Derek Medina and Jennifer Alfonso first married in January of
2010 after having dated for only a few months. They divorced in February 2012
and then remarried three months later. Friends describe their marriage as “stormy”
and say that Derek kicked Jennifer out frequently but that the two would always
get back together again.
Shortly after his words, Derek Medina posted a picture of
his wife on Facebook showing her twisted, bloodied body lying on a linoleum
floor. The Facebook photo shows Jennifer Alfonso wearing black and pink
socks, on her knees, twisted backward in a bloody heap.
Derek Medina’s post stayed on Facebook for five hours before
Facebook removed it.
On his public Facebook account, Derek Medina had 164 friends
and his post about Jennifer Alfonso’s killing was shared by more than 100
people on the networking site before Facebook shut down the account.
According to a Facebook spokesperson, Derek Medina’s post
and photo “was removed via our own processes. The content was reported to us,
and then we took action on the profile — removing the content and disabling the
profile, and we reached out to law enforcement. We take action on all content
that violates our terms, which are clearly laid out on our site.”
According to a Miami Herald report,“Medina walked into the South Miami police station around noon Thursday, then spent the evening speaking with homicide detectives about what led up to the shooting death of his wife, Jennifer Alfonso, 26. Investigators, armed with a search warrant, began documenting the crime scene inside the couple’s townhouse at 5555 SW 67th Ave., then charged Medina with first-degree murder late Thursday. … Alfonso’s 10-year-old daughter from a previous relationship was upstairs at the time of the killing, but was unharmed. Officers quickly escorted her out of the home, with a blanket wrapped around her, after finding Alfonso’s body.”
Derek Medina once played a small role in the television
series “Burn Notice.” On YouTube, the 31-year-old South Miami man posted scores
of videos of himself enjoying sports. Derek Medina is also the author of six
online books, “with long-winded titles about spirituality, saving the world and
hunting ghosts. Medina snapped photos of his arm tattoos, meals, boating trips
and drinks poolside with his wife.”
Derek Medina’s father, Derek Medina Sr., told reporters that
his son killed Alfonso only after she brandished a knife (even though in his
Facebook page he wrote that she was punching him).
According to Derek Medina’s arrest report, Derek Medina admitted
to investigators he got into an argument with Jennifer Alfonso and that he went
upstairs, fished his pistol from a closet and pointed it at Alfonso. When
Jennifer yelled at Derek that she was leaving him, Derek followed her
downstairs to the kitchen where she grabbed a knife. Derek disarmed Jennifer,
put the knife in the drawer, and after she began punching and kicking him, he
shot her several times.
Derek Medina is expected to claim self-defense.
However, Jennifer Alfonso’s former boss at a West Miami-Dade
Denny’s told the Miami Herald that Jennifer Alfonso's husband was extremely jealous, that
Derek had hit Jennifer in the past, that “she would be bruised up,” and that
Derek was “a controlling husband who tried to force her to quit her job as a
server because he didn’t want her working nights.”
One of Jennifer’s co-workers said that “the two fought often
because Medina, most recently a property manager at a posh Coral Gables condo
building, could not hold a job for more than a few month. … He wouldn’t even
let her talk on the phone. He always waited for her outside. One time, he went
storming in, looking for her, telling her to get outside.”
Another co-worker who witnessed the violent episodes between
Derek Medina and Jennifer Alfonso implored her to leave him.
