It wasn't supposed to happen here. Not to her...not to anyone.
Parked inside the Calvert's Walk apartment complex, just south of Bel Air, sat a black Honda Accord -- it's driver's side door slightly open.
It was early and a woman was slumped over.
"...and located her inside. She was obviously deceased, hit several times with handgun rounds. So they called CID to the scene and we obviously had a shooting; we had a homicide on our hands," Det. David Skica said.
The Harford County Sheriff's Office's criminal investigation division blocked off the area.
Countless neighbors told detectives the same thing; they heard at least four shots.
"It's not west or east Baltimore. It's Bel AIr. These kinds of things don't happen -- gunshots by-and-large, homicide or not, or just somebody shooting a gun in the air. This doesn't happen in Bel Air," Skica said.
Skica has room to say that -- he worked in the city before coming to Harford County ten years ago.
He and other investigators found 28-year-old Marilyn Jaz Scott, a staff sergeant, who'd worked up on a National Guard base in Delaware.
Her mother, Brenda Ruffin, spoke to WMAR-2 News' Skyler Henry by phone, remembers the morning well.
"I usually send my daughters good morning texts. It was so cold. My fingers were freezing trying to type. So I said I'll do it when I got into work," Brenda said.
...and she did.
Moments later, her phone didn't stop ringing.
It was the sheriff's office.
"They said, basically, there's been an accident. ANd I was like well is she ok? Can I go see her? And they were like no, she's dead," Brenda recalled.
RELATED: Woman found dead at apartment complex in Bel Air
Marilyn was shot three times in the head.
Skica says the way they found Marilyn's body and the fact that nothing was taken from her car, with keys still in her hand, led them to believe someone wanted Marilyn gone.
"This was a hit. This is somebody who wanted her dead. They didn't want to scare her. They didn't want to take her things. They didn't want to go into her house and steal her possessions. They wanted her dead. There was only one reason they came there and that was to kill Marilyn Scott," Skica said.
According to Skica, Marilyn was very private; regimented in every way from her schedule to compartmentalizing her friends, all the way down to her love life.
Her younger sister, Paris, says that's part military, part just the way she was.
"She was just a well-rounded person. She was very smart. You know how you' meet very smart people...it's just like wow, how did you get that smart? She read a lot of books and different things like that, but when you think about a single woman's lifestyle, you just don't know what to think of because everybody decides to live their life differently," she said.
Detectives say how Marilyn chose to live may be the one thing holding them back from solving this case.
Because she kept everyone at an arm's length away, never mixing friends groups, or family often -- it's tough to cross match who knows that or in this case who.
Especially about news here family didn't learn until recently.
"My sister was pregnant when she was murdered and the number one suspect matches that DNA," Paris said.
Marilyn was three months pregnant.
Harford County detectives say after taking their investigation out of state, they've narrowed down their search on who they think killed her.
But they don't have enough to link who they think did it the morning of the crime.
"You not only took my daughter's life, but you an unborn child's life. You're cowering. You're hiding. So the bravado you might have shown her -- what you're showing the public is that you're a cheap coward," Brenda said.
Strong words from a mother who's lost her oldest daughter, and wants a case that's now going on tow years old solved.
"We feel very confident that we know who did it, but we just don't have the, no pun intended, but the smoking gun -- the absolutely refutal piece of evidence that will connect the suspect to Marilyn," Skica said. Anyone with information can submit an anonymous tip to Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7-LOCKUP.
