little hard to follow because the conversation jumped all over the place right from the very beginning.
But the gist was that a young man was calling in to report that his mother had been stabbed and he was the person who did it.
Basically, the 911 dispatcher was trying to piece together exactly what went down right before this guy called her.
But she knew that the guy had stabbed his mother in their home while his baby sister
was there the entire time.
And he was still at the house with that sister and with his mom.
And in this call, he's now asking the police to come and get him.
You cut her neck?
Okay.
Where else did you stop her?
All that cutting her neck?
The caller's name was Derek Rosa, and he was a middle school student, just 13 years old.
And I mean, barely 13.
His birthday had just been a few months prior.
Derek lived in Hialeah, Florida.
Now Hialeah may not be as recognizable as Orlando or Miami, but it's still a decent
sized town. And it's actually the sixth biggest city in Florida, according to the city's website.
And one of the reasons that it's so huge is that three different major highways all pass
through it.
So pretty much if you're in Miami-Dade County and you need to get from any given point to
point A to point B, whatever it is, the odds are that you're going to be passing through
Hialeah.
Now this city has a pretty unique vibe. People are always coming and going, but what's interesting
is not as many people actually stay there permanently. Hialeah also has a pretty good
size Cuban refugee community, and overall almost 95% of the residents are Hispanic.
Now some of these people have small family-owned businesses as well that they've been running
since they first settled in southern Florida. And then there's all of these people have small family owned businesses as well that they've been running since they first settled in southern Florida.
And then there's all of these big chains now coming in trying to grab those tourism
dollars from all the people who are of course passing through.
Everything just feels like it's constantly changing.
So that's the kind of environment that Derek grew up in.
And Derek's life was always in a lot of transition as well.
His parents were divorced and every other week he shuffled back and forth between his dad
and his mom, Irina Garcia.
When he was with his mom,
they all lived in an apartment complex,
along with his newborn baby half-sister and his stepdad.
And that's where Derek was when he told
that 911 dispatcher that he had just
stabbed his mother to death.
But just going by his tone and his word choice,
Derek didn't sound like he had just murdered somebody.
There were times in the conversation
where he came across as very calm, very collected.
Take a listen.
I need to know that you think we can help your mom?
Yes, she said.
Which honestly, wow, because I can't imagine
being so polite while saying something like that.
It's honestly so bizarre.
Based on his tone and even his word choice, from
the way that Derek always said ma'am, for example, you would almost think that he didn't
understand what he had done. Like he was in shock or dealing with some kind of like mental
disconnect. I don't know. But obviously, Derek did know that this was an emergency situation.
He wouldn't have called 911 otherwise. And I do think it's interesting that Derek wasn't quite together the entire time during
this 10 minute call.
Sometimes he almost seemed a little bit rattled.
He couldn't remember his home address.
And again, I don't know if that's necessarily indicative of him being super shaken or if
there was something going on with him.
But then after the 911 operator asked where he was, it took Derek over four minutes to
come up with an answer.
I think I found this mail.
Okay, what does the mail say?
I'm trying to find the address.
I think I found it.
May I have it please?
I don't know how to read it though.
That's fine, just give me numbers.
Whatever you see.
I see Haya, Lea, Florida and then it says what?
You just stay with me on the line, okay? Do not hang up.
I honestly don't know what to make of all of that because we're talking about a 13 year old here,
which yes, it is very young to be stabbing somebody to death,
but not so young that he wouldn't know his own address
or that he would be unable to read it off of a piece
of paper or a piece of mail that was in the house.
So again, it makes you wonder,
did Derek forget his address in the moment
because he was dealing with shock after his mom's murder
or did this mental disconnect kick in before he committed the murder? Was it part of what
pushed him to commit this brutal crime? What's really going on here? I do think
that it's safe to assume that Derek was particularly on edge given some of the
things that happened in other parts of this call. There's a knife in my room and
there's a gun in the living room.
Okay, I need you to stay away from them.
Can you put them in a safe place
away from where the officers can see them?
Can you put them away?
So where do I go?
Shit, I'm sorry.
I saw something fell and it scared me.
I'm sorry, miss.
What happened?
Something fell from my mouth
and it scared me. Something fell from my mouth and it scared me.
Something fell from what, sir?
It was, uh, she has a handbag.
You don't want her handbag fell.
Okay, not a problem.
I need you to put everything away, okay?
I don't have anything in your hand.
Okay, I can have my phone in my hand.
You can have your phone in your hand.
Yes, you can. Now, the whole conversation was like that.
Derek was all over the place.
And he also told the operator
that he was worried about his baby sister.
So the dispatcher told him not to have anything
in his hands when the police came.
But Derek was worried that the baby might start crying
and he would have to hold her,
he would have to comfort her.
Then he asked about his stepdad, Frank Ramos,
who worked as a truck driver.
He wasn't home that night because of his job.
So Derek was worried that Frank would come back
to this crime scene without Derek there
to explain what had happened.
And the dispatcher had to reassure him
that the police would handle all of it.
It was like he was so concerned
with all of these other things,
not really concerned with the fact
that he just murdered his mother.
It really wasn't working.
The math was not math and it wasn't making any sense here.
Which I will say this, I can only imagine Derek must have been dealing with a lot of different emotions.
And I'll say, he only came close to expressing remorse one time.
And I'd argue that he didn't even go so far as saying that he regretted stabbing his mom.
But he kind of came up right to that line.
Listen, I didn't delete the pictures
of my phone, but I sent him to him
and I told him I was sorry
and then I still buy.
I'm OK, OK, I'm really sorry.
I understand we're here to help you.
OK, we're going to help you.
We're going to help your sister, OK?
OK, I know you didn't mean to do
none of that that you did, OK? OK. I know you didn't mean to do none of that, that you did, okay?
Okay. We just want to make sure that you're okay. I'm okay, my mom's not okay. She's dead.
I understand that. We're going to try to see if we can still try to help her.
Okay. Okay. Okay, miss then I think that's interesting.
He said he called a friend to tell him he was sorry, but Derek didn't actually
say the words.
I'm sorry to the dispatcher just that he said that he was sad and that he
apologized to somebody else and besides hinting around the idea of his possible
remorse.
There was one topic that Derek was not willing to discuss at all.
So much so that when it came up,
he just completely changed the subject.
Why did you do this to your mom?
Can you tell me why?
My stepdad told me my mom, I could hear the phone.
Okay, do not pick up the phone.
Just stay with me on the line, concentrate, okay?
Stay with me.
Do you need fire rescue?
Are you hurt?
No, I'm not hurt.
I just have a little bit of blood on my hands.
You have blood in your hands?
Yeah.
How did you get here so fast?
Because this is a light-turning emergency.
So we get to places fast.
We're there to help you, okay?
We're gonna help you and your sister, okay?
So now, after that one question about why he did it,
the dispatcher didn't ask Derek again.
Now I'm assuming that this was a little bit strategic on her part
because all through the entire call,
she seemed to know exactly what she had to say to Derek
to keep him on the line, to keep him calm, keep him speaking,
keep him engaged.
Because like I said before, he did seem to fluctuate a lot
between being very collected and then being so on edge that he screamed out loud when his mom's purse fell out of the closet.
So she seemed to know how to maintain at least holding him on the line. The call did last 10 minutes after all.
So the dispatcher kept repeating that the police would be there to help Derek. They were there to help his baby sister as well.
They were even there to help his mom
if it wasn't too late for her.
Personally, I can't imagine hearing a child call in
to say that he had murdered somebody
and then being able to stay so focused afterward.
I mean, hats off to this dispatcher.
Now, after she asked Derek about his motives,
and he totally dodged that question,
the dispatcher didn't have him on the line
for a whole lot longer,
and then the police arrived on the scene
about five minutes after the call
first went through around the time
that they were pulling up Derek
peeked out the front door of his
apartment to see if the officers were
close and you can actually see this
on the family's ring doorbell camera.
The officers I see officers.
Do I leave? Don't leave my house. Okay. The
advises him not to leave
door closes, police lights
again in that clip, Derek
He is totally cooperative
body language or even his
sounds like what you w somebody who just committed a cold blooded murder.
Except you can tell that he was freaking out. This was based on what he said to
the dispatcher once he was back inside of the apartment. Okay, I want you so
she started our wake. Okay.
I'm telling you in the living room with the door unlocked. Should I unlock the door?
No, just leave the door unlocked. Just make sure you don't have anything in your hands.
They're knocking. Do I open the door?
They're knocking the door? Okay.
Do I open?
Stay with me on the line. Do not open until I tell you to, okay?
Okay, tell me when to open, Minister.
Okay, I just want to make sure that you have nothing in your hands.
I only have my phone. Do I put my phone down?
Okay, do not put your phone down until I tell you to.
I just want to make sure that you have nothing in your hands, no guns, no knives.
I don't have a gun or a knife.
I put the knife in my room and then the gun is in the living room.
Okay, stay with me on the line. Do not open until I tell you to.
OK.
Miss, they're opening the door.
Do not open the door until I tell you to, OK?
They're opening it.
They're opening it.
They're opening the door?
Remove the door handle and then say it was unlocked.
That's fine.
Do not open until I tell you to open the door.
And make sure that you have nothing
but your cell phone in your hands. Are they gonna kill me? No, they're not gonna kill you. We're here to
help you, okay? We're gonna help your family. I mean, all in all, it was just a very bizarre 9-1-1 call,
like I said, because you have him kind of going all over the place calm, to not calm, to not really
understanding what he had done
or pretending he didn't.
There was not really even a sliver of remorse in my opinion.
And it was just one of the more bizarre calls
that I think I've ever heard.
So at this point with Derek inside
and the first responders right outside,
the operator was acting as sort of the go-between
between both of them.
This way the police could talk to Derek
even if they weren't face to face with him yet.
Eventually, she told Derek to go outside
with his hands in the air and Derek complied
the same way that he had been complying this entire time.
He opened the door, stepped out onto the landing
and right away the police slapped him into handcuffs
and took him into custody.
Afterward, they searched Derek's apartment
and it was exactly like what he had
described on his phone call. They found a 12-inch long kitchen knife. It had a purple handle,
and it also had a broken off tip. And this knife was absolutely covered in blood. And I'm not
talking about a couple droplets here and there, or droplets on the edge. It was like if you had
grabbed a knife, dipped it in a bucket of blood, and then pulled it out.
That is what this knife looked like. So it was pretty clear that this was the murder weapon.
Derek's mother, Irina Garcia, was there lying on the ground next to the bed, and she had been stabbed over 40 times.
There were slashes on her face, her neck, her torso, her back.
Literally the only part of her body that had not been cut
was the back of her knees.
That is how brutal this crime scene was.
So it's no surprise that she was pronounced dead
at the scene just as soon as the medical services team
arrived and were able to look at her body.
Now, Irina died pretty young too.
She was just 39 years old.
And she and her husband had just moved into this apartment about a year before and even though
They hadn't lived there for very long
Irina made a huge impression on her neighbors
They knew her as somebody who was always quick to smile and have a friendly chat with anybody that she bumped into
Just a really warm and loving person and boy was she beautiful guys
She had long blonde hair,
this naturally beautiful big smile.
And if you look at the photos from her
during her pregnancy,
you can see how excited she was to become a new mom again
and how much she already loved that baby.
There's so many snapshots of her cradling her belly,
her long blonde hair, framing her face.
She was just glowing.
Honestly, as cliche as that sounds, she truly was.
She looked like a literal angel.
Now, speaking of the baby,
her name has not been released to the public,
which makes sense because she was only two weeks old
at the time that her mother was murdered.
And in a horrific detail,
she was actually in the room when her mother was killed.
She was lying in her crib.
Thank God though, she was not hurt. And thank God she's only two weeks old. She was lying in her crib. Thank God though she was not hurt.
And thank God she's only two weeks old. She will never remember it. But still, what a haunting
thing to happen. I mean truly. Later, Derek admitted that the reason he did not touch his
baby sister was because he didn't want her to wake up and make a noise, which it does leave me
wondering if he would have hurt her if she had cried. Maybe.
Luckily, we don't ever need to know the answer to that question though because she is alive and well.
We are going to take a quick break in today's case to hear from our first sponsors of today's episode.
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Now let's go back to Frank, Derek's stepfather and the baby girl's dad.
Since he was still out of town for work, the authorities contacted Irina's mother as soon
as they had Derek in custody.
They asked her to come and take care of the baby until they could sort out what was going
on and until Frank got back in town.
And in order to get a handle on exactly what went down, police sat Derek down in
an interrogation room to see if he could help them sort out what was going on here, help them make
sense of all of this. But they didn't get that. Instead, Derek spent about 20 minutes in questioning,
and he never told the police much of anything that they didn't already know from that 911 call.
In fact, his body language and the words that he used
were almost a little confusing.
It was just like the conversation with the dispatcher
where sometimes he came across as very calm, very collected,
even when he was talking about stabbing his mother
in very, very frank and cold, callous terms.
But then there were other times where Derek came across
like a scared, confused little boy.
And like before, he couldn't remember his own address.
And he even blanked on his stepfather's name when the detectives were asking him for it.
There's another example of this right at the start of the interrogation.
The police had him sign a bunch of paperwork where he waved his right to a lawyer and said
that he consented to be questioned.
And it was clear that he didn't understand some of these forms.
And the police had to go on and explain what was going on, what was happening, what
these forms were and what the purpose was.
Okay now read this whole paragraph.
I have read this statement of my rights and I understand all my rights are. I am
willing to make this statement and answer questions. I do not want a lawyer at this time.
I understand and know what I'm doing.
No promises or threats have been made to me.
No pressure or...
...crisis.
Corrosion. That is that we're forcing you to do something.
You understand? Whatever you're doing, you're doing you to do something. Understand, whatever you're doing,
you're doing on your own voluntary basis,
making an educated decision for yourself, okay?
Okay.
Keep on.
Any kind has been used against me.
Okay.
Now, we are investigating an incident that happened,
you know, where you called police,
okay?
Before we ask you any questions, we want to make sure that you know this, and if you want
a chance to explain yourself, the only way that we would be able to take your statement
is if you agree to talk to us without the presence of an attorney. If you do, go ahead
and sign right here.
What's an attorney?
An attorney is someone that can represent you in legal matters.
Okay.
Okay?
You know what a lawyer is?
Yeah, it's the same thing.
Yeah, same thing.
But then, later, when it came time to talk about the murder itself
Derek just very calmly explained what happened again. He was not ruffled at all even when the conversation became pretty disturbing
I'm gonna play you guys a couple of clips from the interrogation to show you exactly what I mean
Were you wearing the same clothes you're wearing now? Yeah
There are some red stains there. Is that blood?
I think it is.
Okay.
I have a little bit of blood on my hands.
On your hands too?
Yes.
Okay.
Where exactly did you cut her?
At first I cut her right here.
On her neck?
It's like a type of vein that goes through your neck right here on both sides.
Okay.
If you stab here, a lot of blood springs out right here. Do you know what that that's called? An artery or something. An
artery? Yeah. Okay. And and um you purposely went for the artery? When you cut it? I purposely just
went for the neck. Okay. Was there a lot of blood after? There's a big part of blood on the floor.
I do want to note that the police did censor some of the more graphic parts of this next video before they
released it to the public,
so the sound will cut in and
out a bit during this clip.
So don't worry,
your speakers are working.
That's just how this clip sounds.
And also just as a heads up,
there is some discussion of self harm
and suicide in the next 2 1⁄2 minutes.
So if that's something that you
find upsetting to listen to,
you may want to fast forward a couple of minutes.
Were you uh, do you communicate with people over the phone?
Were you talking?
Tell me what happened tonight.
Tonight?
Yeah.
Well, I had around like, like ten.
I went to bed.
Okay.
My mom did too. Is that your regular time? Like 10? I went to bed.
Okay. My mom did too.
Is that your regular time?
Like 9.
9? Yeah.
Okay. You guys explain to me about the apartment.
You have your own room?
Yes.
And your mom?
Yes, she has her own room.
She has her own room and your sister?
She stays in the same room as my mom.
Stays in the same room as your mom? And tonight, who was all there? Me, my mom, and my sister. Okay. So you went
to sleep around 10? Yeah. Okay. And then what? I woke up. You killed her? Alright. Um, what type of knife was it?
Do you know?
It was just a big size kitchen knife.
That big?
Yeah.
What color was the handle?
Purple.
Purple?
Yes.
Okay.
Your mom was sleeping?
Yeah, she was sleeping.
Okay.
Explain to me...
Well, we'll get into that a little later.
What did you do after you killed her?
My stepdad has...
I mean, he owns two guns.
He has a Glock 19 and then another one.
Okay, what color are they? The Glock 19 is black and then the other one has a silver slide and then like a dark bluish handle.
Okay. So what did you do with the guns?
He always has a Glock 19 with him, both times.
Since he's a truck driver, he was at home, he was far away.
So I went into the closet, I found his book because he goes shooting at gun ranges.
I grabbed the gun, I put the magazine in the gun,
I pulled back the slide, but I didn't wanna show myself.
Okay.
I intended to show myself before, but I couldn't.
Like I mentioned, the interrogation lasted
for about 20 minutes.
That's how long it took for the police to ask Derek
about how he committed the murder
and what he did afterwards.
But then they turned their focus away from the house and
shifted it to the wise. And Derek once again basically avoided the question.
But she didn't wake up when you she was asleep. She was asleep when you stabbed
her. What curse words did you say? Um, and then she woke up?
Yes.
Did you say anything else to her? Did she say anything to you or no?
No, she just screamed.
She just screamed?
Yes.
Okay.
Um, why did you stab your mom?
Can I go to the bathroom before I answer that?
Yes, of course.
Of course.
Give me one second.
You want to thank him for me?
I'll have patrol taken.
Yes, have patrol taken.
Derrick spent about two and a half minutes outside of the interrogation
room.
And then when he came back, the police helped him settle in by asking
a few easier questions.
He repeated some of what he had said already and then the detectives chatted with him a little bit about his social media accounts. But then
they got back to that million dollar question.
So you were about to tell me the why. Why did you kill your mother? Do you know?
Do I have to say it now?
Yeah, get it off your chest, absolutely.
I can only fumble here.
Okay, at this point you want a lawyer?
I need a...
We can't...no, listen, listen.
Just so you understand, okay?
You have mentioned or asked us should you wait for a lawyer.
We're not here to advise you on whether to talk to a lawyer or not.
That decision is yours, okay? But if you are requesting a lawyer at this point, we can't interview you any further.
Sam, we have to stop the interview.
Okay.
Do you want us to stop the interview?
Yes.
Okay. Okay. Then this interview will end right now.
It is 3 or 5 AM.
OK.
Thank you.
Now, I think that this is really interesting,
because this was the third time that somebody asked Derek
why he did it, why he murdered his mother.
And it's the third time that
he just completely sidestepped the question. He wasn't hiding the fact that he did it, he wasn't
hiding the fact that he murdered her at all, but he kept dodging the question of why. First, the
911 operator had asked, and he started talking about how his mom's phone was ringing because
his stepdad was calling her. In the moment, it probably didn't seem like he was being evasive.
It probably felt like he got caught up because her phone was ringing. He was freaked out.
He didn't know if he should answer the phone or not. Of course, he's not gonna be thinking about explaining his motives in that moment,
so that kind of makes sense.
But then he faced that exact same question a second time during his interrogation,
and that's when he said he needed to use the bathroom. And now it was happening for a third time,
and he asked for his lawyer.
And then that's how he stopped answering the questions entirely.
He never actually said the words,
I don't want to answer that question.
But just based on his reaction,
each one of those three times,
it felt like maybe whatever Derek's motive was,
it wasn't something that he wanted to talk about.
It wasn't something that he wanted to get into.
This was a kid who turned himself in.
He voluntarily, in detail, talked about exactly how he stabbed his mother to death.
He got graphic.
That was all worth sharing, but now his motives weren't worth sharing?
What was going on here?
It's so weird and truly confusing.
And it really makes me think that whatever he was thinking and
for whatever reason he did do it
There's got to be some story there that the police and the 911 dispatcher didn't know yet
But since he wouldn't explain it the police didn't understand what Derek's deal was why he did this why he murdered his mother and now
He had gotten himself out of the interrogation completely and they couldn't ask him point-blank anymore
So from there they decided the only thing they could do was the next best thing and that was to take a look at his history
instead. Because you know, maybe something from his past could explain why he'd not only killed his mother
but why he did so in such a gruesome and violent and shocking way.
But when they started digging instead of getting the resolution and the answers that they were hoping for,
everything they learned about his background just sort of confused them even more.
Because Derek didn't come across like a murderer at all. He was a good kid. He didn't have a criminal
record or any kind of history of getting into trouble at all. He was also very, very smart,
which you might not guess from how much he struggled to even remember his basic information, like his home address or what an attorney was.
But Derek always got A's, always got B's in school,
and in fact, he was an honors student.
He also always helped out around his house,
and he always got along with his mom until he didn't.
His neighbors regularly saw him helping his mom
carry groceries into the apartment after trips to the store.
They never overheard any fighting
or even got the impression that there was any real tension
in the family either.
And in fact, one neighbor gave a statement to the press,
which was in Spanish, but when you translate it to English,
she said, I was shocked, just shocked by the news.
I don't know what could have happened.
There also have never been any sort
of domestic disturbance calls to his apartment.
No sign that Derek's mother or stepfather were abusive or that he had gotten into any sort of
violent arguments with them in the past. I mean, I could go on guys, but you get it. There was
nothing whatsoever in Derek's background or history that indicated that he was the sort of
person who could commit a murder or would have a motive to commit a murder. It was like this stabbing just came out of nowhere. Prison officials
even had it Derek undergo a psychological examination after his
arrest, just in case the murder could be explained by some sort of mental health
breakdown or something, or a disorder that prevented him from thinking
rationally and or controlling his impulses. So two different doctors talked
to Derek, and afterward they came back with
very different possible diagnoses. One who actually worked for the prison said that Derek might have
ADHD, while a different doctor thought that Derek was on the autism spectrum. Now talking just in
terms of statistics, there isn't a clear link between autism and violent crime. Some researchers think that people on the
spectrum are actually less likely to be violent,
but there really isn't enough research out there to say anything for sure.
ADHD, however, can be a factor in murders like the one that Derek committed.
People with ADHD, particularly if it isn't diagnosed or being managed well,
can have difficulty resisting
their impulses or resisting those urges.
So maybe Derek just snapped.
Like he just snapped in the moment and stabbed his mother after an argument.
This possible diagnosis might help explain a little bit how something like that could
happen in somebody who otherwise doesn't seem especially violent or doesn't have a
background that would indicate it would happen.
But I also don't want to make it sound like having ADHD automatically makes somebody a murderer or dangerous to be around.
Certainly not. If that is a factor, and again, I'm not sure if it even is, it's just one piece of an even bigger puzzle,
which we're not still seeing a whole picture here yet.
Plus, I don't know which therapist in all of this, which doctor, was right. If Derek had ADHD or autism or both, or if there was something else going on and both
of them were wrong.
And also, I do think that it's worth noting.
The scenario that I just described, where Derek and his mom maybe argued and then he
killed her on impulse and just snapped, I don't know if that's even true.
It's all just speculation.
Because even after he lawyered up and got sent off to a juvenile facility,
Derek didn't tell anybody why he did it.
I don't even know for sure if he did argue with his mom.
That whole story could be way off base.
We don't know anything.
But the good news is,
the detectives were able to piece together
a sort of timeline of the night of the murder,
even without Derek's statements.
And that's because there were cameras
all over the apartment.
Like the ring camera that I already played a clip from
when he was on the phone with 911 that night,
it also filmed him two other times that night.
Both of these clips were from a few hours
before the stabbing.
And the footage showed Irina sitting in a chair
by the front door with her new two-week-old
little baby girl.
Derek opened the door, went outside, and as he went out, he had an exchange with his mother.
The exchange was in Spanish, so I'm going to read a translation of their conversation
for you now.
Irina said, don't run.
And then Derek sort of paused and looked back into the house at her.
And he replied, why do you always tell me don't run? And okay fine, maybe it wasn't the friendliest exchange, I don't know,
but nothing here sounds high stakes enough that would warrant him murdering his mother later
that night, certainly not. Then, the ring camera filmed him again.
This was when he came back home a little while later.
But it doesn't look like too much time had passed because Irina was still sitting in the same spot.
Now this was the last time that the front door opened, and it was the last time the ring camera
was activated, until close to midnight when the police arrived. But even so, we don't need to see
any more ring camera footage to know what happened next, right? Because later that evening, Irina went
into her bedroom, which also functioned as a nursery. Her bed was next to the crib, and Irina had the newborn baby in her arms. The baby monitor turned on, and then at around 10 23
p.m., it filmed Irina lying in bed, cuddling with her daughter. But at some point after that,
she put the little girl in her crib and then went over and fell asleep. Then, 37 minutes after that,
a figure came into the room. And again, the baby monitor captured everything.
The figure, who the police later confirmed was Derek, stood over his mother's bed,
and then while she was still asleep, he stabbed her. He stabbed her over 40 times. It was just
like what he said in his confession. At one point, she woke up and began screaming, but even this
didn't stop Derek or slow him down at any point.
He just kept stabbing her until she was dead.
And we also know what Derek did next, what he did after he murdered his mom, because he began
documenting the entire crime on his own. First,
he took photos of his mom's body, and then he took a selfie of himself with bloody hands.
He was sticking his tongue out and
flashing the rock on or the double horn sign with his hands with his red just sticky bloody covered
fingers. I mean it is truly haunting and disgusting to think about. It's also not something that you
would expect from that scared sounding little boy who called 911 and just sounded so calm.
I don't know it's like Derek's personality changed every couple of minutes
over the course of the night.
One minute he was sad, he was terrified.
Then he was taking these pictures
where he was basically showing off,
almost proud that he just murdered his mother.
I don't know which of these moves
was supposed to be the quote unquote real Derek,
but in either event, pretty disturbing.
And one thing I do find interesting is that after Derek snapped all of those photos,
he sent three of them to a friend.
Specifically, two photos of his mom's body and that selfie that he took.
He fired them off on his phone to his friend. Which, you gotta ask yourself,
why? Why on earth would you do that? And the person that Derek texted these horribly gruesome photos to
was somebody that he had never even met in person.
See, this person was an online gamer
who Derek had connected with at one point
about three years earlier.
And Derek didn't even know this friend's real name,
just somebody that he had met in the gaming community.
The contact was saved in his phone as just Sweden.
That was the name,
Sweden, but not spelled like the country. It was S-W-E-E-D-E-N. Kind of like the country,
but with an extra E. And I gotta say, I cannot imagine what this person Sweden thought when his
phone was just blowing up one night out of the blue with all of these gruesome murder pictures.
But then, Derek called him. And apparently, that's when
Sweden said that he couldn't believe what he was hearing. For his part, Derek again didn't offer
any kind of explanation for why he had done it. All he said was, quote, goodbye. It was kind of
like what Derek had said during his interrogation. Now that his mom was dead, he decided that he was
going to take his own life next. But But then just before he could end it all,
he had this moment of clarity
where he realized that he didn't want to die.
And I have to say,
it's too bad that he didn't have a similar realization
before he stabbed his mom or a similar moment of clarity.
I mean, if he had stopped to think through that
a little bit more, maybe she would still be alive.
But I'm a little unclear on exactly
what his mental state was at this time. Whether he was regretting killing his mom, or if he
even understood his own motives in all of this. All I know is that he put away
the weapon that he had been planning to use to kill himself. Then he dialed 911
to turn himself in. Okay guys, we are gonna take a final break in today's case
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So again, even with this huge huge long, long trail of digital information
showing basically every single beat of the crime,
there was no real clarity around why Derek did it.
He wasn't fighting with his mom before he stabbed her.
She was asleep.
She was asleep for the night.
He also didn't seem to be in any kind of danger
where he might have thought that he needed to defend himself for some reason.
And even though it does sound like he was confused and not all there on the night of the murder, didn't seem to be in any kind of danger where he might have thought that he needed to defend himself for some reason.
And even though it does sound like he was confused and not all there on the night of
the murder, the psychiatrist didn't seem to think that there was a clear cut psychological
explanation either.
At best, you might guess that he was feeling extra impulsive thanks to the undiagnosed
ADHD, but we know that that's not an explanation on its own.
It's all just very, very bizarre.
And when you don't have answers, it becomes even more disturbing and unsettling in my opinion.
But I do think that it is safe to assume that the murder was premeditated.
I don't think that Derek just woke up with the sudden urge to stab his mother to death,
stab her over 40 times.
And the reason that I say that is because I'm basing that off of something that an investigating police officer said during one of Derrick's hearings after his arrest.
Yes, on October 12 at 6 p.m. he did make searches on Google. He typed in the word
the carotid artery image diagram. What is the best place to stab someone?
Is a small knife good for killing?
Now for a little context, those searches were all
from the day of the murder.
And like he said, all of them were around 6 p.m.
But Derek didn't actually stab his mother until 11 p.m.
So that means that he was planning this
for at least five hours in advance.
And besides the search terms
that the detective had talked about, we also know that Derek
googled, quote, is it easier to kill someone with a small knife, quote, and also, quote,
can a knife cut through bone, quote.
He also looked up machine guns, even though we know that he didn't use one in the actual
murder but still an unsettling search.
And during those same hearings, one other piece of information came out that might maybe explain Derek's motives a little bit better. You'll remember that
in Derek's interrogation, the police asked him what specific curse words he
shouted while he was stabbing his mom. His answer was censored out for whatever
reason, but one of those officers took the stand and shared what Derek actually
said during those censored portions. Apparently, Derek told the police that while he was stabbing his mother,
he used a homophobic slur against her.
So I'm just speculating, and I want to be clear, this is all my own opinion,
my own theory, my own guess, and I don't know how Irina identified in terms of her sexuality.
I do know that she had at least two serious relationships with two different men,
Derek's dad and his stepfather, who was the father of her new baby, but it is possible that
Irina was bisexual or that she identified some other way but was interested or involved with
women in some capacity. And maybe Derek had some kind of problem with that and maybe that's why
he killed her. Maybe if he had this extreme bias against LGBTQ people,
he thought that this was worth murdering his mother, Irina, over.
And if that is the case, that could be why he didn't want to tell police why he did it, because
he thought that he was protecting her reputation by not blabbing to the world that his mother preferred women or that she liked women or anything like that.
And again, I'm just guessing here. It's just a theory.
It's also entirely possible that Derek was just being a 13 year old little boy, a 13 year old little shit bag,
because there are tons of middle schoolers out there who casually throw different slurs around,
especially homophobic slurs, and they say them without actually meaning to comment on anybody's sexual orientation.
It's just supposed to be a word, a jab, something like that, supposed to have a negative connotation to it. So it's definitely possible that that's what he
meant by it. It maybe didn't have any rooted meaning. So that definitely could have been what
happened. I mean, this detail could be a huge nothing. But with what the police did know,
which was basically everything except his motive, they decided to charge him as an adult for first
degree murder. And because Derek was being treated as an adult for first-degree murder.
And because Derrick was being treated as an adult, that meant that he had to be
transferred from the juvenile facility where he was being held for those first two weeks after
his arrest over to an adult facility. So instead, he was moved into an adult penitentiary, specifically
Metro West Detention Center. Now, at the start of this year, in 2024, Derek's attorneys worked really hard to get that specific
transfer reversed.
They said that even though he was being charged as an adult, Derek should have still been
held in juvie.
They said that he was very, very young and he probably wasn't safe being around a bunch
of adult inmates.
They even pointed to the fact that he still plays with Legos as evidence that he wasn't mentally ready to be in an adult prison.
And in fairness, I do kind of understand that argument.
I do see their point in that because Derek might not be able to defend himself against any full-grown adult prisoners if they were to give him trouble or if they were going to try to attack him.
But it's also not like he was out mingling with the rest of the general population.
So instead, since his transfer, Derek has spent almost every waking hour in his cell.
The windows also have frosted glass, so the other inmates can't even see what he's doing during the
day or the night, and there's a guard that's stationed outside 24-7. Now this is all on top
of the fact that Metro West does have a juvenile wing, and Derek's not the only teenager in that detention center.
However, he is the youngest inmate, and he's also the only minor to be under that kind
of constant surveillance.
Because again, the guard is literally outside of Derek's cell, and the glass is completely
frosted.
So, in practical terms, he's been more or less in complete isolation since he first moved in there.
He's spending about 23 hours a day completely alone.
He hasn't been getting any kind of regular instruction or classroom time either, and he has to get permission from his guards just to put
on his glasses. Like if he wants to see, if he wants to see something, somebody else needs to say that it's okay.
When his stepdad or other family members came to visit,
he did get to see them,
if the prison gave them all permissions to meet,
which didn't happen at first
until his first month at the facility.
So to start, there were absolutely no visitors.
However, there was one, only one,
an inmate who, for whatever reason,
the guards ended up being okay with Derek Singh
on a limited basis.
Now I'm guessing that this was maybe somebody who was close to Derek in age, so it didn't seem like
he could be a potential threat, I don't know. But every day for one hour maximum, Derek played
basketball and exercised with this other guy. And that was the only time that he ever left his cell.
If his lawyer or his family members came by, Derek could chat with them too, but then
all the rest of the time he was just back in his room, behind that frosted glass, alone with his
thoughts. I mean, who knows? Maybe he spent some of that time asking himself all the exact same
questions that we're all wondering about. Why did you do it? Maybe he's thinking that to himself.
Why did I do this? Why am I here? To hear it from Derek's attorney and the mental health
professionals that they hired, Derek thought about suicide a lot after he was admitted
into the adult facility, but other prison officials actually tried to make it sound
like he was doing well there. When Derrick's lawyers asked for a hearing to talk about
moving him back to juvie, one prison official came out to the courtroom and said that Derrick
was flourishing. That was a direct quote. Or be transferred back to juvenile detention. Now we did hear plenty of witness testimony today
from Corporal Sirem Wims as a matter of fact. He had some time there giving his testimony,
Miami Day Corrections officer who works in the safety management unit over at Metro West. He
went through the protective custody procedures for the 13 year old as there was of course a lot of
reference to this being a high profile case due to the extensive media coverage.
We also heard about Rosa's day to day routine.
We also heard this in court as well. Right now at Metro West there are 34 juveniles being held.
Rosa is the only 13 year old."
And that was their word not mine, literally flourishing.
Now usually if you want to get an inmate moved from one prison to another, you can have a quick hearing to get that sorted out right away.
But for whatever reason, Derrick's time in court just dragged on and on and on.
I mean, weeks and weeks of discussions.
And during one of their last sessions, the state's prosecutor played a recording of Derrick's
interrogation and confession.
And during that, that chill, cool as a cucumber boy that we once heard from and saw
was gone. Completely gone. You could see just how worried he was the whole time that they were
playing this video. The chilling interrogation video played in court.
13-year-old Derek Rosa
allegedly confessing to brutally
stabbing his mother, Irina Garcia, to death
and that he considered killing himself afterwards,
but changed his mind.
Family members in the gallery are sobbing.
You're all sleeping? Yes, you're sleeping.
So then, after no fewer than
six weeks of debates in the courtroom, the judge did end
up deciding that Derek was going to have to stay in the adult facility, Metro West.
He's going to have to stay there until his murder trial begins.
Now, I do want to take a minute to talk a little bit about that attorney, because Derek
hired a man named Jose Baez.
Usually, I don't talk much about people's lawyers or who they hire, because at the end
of the day, they're just doing their jobs. They're not directly involved in the crime.
That's their job to defend their client.
But I think that this was an interesting move on Derek's part because as you may know,
Jose Baez' client list is like a who's who of high-profile celebrity defendants.
He worked with Harvey Weinstein. He worked with Aaron Hernandez. He also most famously in my opinion,
worked for Casey Anthony.
I don't know, maybe you've heard of one, two,
or all of those people.
But the fact that Derek is working with this lawyer
to the stars, so to speak,
kind of points at just how big I think this case
is going to be whenever it does go to trial.
I mean, Jose has even been posting TikTok videos
to talk about Derek's case.
Hello, my name is attorney Jose Baez and I'm the lead defense attorney for Derek Rosa.
Derek would like to thank everyone for all of their well wishes and interest in his case.
This has been an incredibly difficult time for both Derek and his family and we would
like to take this time to thank everyone for their prayers.
In that video, Jose goes on to explain
that he's representing Derek Pro Bono,
meaning that he's not charging at all for his services,
but he still asks people to donate
to cover other kinds of legal expenses.
Now, it's not clear to me what those expenses are,
what they entail, but I do think it's interesting
given that Derek just got himself declared indigent,
which that's the legal term for someone who can't afford a lawyer.
So because of that, in theory, the state is supposed to cover his expenses using tax dollars
to make up for whatever Derek can't come up with himself.
But based on Jose Baez' video, it sounds like maybe they want to run up some expensive charges
that go above and beyond whatever Derek was already approved for.
That's what I assume they're doing with that defense fund, although in fairness, he didn't
get super detailed in that TikTok video, so I'm not sure.
I'm just speculating here.
Now, you might wonder who would donate to something like this as well.
But surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, because I feel like this kind of thing happens
way more often than you would think, Derek has a lot of supporters.
First, there's his family, which I guess you would think, Derek has a lot of supporters.
First, there's his family, which I guess you would expect that, of course. But at one of his
hearings to try and get him moved from the adult prison to a juvenile one, a relative of Derek's
actually shouted a phrase in Spanish at a reporter. It translates to, you don't know him, he's a loving
boy. But on top of that, since his arrest, Derek has almost become like a celebrity,
which I guess that's kind of what you would expect
with a lawyer like Jose Baez, I guess, right?
I don't know.
But every time he has a court appearance,
all of these people, like 10 to 15 complete strangers
would get together outside the courthouse
with signs and chants to show their support.
Some of these people even flew in from out of state
and based on what they told the reporters,
it sounds like they were all coming to Florida
because they thought that Derek was innocent.
Which really strikes me as pretty weird guys
because if there's one thing that I think
is really crystal clear in all of this,
it's that Derek did it.
Now they might be trying to say that he's innocent
in terms of he wasn't responsible because of his age,
maybe because of his mental health, whatever it may be, maybe he had some sort of mental break,
but really those are the only explanations that I can even think of to defend what happened and to defend Derek.
His confession was there. He said multiple times what he did. He took selfies, he took videos,
he took photos, he sent them to people like the writings on the wall.
I can't, I don't think you can really argue innocence here.
But either way, Derrick's supporters were spending day after day outside of the courthouse.
And meanwhile, he went from one hearing after the other beginning in December of 2023 and
then running all the way through to February of 2024.
And while those sessions are now over, there's been a lot of speculation about what
strategy Jose Baez could even have in mind once this case goes to trial. Mainly being,
what are you going to say to defend a killer who freely admitted to committing murder and who
turned himself in? Derek pleaded not guilty already, but honestly I just don't see how he
could possibly actually not be guilty. Again, I think it's all gonna come down to the question of why he did it and if he has a motive that actually feels relatable or not.
I do know that at one point Jose Bias and his team walked through Derek's apartment.
This was after his arrest and it was weeks after he stopped living there.
And Jose didn't publicly say anything about what they were looking for during that walkthrough though.
But of course it generated a ton of news coverage anyway, both because Derek was
getting to be famous already, and because this was such a weird move on Jose's part.
The walkthrough was more than a month after the arrest, and the police had already cleared
the apartment entirely.
Derek's relatives had also been through, and they had contaminated anything that they
might have missed, so there shouldn't have been any evidence left to find.
I mean the apartment was basically empty.
Because right after the murder, Derek's stepfather announced that he and the baby were moving
out as soon as they could.
Which totally makes sense that he didn't want to keep living and sleeping in a room
where his wife was brutally stabbed to death.
So the unit was almost completely vacant, which just makes you wonder what Jose and
his team were even looking for. The rumor was that the defense team took all of these
different measurements of the dimensions in Irene's bedroom where she was killed,
of the closet where Derek grabbed the guns that he was gonna use to kill
himself, all sorts of different measurements. They also said that it came
down to trying to establish something about Derek's quote state of mind. And I
don't know, I can't see how that could all fit together
in a defense, but we'll have to wait and see.
I mean, Jose was able to pull it off with Casey Anthony,
so I guess TBD will find out.
But until Derek gets on the stand,
or alternatively, if his lawyer tries to explain things
in an opening or a closing statement,
we're not gonna know why he killed his mom.
We don't know if it was premeditated or if he just snapped.
And also
why he decided to text a casual acquaintance about the crime or call 911 on himself. As for me,
I think that the writing is on the wall. I think that he either, I don't want to say snapped because
the Google searches do show a degree of premeditation, but I think that he is the one who wanted to
execute a murder and successfully did so. It was overkill as well,
40 times the rage in him he must have felt to continue through that motion up and down,
what 80 times for 40 stabs to be inflicted. And he confessed and he called 911 on himself. I think
that maybe the situation is that now he's trying to save himself because he doesn't want to go to
prison for the rest of his life and that's where Jose comes in. But I'm curious to know what you guys think.
Clearly there's a lot that I don't know and a lot that the rest of the world doesn't know yet either,
but I'm curious if even Derek understands why he killed his mom.
Or if there was something going on psychologically or mentally that even he doesn't get on some level.
I'm also so so ready to see what kind of defense he offers at his trial
because frankly I can't even begin to imagine what he could say at this point to justify what he did
and why he did it. And I will note that even though Florida is a death penalty state, it's illegal to
sentence somebody as young as Derek to be executed because again we're talking about a 13 year old
boy here. Still if his motive isn't really compelling and if he is found guilty, he'll most likely
spend the entire rest of his life behind bars.
So I will definitely keep tabs on this case as it develops and I'll come back with any
news once it comes out.
But until then, thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Serial-ously with
me, Annie Elise.
I hope you appreciated the case coverage.
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Alright guys, thanks again and if you have an extra 30 seconds, please leave a rating and review
over on Apple Podcasts. Let me know what you're liking about this podcast. Let me know if there's
any case suggestions or recommendations or requests that you have. And I just like hearing
from you guys so I can tailor this to what it is you guys like to hear and deliver the content that
you're asking for. All right, guys, so thanks again.
I will be back on the mic very, very soon.
And until then, be nice, don't kill people.
All right, bye guys.