A Miami-Dade plea deal closed the 2023 case after an emotional hearing filled with grief from friends and family of 21-year-old Eric Contreras.
MIAMI — David Contreras, a 54-year-old Miami-Dade man, pleaded guilty Monday to manslaughter and was sentenced to 12 years in prison for fatally shooting his 21-year-old son, Eric, in Kendall in 2023 after the family returned from a trip to Walt Disney World.
The plea ended a second-degree murder case that had been pending for more than two years and brought a trial to a close before it began. It also turned the focus back to a shooting that drew attention in South Florida because of the family relationship, the father’s own 911 call and the deep split between the defense account and prosecutors’ view of what happened. In court, Judge David Young sharply rejected Contreras’ attempt to frame himself as the main person left to suffer, while Eric Contreras’ friends and girlfriend described a young man whose death still hangs over their lives.
The shooting happened on Nov. 3, 2023, at the family home near Southwest 84th Avenue and 107th Street in Kendall, according to court-stage reporting and police accounts cited in local coverage. David Contreras called 911 after the gunfire and told a dispatcher that he had shot his son. In recordings described in news reports, he said, “I lost it on him,” after an argument at home. Other reporting said the family had just returned from a trip to Disney World in Orlando and that tension had built during the ride back. Doorbell audio later aired by local television captured Contreras telling his wife about the shooting moments after it happened. When deputies arrived, they found Eric Contreras wounded at the house. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities arrested David Contreras that day, and jail records show he was booked the next day on a charge of second-degree murder with a deadly weapon.
Monday’s hearing rewrote the legal path of the case. Contreras gave up his right to a trial and changed his plea to guilty on a first-degree felony manslaughter charge with a deadly weapon, according to Local 10. The sentence called for 12 years in state prison followed by 10 years of probation. When Contreras addressed the court, he said he was sorry and added that he was “the one who has to live with it.” Young cut in and rejected that framing. The judge said Contreras’ wife, his other son and future grandchildren also had to live with the loss, then called the situation horrible. Defense lawyer Frank Quintero later told reporters that no father intentionally wants to kill his child and said his client would carry the consequences for life. Still, the hearing made clear that the courtroom’s center of gravity had shifted to Eric Contreras and the people who said his absence has shaped every part of the last two years.
Eric Contreras was 21 when he died and was identified in local reports as a Florida International University student. Friends and fraternity brothers remembered him publicly after the killing as a warm, social young man who made people laugh and drew people in. That picture came through again at sentencing. His girlfriend told the court she believed she had found the love that people search for over a lifetime. Friends said he opened his arms during hard times, lit up rooms and had the kind of personality people gravitated toward. One family friend, Gus Alfonso, said outside court that there was “no real justice” in a case like this because a prison term could not restore a life cut short. Another family friend, Cristina Alfonso, described what happened as unfair. Their remarks gave the hearing a wider purpose than the plea itself: it became a public record of who Eric was, not only of how he died.
The case also carried a long-running dispute over what led to the shooting. Defense accounts aired in local reporting said David Contreras had endured years of abuse from his son and acted in self-defense. Prosecutors did not accept that argument. By the time of sentencing, the state agreed to a manslaughter plea rather than take the second-degree murder charge to trial, but the public record still left major facts unsettled. Authorities have not publicly laid out a full minute-by-minute account of the argument inside the home, and reporting available after the plea did not resolve basic questions such as what started the final confrontation or exactly how the gun was used in the seconds before the shooting. What is clear is that the case moved through several phases before it ended. A bond court judge initially denied bail. In April 2024, another judge allowed Contreras to await trial outside jail under strict conditions, a decision that angered some of Eric Contreras’ friends and added to the strain already visible between the victim’s social circle and parts of his family.
That tension surfaced again Monday in a packed courtroom. NBC6 reported that dozens of people attended, including friends who said they were disappointed that members of Eric Contreras’ family had supported the father during the case. Some witnesses said they felt shut out even from mourning, testifying that they had been denied a fair chance to grieve and were not included in funeral arrangements. Others spoke directly to David Contreras. One friend said Eric had been a spontaneous and loving young man who simply wanted to enjoy life. Another told the court he forgave Contreras and urged him to repent. The statements showed how a domestic homicide can keep widening after the crime itself, touching classmates, friends, romantic partners and relatives in different and often conflicting ways. Even outside the courthouse, the language people used was less about punishment than loss. They spoke of futures that had been broken: marriage, children, aging parents and years of ordinary family life that will not happen now.
Legally, the plea closed off the biggest remaining step in the case: a murder trial that could have forced jurors to weigh the father’s self-defense claim against prosecutors’ version of events. Instead, the guilty plea resolved the case on March 30, 2026. WSVN reported that the probation term includes no early termination, and Local 10 reported that Young later closed the case after imposing sentence. No additional hearings were announced at the close of the proceeding. That means the next developments, if any, are likely to come through the prison system or through post-sentencing court filings rather than new testimony in open court. For the public, the record now ends in a courtroom where the final legal question was answered but the emotional one was not. Friends left with memories of Eric Contreras. David Contreras left facing a prison term. The family left with a case that is over on paper and unfinished in every other way.
As of Tuesday, the criminal case had ended with the guilty plea and sentence, and no further court dates had been publicly listed. The next public milestone would likely be any appeal or post-sentencing filing, but none had been announced.
Author note: Last updated April 1, 2026.