CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. – A beloved real estate agent and mother to a toddler was sitting in a driveway when she was ambushed and gunned down Thursday in Coral Springs, police said.
Sara Trost, 40, was in the driver’s seat of a Jeep parked on 48th Court near Creekside Drive when she was shot multiple times around 12:30 p.m., investigators say.
Detectives identified the killer as Raymond Wesley Reese, 51, and arrested him in Boca Raton, police said. He is expected to be charged with first-degree murder.
Investigators have not detailed what led to the killing but neighbors say Reese was an upset tenant.
“There was a disgruntled tenant who was evicted. He thought that the realtor, who was showing the home, he thought it was the owner of the house, and she was ambushed. She was sitting in her car,” said Donna Smith, who lives in the area.
Trost was also a volunteer for the Paw Patrol Animal Rescue & Sanctuary. She fostered many dogs over the years.
“Our heart goes out to Sara Michelle, her daughter, her husband Jason, and her whole family, her fur children, as well as her human child,” said Rachel Lucuara, of the Paw Patrol Animal Rescue & Sanctuary.
Roben Cipriani, who lives in the neighborhood where the killing happened, said he was in his home on a work meeting when he heard the gunfire.
“All of a sudden we heard two gunshots. I turn to my wife and I said, ‘I think that was gunshots,’” he recalled. “I got a little closer to the Jeep and I saw some blood.”
Paramedics tried saving Trost, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.