Community Mourns Broker Shot in Florida

Yellow caution tape reading "POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS" pictured blocking off a group of police officers in the background.

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A Florida real estate agent was shot and killed outside a house she was showing in Coral Springs, Fla. Allegedly, a former tenant mistook her for the building’s landlord, according to reports from neighbors.

Around 12:30 p.m. on Dec. 23, Sara-Michelle Trost, 40, owner and broker of 1% Lists SoFlo, was sitting in the driver’s seat of her Jeep in the driveway of a home she was showing when she was shot multiple times. Neighbors called the police when they heard two gunshots. Trost died at the scene.

Hours later, Raymond Wesley Reese, 50, was charged with first-degree murder in connection with Trost’s death. Reese reportedly had previously lived and rented the home Trost was parked outside of. Neighbors alleged that Reese had been recently been evicted from the home.

“There was a disgruntled tenant who was evicted,” Donna Smith, a neighbor, told the local news. “He thought that the REALTOR®, who was showing the home, he thought it was the owner of the house, and she was ambushed.”

Trost, originally from Great Britain, started her own business flipping discount homes in South Florida. She was active in the community. Chabad of Parkland’s Rabbi Shuey Biston told CBS-12 that Trost was “so loving and caring. There wasn’t a project that we started in the community that she wouldn’t be a part of. She was just a really special person. Anything she touched, she turned to gold.”

Police continue to investigate the shooting and say no other suspects are being sought in connection.

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