A Florida man who stabbed his girlfriend dead before shooting himself as their infant daughter cried in a nearby crib recently learned she’d been unfaithful, close friends of the tragic couple told The Post.
Beloved teacher Amanda Hicks, 26, was murdered by Carlos Diaz, 25, in the Port St. Lucie apartment they had moved into with their 11-month-old daughter, Alani, just three weeks earlier.
Diaz, then turned a gun on himself on May 26. Sources told The Post how Hicks had also recently aborted a pregnancy after his family became suspicious of who the father was.
“She said they were working through it,” a lifelong friend of Hicks told The Post. “But I think that was an issue among others and he just went into a rage. A blind rage.”
Hicks, also an aspiring bikini model, met Diaz roughly three years ago while both worked in a Port St. Lucie school, and they quickly fell for each other.
“They were in love,” a source said. “Amanda had been in some bad relationships with really controlling boyfriends. But she was so happy with Carlos. They were both really passionate about teaching and kids, they bonded over that.”
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Hicks, who never knew her father, lost her mother after a protracted battle with cancer several years ago. Shortly after their relationship started, she moved in with Diaz and his parents in a small apartment.
While heated arguments — often fueled by alcohol — would flare between the two, Hicks’ friends felt she had finally settled on a worthy partner.
“He was the best boyfriend she’d had,” a confidante said. “He treated her very well in public, he was gentle with her. But he had a temper, that was sort of there in the background.”
Prior to their union, both Hicks and Diaz had checkered histories with drugs, alcohol and minor scrapes with the law. Diaz had an assault case stemming from an incident at a bar in 2020. Hicks was twice charged with driving under the influence in 2019 and 2021 and at one point was ordered to wear an ankle monitor.
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The arrival of brown-eyed Alani helped further bond the pair. Diaz had cleaned up some of his past drug issues and had successfully focused on school, where he was preparing to become a full-time educator, for the past year according to sources.
Several months, ago, Diaz learned Hicks had been unfaithful, multiple sources said. She had dismissed the incident as trivial, but her boyfriend was furious. Friends noted how Hicks deleted her social media pages at the time.
Sources said Hicks had become pregnant — and while she insisted the child belonged to Diaz, his family was suspicious. She later had an abortion.
“We knew he had a history of being aggressive,” a source said. “So we were worried. But she told us they were working through it, that they would be okay.”
But the relationship between Hicks and Diaz’s family continued to deteriorate. A source said Hicks would drink to excess, inflaming tensions inside the crowded apartment.
Hoping to afford their young family some more space as they attempted to mend their relationship, Hicks, Diaz and Alani moved to the Port St. Lucie apartment.
Neighbors told The Post the couple seemed calm and friendly, often doting over their child. Hicks set to work decorating a small outdoor space with decorative rocks, flowers, and a small vegetable garden.
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“She worked really hard on it,” a nearby resident who had 45-minute chat with Hicks just days before the carnage. “She took pride in it.”
Hicks casually conversed about her role as a reading teacher, telling neighbors that she found it challenging to motivate students, but was still deeply committed to their education.
Others said there were no overt signs of strife between the new arrivals, although they would sometimes alternate between chatty and oddly reserved from day to day.
But while outward appearances seemed tranquil, Diaz, a source said, was devising a way out.
“He wanted full custody of the baby and was trying to sort out how to do that,” the source said. “She didn’t know, but he was going to separate from her.”
At roughly 11:50 pm May 26, Diaz repeatedly called a family member who did not pick up the call or failed to hear it, police said.
Roughly an hour later, a neighbor reported hearing piercing screams as a thunderstorm raged outside. “We figured it was just a fight, you get a lot of that around here,” one nearby resident told The Post.
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At 12:47, another resident’s Ring camera system captured the crack of what sounded like a gunshot.
“There was so much rain and thunder that night,” said a resident who spoke to that neighbor. “He didn’t call police, he said he wasn’t sure what it was.”
Concerned that Diaz was not answering his phone the following morning, a relative had police conduct a welfare check.
Cops eventually kicked down their locked front door after hearing Alani’s faint cries from inside the apartment.
There, they found Hicks stabbed to death and Diaz several feet away, deceased from a gunshot blast.
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The wailing baby was still in her crib just a few feet away from her parents. She has since been placed with Diaz’s parents.
“We are all still processing,” a friend of Hicks said. “We’re in shock, we can’t believe that he would do this. That beautiful baby was the spitting image of both of them. It’s just tragic.”
A picture of a smiling Alani dangled Thursday from the rearview mirror of a car parked outside the Diaz family apartment in Stuart.
A man at the home declined to comment.
