On Sept. 15, a neighbor found three people dead in a San Carlos home. They were close friends, the couple and their young daughter, and the neighbor, Karen Pearlman, a long-time San Diego journalist, has grappled with her emotions since the profoundly painful discovery. She writes for Times of San Diego and its community newspapers, including the Mission Times Courier. So does editor Dorian Hargrove, whose son attended school with Mya Voight, the daughter of Amy and Dave Voight. Here Dorian and Karen share their thoughts about the Voight family and the heartache and disbelief of having tragedy hit so close to home.
By Karen Pearlman
I was walking my dog just around the corner when I heard the three loud bangs come from the vicinity of the Voights’ home. I was unsure if it was a propane tank backfire or HVAC system breaking down, or something from their backyard that blew up.
I did not realize what the sounds actually were until after police told me the following day that Dave Voight had a collection of guns locked away in a garage safe.
I have been the Voights’ regular dogsitter and housesitter for about five years, and walked their dogs with my own dogs over many years as well. I knew the previous homeowners and the layout of the house, which the Voights had upgraded and improved tenfold. When they were out and packages arrived, I often received text messages from Dave, his wife Amy, or both, to use the house code they had shared with me to bring their items inside.
After thinking more worriedly about the noises I heard, I sent a text message 20 minutes later to Amy, who was celebrating her 54th birthday, and then texted Dave, asking if either had heard the bangs and to ask them if they were safe.
There was no response.
The following morning, I sent another round of texts and made phone calls to each of them separately. The couple’s vehicles sat unmoved in the driveway when they should have been gone, with Amy and Dave off to work or driving the few blocks to Pershing Middle to drop Mya off at school.
I rang the doorbell. No answer.
I peered inside. No movement.
I knocked again and banged my knuckles on the master bedroom window. No response.
I went back to the front door. I typed in the key code and entered the Voight home.
Once inside, I yelled for Amy, Dave and Mya. I walked down the hallway into the dark master bedroom and saw something unspeakable, a scene that will forever be etched into my mind. I saw the family dog, Penny, who is hard of hearing, sleeping nearby.
The next 12 hours were mind-numbing. Mostly, I sat on the curb in front of the Voights’ home with a department psychiatric team and the San Diego police chaplain, and did my best to answer endless questions from detectives, as swarms of San Diego police officers and workers from the coroner’s office went back and forth into and out of the home, eventually removing the bodies of the family I knew so well and loved.
Remembering the family
As a journalist and storyteller, I want the community to know who the Voights were, what they meant to the neighborhood, in an effort to better align the assumptions that accompany tragedies of this scale.
Here is how I remember them.
Dave was a Chicago native, a decorated Navy veteran working for the government, devoted to his family, who thought his daughter hung the moon, and was fiercely loyal to his military brothers and his friends. We sent texts to each other during Chicago Cubs and Chicago Bears games, cheering and booing as appropriate. Proud of his country, he kept the American flag flying high from the top of their house. His truck bore a USA emblem.
Amy was the quintessential California girl, upbeat and active, physically fit and mentally tough. She was a generous friend with a huge heart, who rescued dogs and tested her green thumb with plants and flowers. She was the rock who grounded her family, and outside the home she ferreted out bad actors working as an integral part of the local NCIS, the Navy’s investigative service.
Mya was an eighth grader who had struggled a little in school early on but overcame it to become a star student who loved her family, her dogs, creating art, goofing off with her friends and playing tennis and volleyball. There was always a lot of shouting, laughter, and pool splashing in the summer when Mya hosted her friends.
They adored their black Labrador, Buddy, and I loved dog-sitting for him when the family went out of town, as well as for their terrier mix, Penny (who was rescued on Sept. 16 from the home by San Diego firefighters from our local station 34. She has since been rehomed).
I walked Buddy for several years for an hour every morning along with my own dogs and, upon our daily return, was always greeted by an upbeat Dave, who would give the dogs a bunch of carrot chunks as treats.
I remember seeing Dave jump to action in times of neighborhood crises. Once, a neighbor’s dog was attacked by another dog. Dave went into high alert.
He left his house, ran around the corner, picked up the injured dog, calmed down the dog’s owner, put both in his truck and sped away. He told me later that he drove through every red light and stop sign until he got the dog to the animal emergency room to be seen for puncture wounds.
When I ordered a mini trampoline (similar to one that Amy had and I used at their house) that I could not put together, I brought the package to the Voights. Dave assembled it, and later told me Amy had to help him finish the task.
Special gifts
Amy always brought me back gifts from wherever the family would go – a T-shirt from Hawaii, a hoodie from Lake Arrowhead, soaps and a body scrubber from Palm Springs, mugs from Chicago. Amy was forever looking for ways to add more greenery to her yard, and recently shared her joy at finally being able to grow her long-wished-for plumeria flowers after one of my friends gave me her cuttings to give to Amy. Amy was also an avid cook and baker of gluten-free treats and sometimes shared sweets she made with me.
Mya was a bundle of joy and positivity. She would do countless cartwheels and other gymnastics on her front lawn, draw with colored chalk on the family’s driveway with her friends, ask to pet dogs walking by her home, and ride her bicycle around the neighborhood with her parents. She had learned to drive an All Terrain Vehicle quite young. Dave would share with me how she excelled on desert driving adventures when she was gifted a pint-sized ATV of her own.
When the Voights’ Labrador Buddy died in 2025, around the same time Dave’s mother passed away, the sadness was palpable in their home.
After losing Buddy , Dave called me and asked if Mya could borrow my dog to sleep with her at night. That was the regular deal for nearly two weeks. The two also had occasional sleepovers in the months that followed.
These are my memories. I soon learned they were similar to the ones shared by so many others lucky enough to be in the Voights’ lives.
Dearly loved
The memorial service at a chapel at Liberty Station on Sept. 28, was attended by hundreds of people, including many of Dave’s military brothers and Amy’s colleagues, as well as Mya’s teenage friends. Many of us San Carlos neighbors also showed up. We shared memories of this dearly loved family with one another.
Amy’s sister, Tammy Teague, spoke to the crowd of people mourning her younger sister.
She said she could be in front of the crowd for days with the stories of her sister. She shared some memories of their childhood. She explained how Amy was her closest confidante and how hard it is without the daily conversations they shared.
Amy’s sister also said that the family held no anger toward Dave, and gave examples of times shared by the extended family, scenes that showed the deep love the three Voights had for one another.
Dave’s nephew shared stories about his uncle and some of their family get-togethers. Two of Dave’s military brothers shared some of the antics that their friend was known for, and also how proud he was of his family.
Some of Mya’s young friends spoke about FaceTiming with her, baking cakes, dancing and more. One girl, a year younger than Mya, said Mya would always prepare her for the coming school year by telling her how her own previous year had gone.
The family’s long-employed housekeeper tried to keep from sobbing while recalling the kindnesses of the Voights and watching Mya grow up.
The problem, the true tragedy, is that there really is no villain here.
While the deaths can raise questions about veterans’ needs post-war, guns, mental health care and pharmaceuticals, and more, these are circular discussions with no real sign of a resolution or an end.
The true end in this particular story is the end of three loving and well-loved people who made their neighborhood, our part of San Diego, a better place.
