SARASOTA — Early afternoon calm in the Amberlea gated community shattered Tuesday when shots rang out just steps from manicured lawns and quiet homes. Deputies arrived to find one man shot in the front yard and four more dead inside a house on Fall Crest Circle, all victims of a shocking cross-state murder-suicide that began hours earlier in Fort Lauderdale.
Around 12:24 p.m., a frantic 911 call alerted authorities to gunfire at the Sarasota residence near Proctor and McIntosh roads. Neighbors rushed to help a man lying wounded on the grass, performing CPR until first responders took over, but he was soon pronounced dead. When deputies stepped inside the home, they found two men and two women lifeless. Among those inside was the suspected gunman, 51-year-old Russell Kot, who died of an apparent self-inflicted wound.
The four Sarasota victims were identified as Olga Greinert, 49; Florita Stolyar, 66; Anatoly Ioffe, 61; and Yaroslav Blyudoy, 39. They were ordinary people known locally as friends and neighbors, leaving behind stunned loved ones struggling to understand how their community became the site of such violence.
Just hours before the Sarasota shootings, Fort Lauderdale police discovered two more bodies during a wellness check at a home in the Victoria Park neighborhood of Fort Lauderdale. Officers found Larisa Blyudaya, 46, and Ben Azivov, 18, dead inside. Investigators quickly linked these deaths to the Sarasota scene when surveillance showed the same vehicle heading north through Punta Gorda, suggesting a single path of destruction spanning more than 200 miles.
Authorities say Kot had been in a previous romantic relationship with one of the Fort Lauderdale victims, and that person was connected in some way to the Sarasota victims. Beyond those ties, investigators are still piecing together motive, describing the killings as complex and deeply personal rather than random or public threats.
Neighbors in both communities are grappling with grief and shock. In Sarasota, residents described hearing the moment the calm broke — a loud bang that shattered the peace and left them racing to understand what had happened to people they waved to just days ago.
Law enforcement calls the incidents isolated with no lingering danger to the public. In the wake of the violence, families and friends of the victims are left holding memories and unanswered questions, trying to make sense of a day that began like any other and ended in tragedy.
