Insect and Spider Identification: These little critters are killing my desert roses, 4 by TeeShark

TeeShark wrote:
Please help me ID this pest. Sorry for long winded post. Skip to photos if you like or continue reading for more info on how I found these pests.

I have 2 nice desert rose plants. I brought then inside this winter and they went dormant. I watered occasionally, definitely didn\'t over water as I was worried I may have killed them. Sat them outside as temps warmed up but they never started to produce leaves. 1 of them was entirely rotted from the inside out. No hope for it so I tore back some of the dead sections and found these guys all over the inside of the plant. Didn\'t see any critters on the outer part of the plant. The one that\'s left is finally starting to produce leaves. I sprayed them with Ortho 3-1 or 3 in 1. Thought I had certainly fixed the problem. Opened the dead plant some more today and they weren\'t as bad but still inside it and I saturated that guy cause he was already dead.

Many dead areas already on my healthy plant so I\'m assuming I\'m gonna lose it too... :-(

The pest is approx 1/4\" or maybe 1 cm long... he sitting on a Zaxby\'s togo box if it helps any.

Thanks so much for any assistance you can give me to solve this pest problem. I was really excited about seeing these guys bloom this year as I got them late in the season last year.