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A 22-year-old found shot dead in a church parking lot in Whitchurch-Stouffville had been arrested last year in the theft of animals from a zoo.

York Regional Police were called Wednesday at 3 p.m. to the Churchill Community Church on Ninth Line near Aurora Rd. where Alex Perlmutter, 22, of Sunderland, was discovered. He died at the scene.

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Police haven’t released a motive, but say the shooting occurred in a parking lot at Queensville Side Rd. and Hwy. 48 and then Perlmutter was driven by a witness to the church parking lot.

Last year, Perlmutter was charged after a baby Gibbon monkey named Agnus, a black and white Lemur named JC and a tortoise named Stanley were stolen from the Elmvale Jungle Zoo near Barrie last spring.

Friends and family have posted “through the good times and the difficult ones Alex was there for you.”

Perlmutter had a girlfriend and toddler son.

Police are searching for three males who fled in a black SUV.