Lidia Inglese Marino, an 85-year-old female born in Italy, was killed on Friday morning, May 8, 2020, during what had been a familiar and deeply personal visit to the Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Bear, Delaware. She and her husband, 86-year-old Paul C. Marino, lived in Elkton, Maryland, and had gone to the cemetery to visit the grave of their son, Anthony Marino, who had died in 2017.
Their visits were described as frequent, even nearly daily, and the cemetery had become a place of remembrance for the couple.
At about 10:13 a.m., Delaware State Police were called to the cemetery at 2465 Chesapeake City Road after reports of shots being fired. When troopers arrived, they found Lidia and Paul suffering from gunshot wounds on the cemetery grounds. Lidia was pronounced dead at the scene. Paul was taken to a hospital in critical condition, but he later died from his injuries. What began as a quiet act of mourning for their son became a double homicide that stunned the surrounding community.
Authorities identified the gunman as 29-year-old Sheldon C. Francis of Middletown, Delaware. Investigators said Francis was responsible for shooting both victims. After the attack, he fled from the cemetery into a nearby wooded area between the cemetery and the Brennan Estates neighborhood. Police secured the area and began a search, while nearby residents were warned and some homes in the area were affected by the ongoing danger.
The confrontation did not end with an arrest. Francis, who was armed with handguns and a rifle, exchanged gunfire with responding officers, including members of the Delaware State Police Special Operations Response Team. Officials later said he fired multiple rounds at a police armored vehicle and that gunfire also struck nearby homes. No officers or other civilians were reported injured during the exchange. Francis was shot by law enforcement and pronounced dead at the scene in the wooded area several hours after the cemetery shooting.
Because Francis died during the police response, there were no criminal charges, trial, or conviction in the deaths of Lidia and Paul Marino. The Delaware Department of Justice later reviewed the use of force by police and found the fatal shooting of Francis justified. The review concluded that Francis had opened fire on officers while armed, and that the trooper who fired the fatal shot acted in response to the threat.
A clear motive was never publicly established. In the weeks after the killings, police said they had not determined why Francis attacked the couple. Reports described the shooting as appearing random, and authorities did not publicly identify any known connection between Francis and the Marinos. The lack of an apparent motive left one of the most painful parts of the case unresolved: Lidia and Paul Marino seem to have been targeted while simply honoring the memory of their son.
