BOSTON — The Supreme Judicial Court upheld a first-degree murder verdict for a Lawrence man convicted of killing his girlfriend in front of their young son.
Emilio Delarosa, 41, is currently serving life in prison without parole for the Sept. 12, 2016, murder of Wanda Rosa, 29. He was convicted of murdering her in front of their 4-year-old son.
Judge Salim Tabit presided over Delarosa’s 2023 trial in Salem Superior Court.
After a four-day trial, jurors agreed DeLarosa killed Rosa with “extreme atrocity and cruelty.”
Rosa, Delarosa and their son had been sleeping together at their Tudor Street apartment in Methuen.
DeLarosa attacked Rosa, choking and killing her after she got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Delarosa admitted he strangled Rosa, but sought a lesser conviction of voluntary manslaughter committed in the heat of passion or reasonable provocation, according to court documents.
At trial, Salim initially denied Delarosa’s motion for a voluntary manslaughter instruction before the case went to the jury for deliberations. However, Tabit later allowed the motion after Delarosa took the stand in his own defense.
In his appeal, Delarosa’s attorney argued Tabit “erred in initially declining to instruct on the lesser offense, thereby in effect forcing the defendant to testify in order to obtain the instruction.”
But the SJC concluded Tabit “did not err” and following a review of the entire case they declined Delarosa’s request for a new trial or to reduce his conviction to manslaughter, according to the decision released on Tuesday.
Testifying in his own defense at trial, DeLarosa said he “snapped” and choked and strangled Rosa. The next thing he said he remembers was his young son “holding my hand, asking me to stop,” he said.
Tudor Street neighbors testified they heard the boy saying “Daddy, no. Daddy, no. Please Daddy no.”
He left Rosa unresponsive on the floor. DeLarosa testified he stayed with her, but never dialed 911 or tried to get help.
Eventually, he left the Tudor Street apartment, taking his son with him to the Lawrence home where his mother, sister and other relatives lived.
DeLarosa left the boy there and then fled the area. He remained at-large for a year before he was captured by authorities living under another identity in Patterson, California.
Prosecution witnesses included the boy, who was then age 11 and in the fifth-grade. The boy testified that DeLarosa killed his mother.
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