Add The New York Post on Google A mom of five who was hacked to death in the street — allegedly by Texas sisters named Cookie and Kitty — had just minutes earlier tried calling her best friend, who is tormented by the thought she could have saved her.
Caroline “Caro” Peña, 32, called her best pal Christina Salinas at around 1:35 p.m. Thursday but it went unanswered – just minutes before being killed in Del Rio, Texas, allegedly by siblings Kitty Mia Diaz, 21, and Amaya Cookie Diaz, 19.
“I feel like if I would have answered that call, honestly I would have been there with her,” Salinas, Peña’s friend of eight years, told KHOU. “It wouldn’t have gotten like that.”
Heartbroken adult daycare worker Salinas said she would miss calling her pal at 5:30 a.m., telling her “I need someone to talk to.”
“I know that if I would have gotten out of work a few minutes earlier, I wouldn’t have let you gone down alone, and you know that. My heart hurts, B. You’re gone but not forgotten,” she wrote online.
Salinas shared a picture of the pair smiling in the car in what turned out to be the last image of the best friends together, taken days before Peña’s death.
Salinas said her pal was still breathing when she was rushed to a Del Rio medical center after the attack – and gave her a kiss before being airlifted to San Antonio, where she was pronounced dead hours later.
Salinas said she saw images of a bloodied Peña online – and immediately recognized her pal by her hairstyle.
“Her hair was in the same bun,” she said.
“When I saw that, that’s all I needed to see was the back of her shirt. I knew it was her right off the bat.”
Salinas said, “It’s like a part of me got ripped out and that’s something I’m not going to get back.”
“No matter how much justice is being served, I still don’t have my friend here alive with me.”
Salinas shared Ring doorbell footage of the last time Peña visited her home.
“This is what I’m going to miss you coming to my house and we would just eat, laugh, and chill,” she wrote on Facebook. “I wish it was all a dream.”
The Diaz siblings were arrested just after 4 p.m. Thursday – with a friend, Kyandra Renee Faz, 21, being hauled into custody later. All three have since been charged with murder.
Chilling video showed a scantily clad Kitty Diaz grinning as she was being escorted to a police cruiser, while her younger sibling quipped, “Stop recording!”
Independent journalist Michael Elizondo told The Post that Amaya Diaz was in a “happy mood” after being put in the car.
“All of the sudden I see the window go down, and the girl was sticking out her face, sticking out her tongue and goofing off,” he said.
Details about the motive behind the attack have not yet been publicly released.
