Piano Teacher Shoots Family, Himself

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I'm starting to get unfortunately desensitized to news of shootings, but this is somewhat different - the person who did it seems to have been a genuinely helpful, social person. To have him and his family end like that is a tragedy. My heart's out to the victims' friends and relatives...

Police: Miami piano teacher kills kids, wife, self

Spoiler

MIAMI – Pablo Amador was a "regular dad" who made music with his children and shared his gift teaching kids to play piano, a man known for a friendly wave and lending a hand to jump-start a car. And those who knew him say they can't understand why he apparently shot and killed his two daughters, wife and then himself.

TV satellite trucks surrounded the gray-trimmed, white ranch home Wednesday as authorities carried out the family, whom police identified as Pablo Josue Amador, 53; his 45-year-old wife, Maria; and their youngest daughters, Prescilla and Rosa, 14 and 13.

A teenage son escaped the shootings uninjured, calling 911 at 5:58 a.m. as he fled the home, police said. Those who saw him regularly along the quiet, modest street of homes could only wonder what happened.

"It confuses me," said 48-year-old Thelma Vallecillo, whose 13-year-old daughter took piano lessons at the house. "I don't understand."

A biography of Amador posted on a Web site advertising his piano classes says he began studying music in Havana and later earned a degree in the U.S. The U.S. Copyright Office lists 36 compositions by him and a set of photographs. The songs he wrote, many in Spanish, included titles such as "Beautiful Boy" and "Rose of Love," as well as numerous religious selections.

Sarait Betancourt, a 44-year-old school bus driver who lives near the family, said Amador was a Cuban immigrant who has been giving her two sons, ages 9 and 10, piano lessons at his home once a week since 2006.

"He was a marvelous person and a tremendous professor," she said. "People would enter the house, and you just breathed peace."

Amador's two slain daughters, his 16-year-old son, and a college-age daughter all excelled at piano and performed together at church and home as Los Galileos, Betancourt said. Amador said on his Web site that he produced 13 CDs of his children performing.

Authorities have not confirmed that there is a fourth sibling, nor said where the son is now.

Gregorio Montesino, who lives nearby, said music could always be heard coming from the house and children often played in its in-ground pool. He said Amador always waved to greet him.

Amador also said on his Web site that he sang tenor with the Greater Miami Opera chorus and was a soloist at Kendall United Methodist Church, though officials at both places weren't able to confirm that information.

Christina Ruiz, a 23-year-old social work student who lives next to the family, described him as a "regular dad" who helped her grandmother jump-start her car several times but who was known to complain when he was bothered by noise or work being done on her house.

Neighbors said Amador also worked at a music store. His wife had nursing degrees and officials at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis confirmed she was the director of education there, teaching about spinal cord injuries and answering calls from patients looking for the right doctor.

 

Kinda strange that he just snapped like that as there doesn't seem to be any known stressors that could have caused it.
It makes you wonder what kind of possible dark secrets the police might uncover.



On a side note, completely irrelevant & offensive - you notice in a lot of shows/books the piano teacher is always either a child molester or serial killer. You just can't trust those fast fingered buggers!!