The gunshots Manpreet Deol heard while watching an action movie with her husband Friday night sounded too real.

“It’s just in the movie,” her husband, Binwant Deol, told her.

But the next morning, Howard County police came to her Ellicott City apartment and told her a man had been fatally shot less than 100 yards away.

Police found Moeen Sadiq Raja, 21, of Ellicott City, shot to death in his Honda Civic at about 11:45 p.m. Friday. The car, its driver-side door peppered with bullet holes, had slammed into a parked vehicle in the parking lot of Deol’s apartment complex on West Springs Drive, neighbors said.

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A resident told police about seeing two men flee the scene after the shots rang but could not provide a detailed description, said Pfc. Jennifer Reidy, a police spokeswoman.

Angelica Jerezano, 15, who lives in the apartment complex, said she heard three gunshots Friday night and later ventured outside to find two men attending to Raja.

On Monday, she pointed to where police had washed the bloodstain from the pavement.

“I can’t sleep because now I’m afraid they can come in here,” Angelica said.

A man who answered the door of Raja’s Honey Bee Court town house Monday and identified himself as Mushtaq Raja said the family was too distraught to talk about the incident.

DAWN, an English-language newspaper in Pakistan, reported Sunday that Raja’s family had migrated from Islamabad to the United States, and Raja’s father, Sadiq Raja, is a well-known member of the Pakistani community in the Baltimore-Washington region.

Raja’s death marks Howard’s fourth homicide this year. Police are offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the suspects’ arrests.

jpalazzolo@baltimoreexaminer.com