Carla Trost, a dental hygienist who worked at Hanover Family Dentistry in Mechanicsville, Va., for 18 years, was fatally shot after she and her husband interrupted a burglary at their home, police told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Local law enforcement officials told the newspaper that on Dec. 26, Ms. Trost and her husband, Steve Walker, arrived at their home around 5 p.m. as a burglary was taking place. They said the suspect, Michael Barlow, fatally shot Ms. Trost and exchanged gunfire with Mr. Walker before stealing the couple's car and fleeing.
Mr. Barlow fatally shot himself as police closed in on him during a high-speed interstate chase Dec. 28, officials told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Leonard Pippin Jr., Mr. Barlow's suspected accomplice, was taken into custody and faces charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit burglary, grand larceny and conspiracy to commit grand larceny, the newspaper reported.
"They're really going to miss the sound of her laugh around there," Morris Jordan Jr., DDS, who opened Hanover Family Dentistry in 1980 and sold the practice in 2019, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "She had a good easy laugh that put people at ease."
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