45-year-old Laura Rios was shot and killed in Toronto, Ont., Monday, Dec. 7, 2009. (Freddy Velez/Correo Canadiense)

TORONTO -- A Toronto woman who ran a shipping business between Canada, Ecuador and Colombia was shot dead while she tended to her two-year-old daughter outside her Weston apartment building.

For nearly two decades, 45-year-old Laura Rios ran Rios Envios, most recently out of an office park near Keele St. and Lawrence Ave., where shocked employees yesterday recalled her toddler, Emma, running around the building.

The gunman waited outside the Colombia native's Weston Rd. apartment, north of Lawrence, until about 8:45 p.m. on Monday when the shots were fired as Rios tended to her daughter sitting in the backseat of her truck, homicide Det.-Sgt. Pauline Gray said.

"Adults have whatever issues they have, but this is a lovely, innocent little girl and I can't imagine what she'll have to do or have to go through for the rest of her life. I can't imagine," Gray said.

Workers in the office park shared with Rios Envios said Rios' daughter and two sons, believed to be about 18 and 22 years old, were often there.

According to its website, Rios Envios was founded in 1991 to transport goods to South America.

In a letter posted on colombiaenlondon.com, Rios said that in November 2008, she was visited by two Colombians who offered to develop a computer program for her company. Rios said she invested $10,000 in the program, which never came to fruition. Instead, Rios said, her database of clients and transactions from the last four years was stolen and the fraudsters used that database to steal her customers.

Freddy Velez, a journalist with Toronto Spanish-language newspaper Correo Canadiense, described Rios as "a very strong woman, a very hard worker," who gave her time and money to humanitarian causes and Colombian-Canadian events around the city.

"She was a very happy person. She was able to make friends anywhere," Velez said.

Rios, who was born in Pereira, Colombia, worked as a seamstress after coming to Canada more than 20 years ago and later went to business school. She started up a fashion design company and continued designing clothes while she ran her shipping company, Velez said.

"She was an immigrant who came to Canada who is always, day and night, working and always ready to help others," he said.

The killer was described as about 6-feet tall, with a blue sweatshirt and grey sweatpants. He took off south on Weston Rd. in an older model, dark-coloured vehicle with "a very loud muffler," Gray said.

"We believe that for reasons unknown to us at this time, the victim in this murder was targeted," she said.