[bloodrayne]

Shooter Stalked Ex-Wife And Kids

Lutz, Florida- Robert O'Mara waited in the darkness outside his children's new home.
Their mother, newly divorced from him, drove directly into his ambush.

Patricia Parra-Perez got out of the driver's seat. He shot her in the head.

Sean and Lauren ran for their lives.

Sean, 12, made it to the front door before he was shot once and killed.

Lauren, 13, raced down the block. Her father chased her.

Three doors away, he caught her with a bullet. She died on a neighbor's doorstep.

Then O'Mara shot and killed himself.

As horrifying as the investigators' account of Friday night's rampage in Lutz is, it is made more chilling by revelations this weekend that Parra- Perez had done many things right to make her children and herself safe from a man unraveling after his divorce.

She got a different car and moved to a new house. She changed her name back to her maiden name. Friends say she got a restraining order against O'Mara.

``She was terrified of him,'' said Lynn Pishock, a friend and mortgage broker who helped arrange financing on the Le Clare Shores Drive duplex where Parra-Perez moved. ``When I helped them get the new house, she seemed so relieved, and the kids were just hugging me. They were so happy to be moving into a new house.''

Parra-Perez, 40, was listed in critical condition Saturday at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa.

Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office detectives are investigating why O'Mara, 38, came gunning for his family.

Accounts from friends of the former couple show Parra-Perez's move did not insulate her from what they describe as an abusive, jealous and controlling former husband.

Records show her filing for a divorce was granted Oct. 26. But O'Mara began harassing her at work.

Friends say he began showing up at the downtown law firm where Parra-Perez worked as a paralegal, blocking her car with his to try to prevent her from leaving work.

He reportedly quit his job as a mortgage broker Monday. He was seen driving through Parra-Perez's new neighborhood last week.

Friends say that despite worries that O'Mara would find her, Parra-Perez was hopeful she could start a new life.

Llewellyn Lock, a neighbor who lives in the duplex next door to the one Parra-Perez moved to, said Parra-Perez was proud of her new home.

She was renovating it, Lock said, and had ripped out toilets herself and dismantled air ducts to have them cleaned. Friends said she sewed her own curtains and took pride in painting and decorating her home.

``She was very proud of the fact that she had a place of her own, for her kids, away from him,'' Lock said. ``How can the man do this to his own children?''

That question hung heavy Saturday among the friends and neighbors who knew the former couple and their children.

The couple had been married 17 years and last lived together at the Heritage Harbor Golf & Country Club subdivision off Lutz-Lake Fern Road.

Lisa and Jimmy Thomas socialized frequently with Parra- Perez and O'Mara. They had backyard cookouts and played golf. Their children played together, and the men often talked about Philadelphia, their hometown.

Jimmy Thomas said that, on one occasion, he left his sons in the care of O'Mara.

``He watched my kids,'' Jimmy Thomas said in disbelief Saturday. ``I can't believe it. He watched my kids, and look what he did to his own kids.''

Randy Tallent, who lived across from Parra-Perez and O'Mara in Heritage Harbor, said he saw O'Mara occasionally and would talk with him about yard work and golfing.

``We drank a beer from time to time,'' said Tallent, whose son Cameron went to school with Sean O'Mara. ``I knew there were problems, but I'm just blown away by this.''

Jeff Chapman of Condominiums Realty was pulling up the ``For Sale'' sign in the front lawn of the couple's former Heritage Harbor home Saturday afternoon. Chapman said he talked with O'Mara frequently about the sale of the home, but recently O'Mara sounded agitated and distracted.

``I talked to him about two weeks ago about painting and doing some other things around here to get ready to sell the house, but he just kept saying that he couldn't worry about that right now, that he had other things on his mind,'' Chapman said.

``It was obvious something was wrong.''

Chapman said he had never met the couple's children but felt he knew their personalities when he saw their rooms.

``They were decorated and painted so nice,'' Chapman said. ``The girl's room was very pink and had flowers, and the boy's room was very much a boy's room. I just can't believe this.''

Hillsborough schools spokesman Mark Hart said that as soon as the district learned the victims attended Martinez Middle School, the district's crisis intervention team was notified.

``It appears these children were well-known, so we will have a lot of grief counselors on hand,'' Hart said.

Lisa Thomas said Parra-Perez lived for her children and loved being a mother.

``You couldn't ask for a better mother,'' she said. ``She loved those kids.''

Parra-Perez and her children were athletic and loved the arts, Thomas said. The children were ``beautiful and absolutely brilliant.''

She said Parra-Perez went running every morning, usually by 5:30 a.m.

``She would be coming back home at 6:30 or so and she'd see us leaving for work and she'd say `What, you're just getting up now?' '' Lisa Thomas said, laughing. ``She was 40, but she had a rock-hard body and looked like she was 25. She was just so much fun to be with. I just cannot get over the shock of this.''

Outside the family's Le Clare Shores Drive home Saturday, crime scene tape lingered in bushes, and the lighted reindeer decorations Parra-Perez had placed in the yard just days ago were scattered.

Amber Smith and Victoria Locklear, children who live across the street, righted the reindeer and straightened other holiday decorations.

``It's so sad,'' Victoria said. ``But we wanted to fix their decorations so that if they come home, their house looks pretty.''