Truck tested in parking lot killing of mother

By ANDRIA SIMMONS

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Snellville Police are running tests on a pickup truck belonging to a relative of the young mother gunned down in a Target parking lot last month.

Snellville Police Chief Roy Whitehead said Monday that investigators sent an older-model white pickup truck to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to be processed for trace evidence.

The truck belongs to a family member of the victim, 25-year-old Heather Strube, but police declined to identify the relative.

"It's not definitive that that's the truck," Whitehead said.

Whitehead said it could take two weeks or more before the results are available.

Strube was shot dead on April 26 in the parking lot of a busy Target shopping center in Snellville. The suspect, who wore a wig and mustache disguise, was seen standing near a white, early 1990's pickup truck in the back of the parking lot.

Police believe Strube may have known the attacker.

She met her estranged husband, Steven Strube, at the shopping center around 6 p.m. that day to do a custody swap. The shooting happened moments after Strube placed her toddler son inside her SUV.

Witnesses saw the husband drive away from the scene shortly before the suspect walked up. Investigators have said they do not believe the husband was the shooter, although they have not ruled out the possibility he was involved.

Surveillance video footage indicated the suspect may have been a woman, police said.