Community Struggles With Davie Dad's Apparent Murder-Suicide
DAVIE (CBSMiami) – Family, friends and neighbors of a man who killed his 6-year-old daughter and took his own life are struggling to make sense of the tragedy.
"I would never expect this of him," said Paul Andrade's stepfather, Jack Morado. "I don't have no more answers, I don't know what to say."
The bodies of Paul Andrade, 30, and his 6-year-old daughter were found in a minivan outside the Davie apartment where Andrade's ex-wife lived early Thursday morning.
The body of the family dog was also discovered in the van. Investigators said the deaths were the result of a murder-suicide.
Andrade left a suicide note, said Davie Police Capt. Dale Engle, although he declined to divulge what it said or where it was found.
"He was happy, he was fine. As a matter of fact, they went to a concert, him and the daughter, and like I said, he was happy," said Morado.
Morado also said there is a video along with the suicide note.
The bodies were found in the van by two kids walking to school. The kids saw an aluminum hose running from the exhaust pipe of a silver and blue minivan into a window.
"I believe that they alerted a neighbor, an adult," said Capt. Engle. "That adult came outside, removed the child from the van and attempted to resuscitate the child and was unable to."
Leila Lacharite, a nurse's aide, was walking her dog when she saw the mother crying after the bodies were discovered. She came to try to help the girl out.
"I've been trained to do this but never had to deal with it on a real-life experience, real-life situation until today," said Leila. "I ran to the child; at that time I began to administer CPR, took her pulse, I had no pulse, tried one more time, still nothing."
Despite Lacharite's best efforts, it was too late as the little girl was already dead.
The distraught mother, Vicky Paredes, was taken to a local hospital and remained under sedation Thursday evening.
Engle said Andrade and Paredes divorced about a year ago and that he appeared to be distraught over their failed marriage.
"The father was upset that the mother recently remarried,'' Engle said.
Andrade had regular visits, including one on Wednesday night.
Sometime before Thursday morning, Andrade drove to Paredes' home on the 3700 block of Northwest 74th Avenue in Davie with his daughter and dog. He parked outside her corner apartment unit.
"He inserted the pipe in the rear window of the van, attached the other end to the exhaust, and killed himself, his daughter and his dog,'' Engle said.
"I feel really bad for the mother," Leila said. "I have a child. I couldn't imagine something like that happening to my child."
Leila said she can't help think about what the young girl may have been thinking when she got in the van with her father for the last time.
"She probably saw her daddy, her papa and said she loves him," Leila said in tears. "That's her dad and he said come with me and she trustingly went with him. She didn't have a choice. I'm really...that bothers me."
"Something must have ticked him off or he seen something really made him seem that there was no other way out," Morado said.
Andrade and his daughter appear to have died of carbon monoxide poisoning, although the official cause of death is under investigation by the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office.
Morado said he does plan to take the son's body back to his home state of New Jersey.
