Estate agent and property manager Sara Michelle Trost was fatally wounded last week as she sat in her car. The 40 year-old former Kantor King Solomon High School pupil was shot when a tenant who had been evicted from his rental home sought revenge.
Raymond Wesley Reese shot Trost multiple times as she sat in her car outside the property in Coral Springs, Florida. It is believed that she may have been a victim of mistaken identity, according to a statement from a neighbour.
“There was a disgruntled tenant who was evicted,” Donna Smith told the local news. “He thought that the realtor who was showing the home was the owner of the house when he ambushed her in her car.”
Trost, whose maiden name was Armstrong, grew up in Essex before moving to the US eight years ago, after meeting her American husband, Jason. The couple had a three-year-old daughter together.
She was a big part of the local Jewish community and actively involved with the Chabad centre in Parkland where she lived with her family. Trost had previously volunteered to accompany members of her congregation on a trip to Israel and recently hosted a Chanukah party at her house.
Rabbi Shuey Biston, who had known Trost since she moved to the area, said that she was “the most giving and caring person to both those she personally knew and those who she was unfamiliar with.”
“There wasn’t a community project or programme Sara wouldn’t get behind,” Biston commented. “She always wanted to help, and it was often anonymously.”
He added: “Sara’s heart was full of love- love for her community, love for her friends, love for her family, love for her husband, Jason, but above all, love for the light of her life, her daughter Avery.”
Raymond Reese, a 51-year-old man from the nearby town of Boca Raton has been charged with first-degree murder.
The thoughts of everyone at the EJN are with Trost’s family and loved ones at this difficult time.
