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Teacher who was stomped by hulking teen reveals disturbing new details about brutal incident

January 19, 2024 | | Print Article

A Florida high school teacher who was beaten to a pulp by an autistic student says he did more than just assault her.

As previously reported, Matanzas High School teacher Joan Naydich was brutally assaulted last February by 17-year-old Brendan Depa.

Standing at 6-foot 7-inches and weighing 270 pounds, Depa attacked Naydich over a dispute involving his Nintendo Switch.

The incident, captured on video and viewed globally over 10 million times, left Naydich with severe injuries, including five broken ribs, a concussion, and emotional trauma.

Watch (*Graphic content):

Depa has since pleaded guilty to the assault and faces sentencing later this month. Naydich meanwhile has opened up to the New York Post about what happened.

“Naydich first encountered Depa, an autistic teen, in January of 2022 in a special needs classroom,” according to the Post. “She provided assistance to the primary teacher, ensuring Depa and his classmates made it to their various destinations throughout the day.”

Her perception of Depa was that he was a smart but troubled kid. When upset, for example, he’d insult her and others with terms like “b-tch.” That said, he never got physical — -at least not at first — though he got awfully close.

“He would try to intimidate,” Naydich recalled. “But during that school year, it never got to the point where he became violent. It was just verbal.”

When not behaving like a teen menace, Naydich would excel in his computer class, where he displayed a passion for video games.

“Other than him being outwardly defiant, I didn’t notice that there was anything wrong with him,” Naydich said. “He was a normal kid.”

Albeit a combative one who’d reportedly bristle when confronted about his in-class performance.

“But on other occasions, the towering teen and the diminutive teacher would discuss his college prospects, and a potential future in computers.” the Post notes. “Naydich told him about Bethune-Cookman University, a historically black college in nearby Daytona Beach.”

Then came the day of the assault. The day began with Naydich reportedly waiting at the school for Depa’s group home van to arrive. But Depa wound up arriving late because his bus privileges had been revoked because he’d fought with another student.

“He arrived in a disgruntled state, annoyed that he had to wait for other students assigned to Naydich to arrive before they could go to the cafeteria for breakfast. Depa told her that he hadn’t been given dinner the previous night,” the Post notes.

“He was agitated,” Naydich recalled.

After he ate something, Depa then went to class, at which point Naydich told him he could play with his Nintendo Switch once he completed his classwork.

She later walked him to another class — a computer class — where a substitute teacher complained about him pulling out the Nintendo Switch and distracting other students with it.

“Hoping to avoid the issue in the future, Naydich texted his primary instructor who would teach him next and told her that it would be wise for Depa to not bring the device into the computer class moving forward,” the Post notes.

When they returned to his regular classroom and he discovered what she’d texted to his primary instructor, he was livid.

“That’s when he started calling me names,” Naydich recalled. “B-tch. Wh-re. This and that. I grabbed my backpack and my sweatshirt and I got up to leave the class. The energy changed in there. I just wanted to remove myself from it. I didn’t want to get into it with him.”

Depa then approached her and reportedly spat in her face.

“I can still just feel it,” she said of the spit.

“Naydich then turned to open the door — her final memory before blinking into consciousness in the hospital,” the Post notes.

Afterward, she was transported to a hospital with her son, a senior at the same school. A year later, she’s “saddled with ongoing medical and psychological complications” and “still battling with the school district for adequate worker’s compensation,” the Post notes.

“I was angry,” she said of her post-assault treatment. “It’s not like I faked my injury. It’s on video. They all know what happened to me. This is something of a magnitude, the viciousness, that has never happened in this county. I expected more from my employer, from my county, than to be treated like some person who faked a fall.”

Depa now faces sentencing on Jan. 31st. Naydich says he deserves no mercy. His family predictably disagrees:

Vivek Saxena
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