A Lawrence man will spend the rest of his life in prison after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) rejected his appeal of a first-degree murder conviction for strangling his girlfriend in front of their 4-year-old son nearly a decade ago in Methuen.

The SJC issued its ruling Tuesday, July 21, upholding Emilio DeLarosa's conviction and life-without-parole sentence for the Sept. 12, 2016, killing of Wanda Rosa, 29, at her Tudor Street apartment.

DeLarosa, 41, admitted at his 2023 trial that he strangled Rosa. His defense argued he acted in the heat of passion after discovering a letter from another inmate questioning whether he was the father of their son. He sought a lesser conviction of voluntary manslaughter.

The five-justice panel, in an opinion written by Justice Dewar, concluded that Judge Salim Rodriguez Tabit "did not err" in initially denying DeLarosa's request for a manslaughter instruction before the case went to the jury. The court found that a reasonable person would have cooled off by the time of the killing. DeLarosa had discovered the letter while folding laundry, gone to sleep beside Rosa and their son, and only confronted her hours later in the middle of the night.

The trial evidence was harrowing. Tudor Street neighbors testified at the January 2023 trial in Salem Superior Court that they heard the couple's son crying through the apartment wall: "Daddy, no. Daddy, no. Please Daddy no."

DeLarosa's DNA matched samples taken from Rosa's neck, according to the SJC opinion. He left Rosa unresponsive on the floor, never called 911, and drove to his mother and sister's home in Lawrence, where he left the boy before fleeing the area.

He remained at large for approximately one year before authorities captured him living under another identity in Patterson, California. A grand jury indicted him for murder on Dec. 12, 2016.

The trial ran four days between Jan. 26 and Feb. 2, 2023. Prosecution witnesses included the couple's son, then 11 years old and in fifth grade, who testified that DeLarosa killed his mother. The jury convicted DeLarosa of first-degree murder on the theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty. He was also convicted of violating an abuse prevention order Rosa had obtained against him.

The SJC opinion noted a prior history of violence: In May 2012, while an abuse prevention order was in effect, DeLarosa physically attacked Rosa, twisting her neck and suffocating her until she began to lose consciousness. He then drove her and their infant son to New Jersey against her will. He was imprisoned for four years as a result.

On appeal, DeLarosa's attorney Michelle Menken argued that Judge Tabit's initial denial of the manslaughter instruction effectively forced DeLarosa to testify in order to obtain it. The SJC also conducted its mandatory review of the full record and declined to order a new trial or reduce the conviction.

The decision is final within the Massachusetts court system.