The money attached to this case became a second headline. On June 27, 2026, Justice of the Peace Precinct 1 Jesse James Trevino set bond at five million dollars for each of the three women charged in Caroline Peña’s death, a combined fifteen million. All three asked for court-appointed lawyers. The figure told the public that a local judge viewed the allegations as extremely serious. It also guaranteed that none of the defendants would leave jail quickly. The next legal turn belonged to Kitty Mia Diaz alone. Her appointed San Antonio attorney, Natasha A. Torres, filed an application arguing that five million dollars was excessive, oppressive, and beyond her client’s means. Kitty, the filing said, had been in custody since late June, was pending indictment, owned no property that could secure such a sum, and could not buy her way out of pretrial detention. Sixty-third Judicial District Judge Roland Andrade set a hearing for July 22 at the Val Verde County Judicial Center.

Security that afternoon was heavy: sheriff’s deputies, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, court bailiffs, and prosecutors’ investigators. Peña’s father and grandmother sat with victims’ ᴀssistance coordinator Debbie Garcia. District Attorney Suzanne West appeared with First ᴀssistant Daniel Esquivel. Kitty entered in an orange jail uniform, handcuffed and shackled, and sat beside Torres, who was joined by her father, Eagle Pᴀss attorney Gregory Torres. Detective Castro, called by the defense, still gave the state useful lines. He said Kitty was involved, that she absolutely took part in the ᴀssault, that she drove to the scene, and that video showed her striking Peña. He said she did not stab the victim and did not summon help.

Israel Diaz, Kitty’s father and also the father of co-defendant Amaya Cookie Diaz, testified that the family might raise ten to fifteen thousand dollars each and that Kitty would live with him and help care for her three-year-old son if released. Asked whether his daughter was violent, he said no. West confronted him with a prior school-era ᴀssault in which Kitty was accused of punching and kicking another girl. He said he knew about the incident but not the kicking. Torres asked the court to drop the bonds to fifty thousand dollars on each count. West answered that Kitty had shown a propensity for violence, that the stabbing happened in the middle of the day on a busy street, and that a conviction could bring a sentence of five to ninety-nine years. Andrade did not grant the defense request.

He noted that Kitty was unemployed, had no employment history, owned no property, had a prior ᴀssault, and faced a long possible prison term. He reset the bonds at one million dollars for murder and one million dollars for tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony added after investigators said the women had changed out of the clothes seen on video and showered. Release conditions, if she ever posted the new total, would include home confinement, an ankle monitor, drug and alcohol testing, and no contact with co-defendants or Peña’s family. She did not post it. After the ruling she lifted a hand slightly toward her father and was taken back to custody. Torres told the local paper the outcome was fair under the law and asked the community to respect everyone’s privacy. Cookie Diaz and Faz remained, in the last detailed reports available, on the original five-million-dollar murder bonds. By late summer and into September 2026, major new hearings had not surfaced in the same local coverage that tracks courthouse business in Val Verde County. The case still sat in the long stretch between arrest and a possible indictment, a phase in which viral fame does not speed a docket and a reduced bond is not the same thing as freedom.