Father gets 5 years in prison for son’s death
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The father who intended to “wing” his son but fatally shot him instead was sentenced Thursday morning.
Alexander B. DiMarzio, 57, of 202 Broadway Apt. 2040 in Quantico, received a 20-year sentence with 15 years suspended on condition of three years of probation.
DiMarzio pleaded guilty to shooting his son, Benjamin Alexander DiMarzio, 33, in August 2002. At the trial, DiMarzio’s wife, Mary Louise DiMarzio, testified that their son had been very violent since his release from prison approximately three months before the Nov. 2, 2001 shooting. She described her son beating up his father every night.
“He told us he would chop us into a million pieces, that he had killed three men in prison,” Mary Louise DiMarzio said of her son in August, as she measured with her hands the size of the knives and machete she said Benjamin had taken to her husband and herself.
She testified that she and her husband were fearful of their own lives, as well as the safety of their two grandchildren, ages 3 and 5. So for protection Alexander DiMarzio bought a .32 caliber Beretta on the street for $60.
“He told his son he wanted peace in the house. He bought [the gun] just to scare him and fired one shot intending to wing him,” Prince William County Police Detective Samuel E. Walker testified in August.
The charge against DiMarzio was reduced to second-degree murder in August. DiMarzio’s sentence was also recommended by the Commonwealth.
Alexander B. DiMarzio called the police from Sam’s Inn bar, where he walked after the shooting. He ordered a beer and waited for police to arrive.
Staff writer Maria Hegstad can be reached at (703) 368-3101, Ext. 121.