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Neighbors Stunned By Miami Family Murder-Suicide

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The Associated Press

Published: February 26, 2009

MIAMI - Pablo Josue Amador and his family brought music and joy to their neighborhood and their church.

Music spilled from the family's home into their South Kendall neighborhood in Miami. Every Sunday for at least five years the Amador family, though usually not the father, performed at nearby Perrine-Peters United Methodist Church. That Amador could destroy his family still seemed unthinkable to his neighbors and his minister Thursday, one day after police say he did just that.

"It's almost like going to a carnival and people put on a mask," neighbor Van Johnson said. "That's what that story reminds you of."

Police say Amador, a 53-year-old Cuban-born music teacher, shot his family to death early Wednesday: his wife, Maria, 45, and daughters Priscila, 14, Rosa, 13. Police say the father then killed himself and that his son Javier, 16, called 911 as he escaped the home. The family's oldest daughter, Beula, 20, was elsewhere.

Miami-Dade Police released no additional details Thursday about the weapon used, the number of shots fired or the 911 call. Detectives said the investigation is ongoing.

The Amadors were a close family, the Rev. Brian Carr and neighbors said. Flowers dyed blue and purple lay next to stuffed teddy bears on the lawn of a home usually filled with laughter and piano music.

Neighbors are shocked. How could a man they thought had such a happy life do such a horrible thing?

"Whatever it was, it was a very well-kept secret," neighbor Soraya Peer said. "If he snapped, what made a person like that?"

Sometimes melodies from Amador's two pianos were the loudest sounds on the quiet street, Johnson said. She'd never heard fighting from the family, who had moved in six years ago. The kids splashed in the pool. The father tended to his garden. Sometimes he held recitals and 30 cars crowded on the grass. The teenagers helped him mow the lawn. The curtains were usually left open.

But Johnson said a light was on before 6 a.m. Wednesday and the curtains were closed. She said it was early for the Amadors to be up.

She didn't hear any gunshots or screaming. Police brought Javier, the teenage son who escaped injury, to Johnson's house to change his clothes. That's the first time she'd seen any of the Amadors up close because everyone on the block mostly kept to themselves.

"How you'd want to live, they lived it," said Johnson, a nurse. "Like a Brady Bunch-y, happy, you know, singing, Christmas caroling."

Peer didn't hear anything unusual from the house Wednesday — or ever — she said.

There was nothing about the family, or the father, that indicated the man who brought her homegrown cucumbers and plantains would kill his family. Peer called him "a neighbor you would love to have."

"All the noise I ever heard was happy noise," Peer said. "I heard them laughing Sunday. I stopped and said, 'Oh, that's nice.'"

She lamented most for the boy.

"How difficult for him," Peer said. "To pick up what pieces? How does he move on?"

At the family's church, Carr said the 200 regular attendees would deeply mourn the musical family.
Amador, a pianist, fostered the musical talents of his children. He seldom joined the family for Sunday services but led church recitals at other times.

The youngest sisters, Rosa and Priscila, guided Sunday worshippers through song lyrics on Power Point slides. On Wednesdays, they joined in the youth group and were always smiling and seemed happy, Carr said.

Beula, a University of Miami student, played contemporary piano tunes. Javier joined his sister once a month. Maria, the children's mother, sang. She was the education director at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.

"She was wonderful," Carr said. "She was a fine woman, one of the finest. Very loving, sweet, extremely bright, very gifted."

Carr said he met Wednesday with Beula and Javier to comfort the "numb" siblings. An account for them has been started at the University of Miami.

"They're surviving," Carr said.

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