A high-profile Miami actual property agent, her two younger daughters and their father have been discovered stabbed to dying in a grotesque scene inside their residence in what police imagine was a murder-suicide.
Melanie Hyer, 46, her daughters — Savannah, 11, and Sienna, 8 — and their father, Ryan Charles Whiten, 42, have been discovered inside Hyer’s residence in Doral, Fla., throughout a welfare examine on Tuesday evening, in line with the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Workplace.
All 4 relations had sustained stab wounds, police mentioned.
“The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Workplace Murder Bureau investigation is at present main detectives to imagine this incident was a murder-suicide,” officers mentioned. “Investigators are persevering with to work carefully with the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Workplace because the investigation stays energetic.”
Authorities are awaiting post-mortem outcomes from the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Workplace.
Hyer, initially from Manhasset, NY, labored as a probate actual property agent in South Florida, specializing in luxurious waterfront and business properties, and appeared as an business skilled on a number of information shops all through her profession, in line with her LinkedIn profile.
Hyer and Whiten had separated years earlier and have been co-parenting their daughters on the time of their deaths. Each had been married to different individuals however had since divorced, NBC6 reported.
Whiten’s ex-wife instructed 7 Information Miami that the connection between Hyer and Whiten had been “poisonous” for years, and the 2 had been locked in a bitter battle over their daughters.
Nonetheless, Whiten’s ex-wife — who divorced him in 2024 and requested to not be recognized — mentioned she was “shocked” by the information, remembering him as somebody who was “at all times so candy along with his women and cherished them deeply.”
She mentioned she had not noticed any indicators of violence between the 2, however mentioned Whiten feared Hyer would someday take his daughters away from him.
“I don’t know what occurred,” she mentioned.
Whiten’s ex-wife mentioned he contacted her three weeks earlier than the deaths to say how grateful he was to have her in his life — a message she now believes was his means of claiming goodbye.
After information broke of the deaths, distinguished members of the group spoke out concerning the tragedy that rocked South Florida.
Doral Mayor Christi Fraga — who mentioned she knew Hyer and her daughters personally — referred to as their deaths an “unimaginable tragedy.”
“As a mom, and as somebody who personally knew and admired the loving and devoted mom on the heart of this tragedy, this loss feels particularly near residence,” Fraga wrote in an Instagram publish.
Fraga additionally instructed CBS Information that Hyer was “a lightweight of sunshine” who was “at all times keen to assist at college and to be concerned as a mother.”
Jeannette Acevedo-Isenberg, head of Downtown Doral Elementary the place each women have been college students, instructed mother and father Wednesday that grief counseling and emotional help animals could be obtainable for anybody affected by their deaths.
“Each college students have been deeply cherished by their faculty, their academics, and their friends,” Acevedo-Isenberg wrote in an e-mail obtained by NBC6.
In case you are battling suicidal ideas or are experiencing a psychological well being disaster and reside in New York Metropolis, you may name 1-888-NYC-WELL without cost and confidential disaster counseling.
For those who reside exterior the 5 boroughs, you may dial the 24/7 Nationwide Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
