Woman's Body Found On Porch

LAND O' LAKES - Lee Brown, who owns property across the street from where a woman's body was found Sunday morning, says he regrets not checking on his neighbor sooner.

He said he may have seen the shooting victim a day earlier, but thought she was sunbathing.

The Pasco County Sheriff's Office on Sunday said they are investigating the woman's death as a homicide and identified her as Diane Yeager-Lombard, 51.

She died from an apparent gunshot wound, according to sheriff's office spokesman Kevin Doll. The Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death.

Doll said Yeager-Lombard might have died Saturday.

Her body was reported Sunday morning to the sheriff's department as lying on the front porch of the home at 9665 Bahia Loop, Land O' Lakes. The house is located in a rural area east of U.S. 41.

Brown, 69, said sometime after 5 p.m. Saturday he heard a gunshot while walking across his cow pasture to his house.

"Just as I was coming out over yonder by the gate," he said. "I heard the gun. And it wasn't no BB gun. It was a powerful gun," Brown said.

He looked around and saw a blue truck speeding up the dirt road, he recalled.

"There was dust. You couldn't even see nothing," Brown said. "He must have been going 70 mph. He was git and gone."

After resting at home for awhile, he drove back to a mobile home he was cleaning out and passed the home where the body was discovered.

He saw a woman lying face up on the front porch. He remembered hearing the gunshot earlier but dismissed it. "I said, 'No, she's just sunbathing.'"

It wasn't until after church Sunday when he heard the news a woman had been found dead on Yearger-Lombard's porch that he realized what he might have seen.

"I just thought nothing about it," he said. "I feel bad now. I should have at least checked on her."

Brown's wife, Linda, 61, said she was surprised by the shooting, too.

"Us old people, we don't connect things like this," she said. "This is a quiet neighborhood."

Doll, the sheriff's spokesman, said it's not unusual to hear gunshots in the area. "You're in a rural part of Pasco County and they are allowed to shoot guns off in this area as long as it's in a responsible manner," he said.

Doll said a shooting range also is nearby.

Yeager-Lombard's single family house is on a small horse ranch near Ehren Cutoff on the corner of Bahia Loop and Turf Drive.

Neighbors said the woman was often seen in her yard, tinkering around and taking care of her three horses.

Neighbor Kathy Farinha, 43, said was alarmed by the death.

"To think last night I drove past there and didn't even see her," she said Sunday afternoon, shaking her head.

Several neighbors described Yeager-Lombard as a kind, soft-spoken woman who took pride in her home and animals.

"She was a nice lady," said neighbor Bea Hodson.