Investigators say they believe a double-homicide in an upscale Fort Lauderdale neighborhood Tuesday afternoon is linked to the discovery of five people shot to death in Sarasota earlier in the day.
Fort Lauderdale police were called to conduct a welfare check at a home on the 500 block of Northeast 15th Street in the Victoria Park neighborhood around 1:30 p.m. and found two adults dead inside, the department said.
The department did not say how they were killed.
About an hour earlier, Sarasota Sheriff’s Office deputies found a man with gunshot wounds lying in the front yard of the gated Amberlea neighborhood. When they arrived, deputies saw neighbors performing CPR on the man. The neighbors told deputies the man’s wife was inside the house, the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
Paramedics arrived and declared the man dead.
Deputies went inside the home and found two men and two women dead. Investigators say they believe one of the dead men killed the others, according to the news release.
As detectives were trying to identify the victims, Fort Lauderdale police contacted them about the Victoria Park homicides and said they believed the killings were related, according to the news release.
Sarasota detectives say the suspect had been in a previous romantic relationship with one of the victims in Fort Lauderdale. That victim “was connected to the victims in Sarasota,” the sheriff’s office said, adding the “motivation for targeting the Sarasota victims is unknown.”
Neither department had identified the suspect or victims as of Wednesday afternoon.
Fort Lauderdale detectives told Sarasota investigators that the suspect’s vehicle was seen heading north through Punta Gorda just prior to the shootings in Amberlea, the sheriff’s office said.
Amberlea residents gave detectives security- and doorbell-camera footage that showed the shooter’s vehicle entering the neighborhood just after 11 a.m., the sheriff’s office said. A doorbell camera captured the sound of gunfire shortly after the car arrived, deputies said.
About 37 minutes later, the man who was later found wounded outside was seen on footage entering the neighborhood in his vehicle, the sheriff’s office said. As he approached the front door of the house, he was shot, according to the news release. After that, no one was seen entering or exiting the home on the camera footage, the sheriff’s office said.
The sheriff’s office said Wednesday that detectives have identified the victims, but their names will not be released until their relatives are notified.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.