The woman was shot in a parking garage at a Home Depot store in the Seven Corners Shopping Center around 9:15 p.m. Fairfax County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said last night. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

“I know the question in everyone’s mind is is this shooting related to the others we’ve had in the area,” Manger said. “It’s too early to tell at this point. However, we are working it and investigating it with that potential in mind.”

Authorities rushed to the shopping center at the intersection of U.S. 50 and State Route 7 and began an immediate dragnet on area roads similar to the one that followed last Friday’s slaying of a Philadelphia businessman at a Spotsylvania County gas station.

Police set up roadblocks on Interstate 495 around Washington, as well Interstates 95 and 66 and other major roads in the area in an attempt to locate a cream-colored Chevy Astro van with its right rear taillight out. Witnesses reported seeing such a vehicle flee the scene eastbound on U.S. 50 shortly after the shooting, state police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell said.

Traffic backed up for “miles and miles,” Caldwell said, as police funneled vehicles into one lane for the search.

Caldwell said witnesses also had given a possible tag number and described a white man wearing a blue shirt and blue pants.

“It certainly looks like there’s more information in this incident than the other shootings,” Caldwell said around 11 p.m. “He may well be sitting in that line of cars right now.”

Witnesses at the Massaponax shooting said they saw a white Chevy Astro van fleeing the scene. Montgomery County, Md., authorities released a composite Saturday of a white panel truck witnesses had spotted at some of the five fatal shootings there.