TAMPA, Florida -- A car wash surveillance camera captured the fatal shooting of a man during an apparent robbery.
Police were searching for the man who shot Ronald Preston, 44, who had stopped to wash his pickup truck near 2 a.m. Tuesday.
The video tape shows a light-colored Ford Taurus pull up to an adjacent bay before a passenger gets out and confronts Preston, police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.
''You can tell they are in a heated exchange,'' she said.
The man shoots Preston in the chest, and is then seen jumping into the pickup truck and appears to steal things, she said. The driver of the Taurus took off and the gunman left the scene on foot.
Preston's body was found by a customer who stopped at the car wash several hours later.
''It was surreal watching that and extremely disturbing,'' McElroy said of the video.
In February 2004, a surveillance camera at a Sarasota car wash recorded the apparent abduction of 11-year-old Carlie Brucia, whose body was found five days later. Former auto mechanic Joseph Smith was charged with first-degree murder in the case and is scheduled to stand trial in November.
(c)The Associated Press
