Member of Chabad Parkland Misidentified and Killed in Car

CBS12 & COLlive

Family and friends are mourning the loss of Sara Michelle Trost, a 40-year-old wife and mother, shot multiple times while sitting in her car, Thursday, in the driveway of a home in Coral Springs, Florida.

Trost was deeply involved at Chabad of Parkland, including accompanying a community trip to the Holy Land of Israel. She recently volunteered to host a Chanukah gathering at her home.

“[She 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,” said Rabbi Shuey Biston of Chabad of Parkland, who is close with the Trost family. “Anything she touched, she turned to gold.”

Rabbi Biston said Trost had “unparalleled energy,” with a smile and laugh that would light up a room. “Her smile was infectious. You wanted to be around her energy,” he added.

Trost was a self-made real estate agent with a passion for flipping homes.

Rabbi Biston said that Trost’s family said that Thursday began as a “regular morning,” adding that Trost planned on looking at a property for her work that afternoon.

As she was sitting in her jeep outside a home, a man approached her vehicle and shot her to death.

Neighbors tell WSVN the killing may have been tied to an eviction.

Donna Smith, a neighbor, to local media: “There was a disgruntled tenant who was evicted. He thought the realtor showing the home was the owner of the house. She was sitting in her car and was ambushed.”

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office arrested Raymond Reese, 51, in Boca Raton on Thursday. He’s now facing murder charges in connection with Trost’s death.