John Jefferson
Left: Jerry Dorisme. Center: Rose Dieujuste. Right: suspect walking along on the sidewalk on July 4 (Orange County Sheriff’s Office).
A convicted child abuser in Orlando, Florida, now faces an indictment that could put him in prison for the rest of his days or worse following the death of a 13-year-old girl whom authorities said was found stabbed and partially naked in a utility closet at her apartment complex on July 4.
Prosecutors in the Ninth Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office said that 28-year-old Jerry Dorisme has been indicted for first-degree murder, kidnapping, sexual battery and attempted sexual battery after he allegedly bought a 12-inch knife at a store, followed Rose Dieujuste at a distance, attacked her, and left her fatally stabbed inside a “little room.”
Florida laws note that it is a capital felony to commit first-degree murder in the course of either sexual battery or kidnapping and that the punishment upon conviction is life without parole or a death sentence.
When the Orange County Sheriff’s Office was still looking for Dorisme, authorities released surveillance video of a “heavy-set” man leaving the building where Rose was found at the Palmetto at Lakeside apartments. It took a week before he was arrested.
Investigators believe Dieujuste was on her way to visit a friend at another building at the complex when she was attacked.
Rose Dieujuste walks before she’s stabbed to death (WOFL).
Rose’s friend found her cell phone and shoes in a staircase in the apartment complex. She reached out to the teenager’s family. One of Rose’s relatives knocked on doors to find her until discovering her in a utility closet, stabbed and partially naked. Deputies were called to the scene. Barely alive, the 13-year-old remained unresponsive despite efforts to perform CPR and first aid. Rose succumbed to her injuries at the hospital.
At a hearing later in July, Dorisme’s defense lawyer attempted to make the case that a store’s video was too grainy to know for sure if it showed his client bought a knife, but prosecutors countered by saying the defendant’s own father had called the sheriff’s office to identify his son based on the footage circulated publicly, local Fox affiliate WOFL reported. Investigators have also said that they found packaging of a 12-inch knife in the utility closet.
The defense has otherwise argued that Dorisme is not competent to stand trial.
The defendant, from Haiti and undocumented in the United States, the sheriff said, previously pleaded no contest in a child abuse case in 2021 and was ultimately sentenced to serve a year behind bars, as lewd or lascivious molestation charges in the abuse of a “runaway” teen girl were dropped. But he had also been arrested as recently as June in a battery of law enforcement case involving a mental health hold.
On June 18, authorities received a call about a man walking down the street with a knife near a day care “rambling about being chased by a female named ‘Cat”” and “rambling about not wanting to talk to the Russians,” WESH reported.
Though deputies managed to get Dorisme to drop the knife, the man reported to be homeless and known for watching girls in the neighborhood allegedly punched three deputies and was thereafter subjected to the state’s Baker Act mental health law, the sheriff said.
Prosecutors, however, reportedly did not file a criminal case until the ensuing stabbing murder.
A GoFundMe started by Rose’s sister said the victim was “found with obvious signs of trauma” in a “little room,” that she had been raped, and that a stab wound left a “big hole” in her chest.
“I don’t know how to start or where to begin, or how to get through typing this,” the sister began the post.
Dorisme remains in custody at the Orange County Jail after a judge with the state’s no bond request.
Alberto Luperon contributed to this report.
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