Smiling sisters Cookie and Kitty charged with butchering mom of 5 in vicious broad-daylight attack
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A pair of twisted sisters and their deranged pal viciously hacked a 32-year-old mom of five to death in broad daylight in the middle of a busy Texas street, according to police.
Siblings Kitty Mia Diaz, 21, and Amaya Cookie Diaz, 19, and their 21-year-old friend Kyandra Renee Faz are being held on murder charges while cops try to find a motive for the shocking attack, the Del Rio Police Department said Friday.
The victim, mother of five Caroline “Caro” Peña, was stabbed multiple times in broad daylight and arrived at Val Verde Regional Medical Center just after 2 p.m. local time Thursday.
Due to the severity of her injuries, she was taken to a medical facility in San Antonio for emergency surgery, but died.
Surveillance footage from the crime scene shows a bloodied Peña facing her attackers outside a Sonic drive-through before the violent attack, according to reports.
Cops were called to the medical center and traced the savage attack to an address in Del Rio, a small city of some 35,000 on the Mexican border.
Footage taken outside the sisters’ home showed a barefoot and scantily clad Kitty Diaz grinning as she was led to a waiting police cruiser — wearing tight black shorts and a halter top with a drawing of hands cupping her breasts.
Her younger sister also put on a show, smiling widely for cameras, then sarcastically yelling, “Stop recording!”
Police said Faz was also charged after being questioned.
No motive has yet been given by the police, and Peña’s heartbroken and furious friends and relatives are demanding answers.
“This wasn’t something that happened in a back alley. This happened at the corner near Sonic on one of our busiest roads in broad daylight,” Zelina Ochoa, Peña’s friend, told KENS5.
Ochoa said the pair met when they were both teen mothers attending the Cradles in the Classroom program for young parents.
Peña would watch her son while she caught up on schoolwork, and later gave Ochoa baby clothes, a television, a VHS player and videotapes for her first apartment, she said.
“If you needed something and she had it, even if it was her last, she’d give it to you,” Ochoa said.
Another close friend, Christina Salinas, said the pair had hung out the night before the murder, cooking with Peña’s daughter.
The next day, Salinas said, she missed a call from Pena at 1:35 p.m., just minutes before the deadly confrontation.
“I feel like if I would have answered that call, honestly I would have been there with her. It wouldn’t have gotten like that,” Salinas said.
Salinas later recognized a picture on a community page of a woman in a bloody shirt as her best friend.
“Her hair was in the same bun. When I saw that, that’s all I needed to see was the back of her shirt. I knew it was her right off the bat,” Salinas said.
“That girl, she was a fighter. She was still standing her ground,” she added.
Salinas said she rushed to the hospital when she learned what had happened, and said goodbye to Peña, who was still talking, kissing her before she was flown to San Antonio.
Kitty Diaz and Cookie Diaz were arrested around 4 p.m. Thursday without incident, while Faz was detained a short time later and taken with the other two suspects to the Del Rio Police Department for booking and processing, according to police.
Peña was pronounced dead around 9 p.m. Thursday, and the three suspects were charged with her murder and transported to a correctional facility, where they remained pending magistration as of Friday.