What Happened to the Photos Uploaded to Facebook but Werent Posted

Every solar day millions of people post pictures on social media, but friends of Derek Medina couldn't believe their optics when they saw his latest Facebook post. Was that really a flick of his dead wife?

Crime Sentinel Daily has the story behind the story that made headlines effectually the globe.

Jennifer Alfonso was everybody'due south friend.

"Jennifer was very kind and caring, her heart was but and then pure," said Daysi Fernandez, Jennifer Alfonso'south best friend. "It immune people to be vulnerable and open with her, because she was such a good person."

Jennifer, a unmarried mom of a young daughter, met Derek Medina while waiting tables at Denny's in Southward Miami.

"Derek Medina was a real Miami graphic symbol, someone who was actually a narcissist, someone who was really self-involved," said David Ovalle, a criminal offence and courts reporter with the Miami Herald.

Derek is someone who fancied himself a jack of all trades.

He was a writer who wrote a serial of self-published e-books with catchy titles like "How I Saved Someone's Life and Marriage and Family Problems Thru Communication," and "If the World Ended Today How Would You lot React to Saving the Globe or Helping the World or Would information technology All be Over for You lot."

In add-on to writing, he was an amateur boxer and also an aspiring actor.

"He was telling everybody that'southward he's an artist, that he's a flick star," said Daysi Fernandez.

But Derek wasn't finding much success in Hollywood. So he tried his luck on a smaller screen, ofttimes posting clips of himself on social media.

Derek was getting attending from Jennifer and they were on the relationship fast-rails. Within the showtime calendar month of dating, they married

One of their common interests was the supernatural.

"Her and Derek used to go run across ghost tours in different cities," said reporter David Ovalle.

Reportedly Derek even put cameras upwards in the house, hoping to grab their ain spirit or two.

"They were sort of interested in things exterior of the mainstream, but they made a really unique pair," said Ovalle.

Unique, and besides volatile; they fought a lot.

"They would merely fight about featherbrained things, and he would break up with her ofttimes, he would throw her things to the side and insult her and then ignore her," said Fernandez. "Jen used to call them 'Mexican stand-offs.' She would give up oftentimes. She loved him."

But dear wouldn't exist plenty. Derek somewhen filed for divorce.

"So Jennifer moved into an apartment and she was doing very well, and and so, he started contacting her over again," said Fernandez.

Whatever he said or did, worked.

"The very side by side mean solar day they were getting married at the courthouse. The very side by side day," said Daysi Fernandez.

So a second ride on the union-go-round. But the relationship was every bit tumultuous every bit ever.

"He was really like ill in the head," said Fernandez. "He would tell her things to make her sad or to scare her."

One time, when he heard another man was hitting on Jennifer at work, a jealous Derek allegedly said:

"'I'g gonna stay at Denny'south with a gun outside and run across if he's gonna [----] with me,'" said Fernandez.

"And we would tell Jennifer, 'Hey, he'due south a little crazy, like, he'southward gonna kill you.' And she would only await at us and laugh."

There was zip funny nigh what was well-nigh to come.

Early on the hot summer morning of August 8, 2013, Jennifer was fuming.

"She had asked Derek to wake her up, and Derek didn't, so she was upset," said David Ovalle.

The argument starts in their chamber.

"She started throwing things at him, just sort of like a typical type of fight that they would have," said Ovalle.

Later that, Jennifer went downstairs, reportedly to brand pancakes for her 10-year-old daughter, who was nonetheless upwardly in her room. The surveillance camera in the house shows Jennifer in the kitchen. Twenty-vii minutes later, Derek appears.

"Eventually Derek follows her down there. They continue going at it, and she actually starts striking him in the chest. And he walks abroad," said Ovalle.

Back upstairs to his bedroom. Moments after Derek comes dorsum downward to the kitchen, and this time he is non empty-handed.

"When Derek comes downstairs he has his gun with him," said Ovalle.

Reportedly Jennifer grabs a knife to defend herself, but she won't have it for long.

"Derek disarms her of the knife and puts the knife dorsum in the drawer," said Ovalle.

Then seconds later, Derek empties his gun, shooting an unarmed Jennifer eight times.

"In total view of the photographic camera, you lot just encounter this swirl of gunpowder, and information technology really was a chilling flake of footage," said David Ovalle.

As the blizzard settles, Derek calmly walks away. He puts his gun back in the closet, then tells Jennifer'southward girl to stay in her room.

"No regard to the fact that he just shot her female parent dead and she's lying on the kitchen floor," said Ovalle.

Derek goes dorsum to the kitchen, this fourth dimension, with his phone in paw. Only he'southward not going to call for help.

"When I saw it and so I realized it was existent -- I just can't believe it," said Daysi Fernandez.

Warning: Some of the images yous are well-nigh to meet are disturbing.

The spooky crime is caught on their dwelling house-surveillance video.

"Information technology showed him coming in, arguing with Jennifer, it showed him leaving and then re-engaging, and we know that he's shooting at her," said Miami Herald reporter David Ovalle.

Moments subsequently the video shows Derek looking downward at his phone equally he walks back to the kitchen. He stands there for a minute and so walks away, his phone all the same aflame. Later on one more perverted peek at her, another camera captures him coolly walking out the front door, zipping up his hoodie and locking Jennifer's bullet-riddled torso inside with her x-twelvemonth-quondam daughter.

"I woke up to a whole agglomeration of messages and calls," said Daysi Fernandez, Jennifer's all-time friend.

In i of those text messages, an incredibly disturbing photo: a photo of Jennifer on the flooring of her kitchen, slumped back, bloodied and seemingly dead. Just is she?

"I idea information technology was a joke," said Fernandez. "I thought that Jen was really playing some role in 'Walking Dead' or something. And I'm like 'All correct, whatever, dude, if that makes you happy.'"

But this is not 1 of the occult-loving couple's zombie pranks -- this is dead serious. Within minutes of murdering Jennifer in cold claret, Derek morbidly took a photo of her dead trunk, then posted the gruesome photograph on his Facebook page, and on hers.

"The post with it went something like 'Rest in peace Jennifer,'" said Fernandez.

That wasn't all. Evidently Derek had more to say.

In another Facebook post, he wrote: "Im going to prison or death sentence for killing my wife love you lot guys miss you guys takecare Facebook people y'all will see me in the news my wife was punching me and I am not going to stand anymore with the corruption so I did what I did I hope u empathise me"

Then where is Derek Medina? Reportedly, afterward killing Jennifer, Derek goes to his aunt'due south business firm, then with his begetter, he surrenders at the police department downward the street.

South Miami Police Section surveillance video shows the moment Derek Medina arrives. Cops take him into custody and learn Jennifer's young daughter is all the same at the firm, alone, with her murdered mother correct downstairs. Cops rush over and bust the door open to go to her.

"They discover Jennifer's body and then they go upstairs and they discover the daughter and they put like a sheet over her head so that she wouldn't run across her mom's trunk as she walked past the kitchen," said Ovalle.

With Jennifer's girl safely out of the house, the focus turns dorsum to Derek Medina.

"I'm that killer," Derek tells detectives during a recorded interrogation. "I exercise not experience that I'1000 guilty. This was self-defense."

Derek says Jennifer started the fight, yelling at him for non waking her up, and began throwing objects toward him "as a weapon."

"Towels, mascara, creams. I got hit in the confront a few times," Derek says in the interrogation room. Asked if he sustained any injuries at that signal, he said no.

Surveillance video in the house shows Jennifer alone in the kitchen. Derek follows and they start fighting again. He tells detectives he went back upstairs and obtained his firearm later he was being punched; then he went downstairs, he says, and confronted her. He says she had a pocketknife in her hand. He says he had the firearm in his own mitt.

Derek tells cops he got the knife away from Jennifer and put it back in the drawer. When asked past the detective, he says she was not armed with any other weapon.

"She only started firing punches like crazy, and wouldn't cease again. Only she was really similar, really attacking me. Like I was getting out of the way, got striking in the arm and she was like going for my temple," Derek says in the interrogation. "I felt like she was trying to just accept me out."

So subsequently she striking him in the kitchen?

"I fired," Derek says. "I fired away, I shot her. From the neck to the stomach."

Does he know how many times he really hit Jennifer Alfonso?

"Vi to 8 times. Everything that was in there hit her, everything that was -- the full round," Derek says.

When he shot his wife, did she say annihilation?

"No, she just kept on trying to attack me. She was in shock, she had an expression, like she was shot only she was nonetheless trying to swing at me, trying to lunge at me," Derek says in the interrogation.

What did you do with the gun afterward you lot shot her?

"I put it upstairs in the closet over again," Derek says. "Then I talked to my stepdaughter, I told her to keep this door closed, don't come downstairs. Then I went downstairs, I took the flick, and then I merely locked the door."

What did he take a picture of?

"Of her," Derek says.

Was she deceased at that signal?

"Yes."

Why did he take a photo?

"So the family would know and be notified and they can blitz over there and go my stepdaughter," Derek tells detectives.

What did he do one time he took that photo?

"Uploaded it on Facebook," says Derek.

Detectives ask him about injuries from the fight. He describes bruising and severe pain. He says he was concerned near a life-threatening blow to the temple from his wife. A boxer with a 25-0 record, someone who prides himself on existence a tough guy, feels his life is being threatened by a petite unarmed woman. Cops seem skeptical.

Why didn't he phone call 911 from the residence?

"Considering I figured that I had to solve information technology on my own," Derek tells detectives.

And with that, Derek Medina is arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

But is everything as it seems?

"If you lot look at that video and if you sentry what happened, the aggressor attempts to lure the other person to keep facilitating the fight, that'southward what Jennifer Alfonso did here," said Saam Zangeneh, Derek'south atomic number 82 defense attorney.

"The murder of Jennifer Alfonso was a huge instance in Miami," said Miami Herald reporter David Ovalle. "We've had a lot of bizarre murders in Miami, but this one really was in a different league just because of the fact that Derek put Jennifer's body on Facebook actually said something unreal about the digital age."

A picayune more than two years later, Derek Medina goes on trial.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the show will show that he emptied the clip, eight shots at Jennifer, causing 21 entry and exit wounds," the prosecutor said in opening statements. "And what did he exercise and then? He did what people do when they win -- he told people about it. He took a picture of her and he posted it on Facebook."

Calling many witnesses over several days, the prosecution lays out its instance, asserting that Derek walked away from the fight not to get out, but to get his .380-caliber gun

The defence alleges Jennifer withal had a pocketknife in her hand when Derek shot her.

"Derek'south defense for the trial was he acted in cocky-defense force, and that he was a victim of spousal corruption," said Saam Zangeneh, Derek'southward lead defence force chaser.

Zangeneh shows surveillance video from the morning of the murder, claiming that while Jennifer was alone downstairs, she went to the front door, opened and closed it, setting off the sensor to bait Derek to get him downstairs then he would re-engage in their argument.

The defence force also plays video of another altercation between Derek and Jennifer, suggesting she'd been the aggressor at to the lowest degree 1 time before.

Those images of Jennifer can't compare to what jurors are about see next: A videotaped interview with her ten-twelvemonth-old daughter, the but other person in the house that fateful morn. She described hearing the fight from her bedroom, and then describes the moment cops led her out of the house right past her mother'south body. She says the only person in her family that she fears is Derek Medina, because he's "mean to my mom."

Later on more than than two weeks of testimony, endmost arguments begin.

After six hours of deliberations, the jury finds Medina guilty of 2d-degree murder.

Almost three months later, Derek Medina, who did not accept the stand in his own defense, chooses to speak at his sentencing.

"I will be suing this globe. I did not go a fair trial and I volition be taking action, I will be suing. Nothing further. Oh, and God knows the truth, and nothing further," Derek Medina says during sentencing.

Medina is sentenced to life in prison. He is appealing his confidence.

"In that location was a substantial amount of prove that nosotros weren't able to introduce," said Saam Zangeneh. "Nosotros had photographs in her telephone with regards to satanic rituals. At that place'southward a lot of things that we had that we wanted to introduce but the court limited our ability to educate the jury with regards to that."

"I think Derek wanted to evidence the world what he had washed, to finally get that attention that he had been craving for years," said David Ovalle.

Barring any success with his entreatment, Derek Medina must serve a minimum of 25 years before he is eligible for parole.

UPDATE November 29, 2018:

An appellate courtroom has upheld the murder conviction and life sentence of a Miami man who shot his wife and posted a photo of her corpse on Facebook, WPLG reports.

The Tertiary District Court of Appeal in Miami rejected claims past Derek Medina that his defense squad should have been permitted to put on evidence that he was a battered spouse and that his wife had been aggressive because she was taking pills.

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Source: https://truecrimedaily.com/2017/05/04/florida-man-kills-wife-in-kitchen-posts-photo-to-facebook-so-the-family-would-know/

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