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As her dad killed her family upstairs, little girl survived by hiding under blanket

South Florida Sun Sentinel - 10/19/2019

The little girl, one month shy of her fourth birthday, found a spot underneath the kitchen table downstairs and cloaked her thin body with a blanket -- tucked away from the terror unfolding.

Upstairs, in the master bedroom of the large two-story home her family was living in for six months, her father used two pistols to put bullets through the heads of the girl’s 3-year-old twin sister, her mother and her grandmother, police records show.

It was just after 8 p.m. on a clear Sunday night in a gated Pembroke Pines community when it’s likely the girl found her shelter under the blanket.

She remained there as her father, Pablo Colon, 35, paced upstairs on the phone, speaking frantically to a cousin to explain what he’d done. She remained there as police and extended family gathered outside of her door, attempting to contact her father, disrupting a quiet community a stone’s throw from a luscious golf course. She remained there as her father eventually turned a pistol on himself. She remained there for nearly three hours.

She hid so well and stayed so still that when the SWAT team eventually broke through a sliding glass door and surveyed the grim scene, they missed her on their preliminary scan of the first floor. It was only on a second sweep that an officer noticed the blanket under the table.

He pulled it back to find her.

The initial news reports of the Aug. 25 tragedy provided scant details about what happened that night and how the little girl survived.

However, newly released records by the Pembroke Pines Police Department, as well as interviews with family, provide crucial details about the killings. The records were obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel through a public records request. They also suggest that the little girl -- known to often play hide-and-seek -- may have survived by winning the most monumental version of the game she’ll ever play.

“Who knows,” said Dominique Pinzon, a cousin of Pablo Colon. “Maybe her love for hide-and-seek saved her life.”

A young, loving family

Pablo Colon and Sandra Colon had met nearly 10 years ago, according to Pinzon.

In 2012, Pablo started his own electrical services business, according to state records. In 2015, the young couple welcomed their first children -- a set of twins.

The surviving twin, according to Pinzon, 27, at times was more dominant than the other -- taking the initiative to lead games of tag and hide-and-seek.

Earlier this year, Pinzon said Pablo and Sandra moved from their home in Fort Lauderdale to the 2,600-square-foot home in Pembroke Pines to have more space for the family. In May, they got married. Pablo continued to work at his company, while Sandra, 36, was a stay-at-home mother.

Pinzon said the couple was young in age and at heart. She said they enjoyed spending time with their family and hosting, particularly Pablo Colon, who was known as Junior.

“He made you feel welcome,” Pinzon said, her voice trailing off. “Which is the hardest thing to talk about.”

Sandra’s mother, Olga Alvarez, 61, had begun recently living with the family prior to Aug. 25, according to police records. Pinzon said she remembers Alvarez as a “beautiful soul” who adored her grandchildren.

On her Facebook profile, Alvarez’s most recent profile picture was a photo of the twins resting on a bed and dressed in matching outfits.

By all accounts, according to Pinzon, the family was happy.

According to public records, Colon had no criminal history. Nothing, it seemed, warned about what might happen on the night of Aug. 25.

A terrifying call

Records indicate that the first phone call made that night to police was by Olga Alvarez, at 8:28 p.m. A recording of the call is punctuated by Alvarez’s shill screams.

“He’s going to kill her,” she yells in Spanish. Then, “don’t, don’t!”

Moments later, Alvarez repeats to the operator, “La mato,” or, he killed her.

Pablo Colon can be heard in the background desperately cursing as the operator attempts to gather information.

Alvarez cradles the phone and seems to move away, possibly into the bedroom closet.

When she returns on the line, her voice is softer. “Come, come,” she says to the operator struggling to understand her mix of Spanish and English. “He’s going to hurt me.”

The operator repeatedly asks for the address, but instead is met with a 40-second period of silence.

When Alvarez returns, she says, “Quick,” in between sobs. “Save the children.” After revealing that the house is in Pembroke Pines, she makes one last plea to the police. "Please.”

The line goes silent again.

When a voice finally appears once more -- after a window of time police records don’t specify -- it belongs to Colon, who can be heard in the background.

According to a transcript of that portion of the call, Colon curses at Alvarez in Spanish.

Twice, Alvarez replies, “I didn’t know.”

Twice Colon responds, “Now you die, right?”

Chaos and uncertainty

The first officer arrived at the Pembroke Pines home at 8:36 p.m. At the time, the operator on the call with Alvarez still was attempting to translate their conversation.

The officer outside the home approached the front door and remained quiet to listen for noises inside. He waited 15 seconds and reported that he heard one voice saying “mom," as if calling to someone.

He knocked on the door three times but did not get a response. At 8:41 p.m. he told dispatchers to call Alvarez back. They tried twice. She did not pick up.

At 8:49 p.m. dispatchers received a second frantic call, this time from the wife of Cesar De La Hoz, Pablo Colon’s cousin. The woman said De La Hoz had just spoken to Colon, who’d called five minutes earlier.

"He said he killed his wife and the two kids,” the woman reported on the line. “And he said, ‘I’m sorry, I have to do it. And I’ll see you in heaven.’”

Behind her, De La Hoz can be heard on the recording talking on the phone with Colon again. His wife called to him. "Baby, did he kill them?” she asked.

Eventually, De La Hoz responds, "He said he killed them.”

The woman begins to cry on the line. The operator pushes for more information and the woman reveals Colon plans to kill himself.

"Just put the gun away,” De La Hoz can be heard saying in the background. "Listen to me primo. It’s not over.”

Eventually, De La Hoz leaves his home, also in Pembroke Pines, and arrives at the scene of the crime at 9:07 p.m.

An officer who arrived at the same time reported that De La Hoz was frantic and breathing heavy. He said De La Hoz revealed Colon said he had caught his wife, Sandra, cheating on him and that he had just murdered his entire family and was going to kill himself next.

De La Hoz got Colon on the phone again and tried to convince his cousin to surrender to the police outside. At one point, De La Hoz handed the phone over to the police, but Colon sounded “angry and desperate,” according to one officer, and demanded to speak to De La Hoz again or else he would “end this.”

When De La Hoz got back on the phone he tried to calm Colon down. About a minute later, Colon told De La Hoz, “goodbye,” and hung up.

Over the next two hours, police made multiple attempts to contact Colon. Officers called his cellphone, which kept going to voicemail. They made announcements over a loud speaker. They flashed lights and sirens.

Positioned in the backyard, officers could see the first floor of the house through a glass sliding door. They observed the first floor to be empty with no movement and a television on in the living room playing cartoons. At 10:05 p.m. officers launched a drone to try to get a visual of the inside of the second floor, but the blinds were drawn shut.

A gruesome scene

Nearly three hours after the first phone call, a SWAT team threw a flash device at the front door of the Pembroke Pines home, then used a 10-pound sledge hammer to shatter the rear glass sliding door.

On first check, the SWAT officers found the first floor empty aside from scattered live ammunition rounds.

They made their way upstairs and found, at the foot of the staircase, one of Colon’s daughters wearing black and white striped pajama pants. She had been shot dead.

In the nearby master bedroom, Colon was found dead, face down on the floor with a black handgun in his hand. The medical examiner ruled he killed himself. Sandra Colon was found dead at the foot of the bed with a gunshot wound to the head. Olga Alvarez was found dead in a seated position in the corner of the closet, with two gunshot wounds to her head.

All over the room and in other rooms on the second floor, bullet casings and live rounds were found. They belonged to the two guns used in the murders: a black 9 mm Luger pistol and a .380 Smith & Wesson pistol.

It is unclear how long the SWAT team was upstairs, but at one point, another SWAT member entered the home and conducted a second check of the first floor.

He spotted a bundled-up blanket partially underneath the kitchen table. When he pulled the blanket back, he found Colon’s other twin daughter -- the lone survivor.

The officer said that once the blanket was off, the girl’s eyes, which had been sealed shut, opened.

A family picks up the pieces

Pinzon is the only family member who agreed to comment for this story. Other members, on both sides of the family, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Pinzon knows why. “We’re all grieving,” she said. “We aren’t trying to re-open wounds.”

According to Pinzon, the family was completely shocked by what unfolded on the night of Aug. 25.

They were aware that the Colon marriage was not perfect, she said, like any other marriage. She said the couple had been through minor arguments and disagreements and declined to specify what their nature was. Pinzon insisted that nothing ever rose to the level of seriousness to suggest what would occur that fateful night.

“It was a couple who had their problems, but from an outside point of view, it seemed like they were working on it,” Pinzon said. "We knew they loved each other, and they had a passionate love,” she said.

Police records did not declare a clear motive in the murders, and it seems like no investigation was made into a possible affair. According to Pinzon, the family hadn’t ever heard any whispers of an affair until after the killings.

Pinzon said that it is clear now that there were things happening inside the home that neither Pablo nor Sandra were sharing.

Pinzon said she hopes the outcome is a warning to others not to bottle things in.

“Talk to people,” she said. “Go to therapy. It doesn’t help anybody to keep things inside.” She paused. “We lost people we really cared for," she said. "People we really loved.”

Pinzon said the family is grieving in their own ways. Some have entered therapy. Others have become more active in church. But above all, everyone is focused on the little girl who survived the attack.

“She’s in the best hands and she is going to be loved and cared for for the rest of her life,” Pinzon said.

Pinzon said the surviving daughter is under the care of family, though she did not specify whom. She is in the process of being formally adopted. The South Florida Sun Sentinel isn’t publishing the girl’s name to limit her exposure.

In the days after the murders, Pinzon created a GoFundMe page to help raise funds for the girl’s future. On Sept. 1, Pinzon updated the page with images of the girl at a petting zoo. She cradled a rabbit in her hands. She chased after ducks. She stared lovingly into the eyes of a baby goat.

Pinzon said the girl is currently undergoing therapy. She declined to specify if she has asked any questions about her family or that night, or what the rest of her family has told her to explain what happened.

However, Pinzon said the family has been intentional about reminding the girl about the positive things, the things they know to be true.

“She is going to know that her family loved her," Pinzon said. "She had a beautiful family who absolutely adored her.”

Andrew Boryga can be reached at aboryga@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4533, or Twitter: @borywrites

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