Del Rio officers who responded on the afternoon of June 25 2026 have described the arrest of Amaya “Cookie” Diaz and her sister Kitty as unlike almost any other they can remember. The 19-year-old and her 21-year-old sister were taken into custody roughly two hours after 32-year-old Caroline Peña was stabbed multiple times in broad daylight. Video recorded outside their residence shows Cookie smiling as handcuffs are placed on her and Kitty grinning, sticking her tongue out, and at one point yelling “Stop recording” while giggling. A third suspect, Kyandra Renee Faz, was arrested shortly afterward.

All three were charged with first-degree murder and later ordered held on $5 million bonds each. Court documents identify Cookie as the individual who delivered the stab wounds. Surveillance from the scene near the Sonic on East 10th Street captured the confrontation and the moment blood became visible on Peña’s clothing. Peña was driven to the local hospital by a relative and airlifted to San Antonio, where she died later that evening. Police Chief Frank Ramirez has confirmed the women were not strangers to the victim and that the violence followed an argument. The complete lack of visible distress in the arrest video has become the element that keeps the case alive in public conversation. Investigators have released few details about motive beyond the fact that the attack was not random, leaving the smiling faces in the footage to stand as the most unsettling image of the entire investigation.

Christina Salinas still hears the phone ring in her memory. On the morning of June 25 2026 her closest friend Caroline “Caro” Peña dialed her the way she did every single day. Salinas did not answer. Hours later she saw a pH๏τograph circulating on a local community page of a woman in a blood-soaked pink shirt and realized it was Caro. Peña, 32, a mother of five, had been stabbed multiple times in broad daylight on East 10th Street in Del Rio. She was taken first to the local hospital and then flown to San Antonio, where she died around 9 p.m. the same day. Three women—Amaya “Cookie” Diaz, 19, her sister Kitty Mia Diaz, 21, and their friend Kyandra Renee Faz, 21—were arrested that afternoon and charged with murder. Court records name Cookie as the person who used the knife. Police have stated the women knew Peña and that an argument preceded the attack.

Salinas has spoken publicly about the crushing weight of that unanswered call, saying she believes she could have been there and that the “what if” will never leave her. Friends describe Peña as the kind of person who would give away her last of anything if someone needed it. The combination of the missed call, the rapid escalation of violence on a busy street, and the later arrest footage of the suspects smiling has left many who followed the story carrying the same unsettled feeling. Salinas’s words have become one of the most emotionally charged parts of the case because they capture a private regret that feels painfully public.

Source: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/texas-mother-stabbed-daylight-suspects-smiling-1805799