'Facebook Killer' Husband Who Posted Photo of Slain Wife on Social Media Sentenced to Life in Prison
A 33-year-old Florida man has been sentenced to life behind bars in the 2013 shooting death of his wife.
Derek Medina was convicted in November of killing his wife. He was nicknamed the "Facebook Killer" by Miami media outlets after he posted a picture of his slain wife Jennifer Alfonso's corpse on the social network.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Yvonne Colodny imposed the maximum possible sentence on Medina. In a recorded statement to police, Medina claimed that he shot his wife during an altercation in which she threatened him with a knife. He admitted to taking a photo of his wife and posting the picture on Facebook.
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During sentencing, Judge Colodny had harsh words for Medina. "You foretold your future," she told him. "You wrote on Facebook that 'I am going to prison.' And that is where you will be going."
Medina will be eligible for parole after serving 25 years.
During trial, prosecutors claimed that Medina had vowed to kill Alfonso if she ever tried to leave him.
At sentencing, Medina made a rambling statement that urged President Barack Obama to fight corruption. He vowed to fight his conviction through appeals.
"I didn't get a fair trial," he said in court. "God knows the truth, and nothing further."
Prosecutors did not return PEOPLE's calls for comment. In a previous statement, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle told PEOPLE that "no family should ever have to see their daughter killed and then exhibited worldwide on the internet like some macabre trophy to a husband's anger as was Jennifer Alfonso."
