Dad asks adult kids to move in, then stabs them and sets house on fire, Florida cops say

A woman woke up in the middle of the night to the smell of gasoline, then her dad attacked her and her brother with a butcher knife before lighting the house on fire, Florida authorities said.

Carlos Rivera, 63, was accused of trying to kill his two adult children after he asked them and their own kids to move in with him “due to his declining health,” the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office wrote in an arrest report.

Prosecutors announced March 19 that a jury found Rivera guilty of attempted first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder and first-degree arson. McClatchy News reached out to his attorney for comment March 21 but did not immediately receive a response.

Rivera’s daughter told police officers she woke up to the smell of gasoline May 14, 2018, after seeing her 56-year-old father carrying a can of gasoline the previous afternoon, according to the report.

She opened the windows to air out the room and opened the bedroom door when she encountered her father with a kitchen knife, officers said.

The dad stabbed her in the arms and legs as she screamed and alerted her brother, who also said he woke up to the smell of gasoline, according to police.

The brother grabbed a machete and engaged his father, who’s accused of stabbing him during the fight, prosecutors said.

The sister sneaked out the bedroom window with her two kids to seek refuge with a neighbor and call 911 while her brother was fending off their father, police said. The brother was able to escape with his own son, then their dad set fire to part of the home, according to prosecutors with the State Attorney’s Office for the Fourth Judicial Circuit.

When the dad was arrested, he told officers his son had “sucker punched” him in the head in the kitchen while armed with a machete, and his daughter “ran at him screaming,” according to the report.

Rivera and his son were due in court the day of the incident because of a previous domestic violence situation in which the father was accused of battering him, the daughter told police.

A Duval County jury found Rivera guilty after a two-day trial. He’s scheduled for sentencing March 31.

This story was originally published March 21, 2025 at 1:12 PM with the headline "Dad asks adult kids to move in, then stabs them and sets house on fire, Florida cops say."