A teacher in Florida was found dead beside her boyfriend in a suspected murder-suicide over the weekend after police arrived to the sounds of her infant daughter’s cries.
Amanda Hicks, 26, was found dead alongside an adult male on the floor of her home at the in Port St Lucie, 180km north of Miami in Florida, around 11:45am on Saturday, May 27, the Port St Lucie Police Department said.
Police responded to Hicks’ home in the southeastern Florida city after a family member asked for a welfare check on her and her partner.
They arrived to find the doors locked with no answer, but could hear the cries of Hicks’ infant daughter from outside the home.
They believe the deceased man killed Ms Hicks and then took his own life, the New York Post reports.
Concerned officers then peered through a rear sliding-glass door, where they saw two adults who appeared dead.
The officers then ‘forced their way through the locked front door and took the unharmed, crying infant from their crib,’ the Port St Lucie Police Department said.
The baby, later identified by family members as Hicks’ 10-month-old daughter Alani, is now safe with a family member, the police said.
‘It appears at this time, an adult female was killed by an adult male who then took his own life,’ the police said.
‘Detectives believe the two adults were romantically involved.’
Investigators have not yet revealed how the couple were killed.
Neither Hicks nor her boyfriend have been named by authorities, but a spokesperson for Martin County School District where she taught sixth grade confirmed her death.
Neighbors at their apartment complex told CBS 12 News the couple ‘seemed very normal, very normal.’
They had reportedly just moved to the home only three weeks ago.
