BREAKING: Sheriff's Office seeks suspect in triple homicide in Chuluota

Three people are dead and deputies are searching for a suspect in what the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office is investigating as a homicide.

At around 9 a.m. Friday, deputies were dispatched to the Pickett Downs subdivision in Chuluota on Fort Christmas Road after one resident of the house did not report to work as expected.

What they found were three bodies, having been apparently killed by gunshot blasts, according to Sheriff Dennis Lemma at a press conference later in the day.

Lemma did not release the names of the victims on Friday afternoon, but said they’re looking for suspect Grant Amato, 29, who could be driving a white 1996 Honda Accord with the license plate ‘L1GH7.’ He is considered armed and dangerous.

Lemma said they had determined that there were weapons missing from the home.

Lemma said the vehicle was thought to be somewhere around the Orlando area on Friday afternoon, and urged anyone who saw the vehicle to contact SCSO or 911 immediately and treat the situation with caution.

The deceased included one woman in her 50s and two men who Lemma said were “older than 30.” On Friday afternoon, SCSO was still in the process of identifying the victims, but Lemma said it was SCSO’s feeling that the victims and the assailant had known each other.

“We do feel like all of the deceased were known to each other,” he said. “This was not random.”

Lemma said SCSO was recently called to the same address over concerns that one person in the house had suicidal tendencies, though he did not elaborate what had come of that encounter.