Real estate seller found slain in suburban model home

BALTIMORE (AP) — Homicide detectives scoured the grounds of a model home Thursday in Maryland after a building company employee was found slain inside the suburban unit he was trying to sell.

Authorities say the battered body of 33-year-old Steven Bernard Wilson, a sales and marketing representative for builder Ryan Homes, was found Wednesday evening in the model home he was working out of in Hanover, Maryland. The Anne Arundel County Police Department said officers were dispatched to the home following a 911 call but could not confirm whether Wilson made the call himself. The married father of two young children was pronounced dead at the scene.

“There was very clear upper body trauma. We can’t say yet if it was a gunshot wound, a knife wound or something like that because the autopsy hasn’t been completed yet,” said police spokeswoman Sgt. Jacklyn Davis.

Wilson’s body was sent to Baltimore for an autopsy. His family released a statement saying they were awaiting the results of the police investigation and described him as a “loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend.” A spokesman for the parent company of Ryan Homes, Virginia-based NVR Inc., declined to comment.

A search of the model home and surrounding areas was conducted by air and dogs, and Anne Arundel police say they identified “multiple pieces of evidence” throughout the night. On Thursday morning, over a dozen cadets searched for more evidence in a grassy field directly behind the model unit, where red balloons attached to a “for sale” sign waved in the breeze.