On the evening of June 16, 2019, 68-year-old Marlita Ann Smith was shot once in the chest and died at her home on the 5000 block of North 7th Street in Philadelphia’s Olney neighborhood. The shooting occurred just after 11 p.m. during what authorities described as a domestic dispute. A gun was recovered at the scene.

Marlita had been a supervisor at Temple University Hospital and was a mother to two sons; those who knew her remembered her as kind and sweet. The only other person in the house that night was her 69-year-old husband, who was taken into custody as the primary suspect and transported for interview by homicide detectives.