CLAYTON, N.C. — One of the victims killed in a mass shooting in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Thursday night was set to be married in two weeks. Now, Mary Marshall's wedding day will turn into a celebration of life ceremony, her sister said.
Marshall, 35, was a beloved sister and aunt who was planning to marry her fiancé Rob on Oct. 29, her sister Meaghan McCrickard told NBC News on Friday.
“Her fiancé Rob, he was just the love of her life,” McCrickard said. “I think we’re going to still do a celebration of life, that’s the plan, for the date of the wedding.”
“She’s got a friend coming from Japan, somebody coming from Florida, from Texas," she said. "As excited as she was to be married, I know she was more excited to have all the people she loved the most at the same place at the same time."
Marshall and her fiancé had rented two big cabins in the mountains and because they loved Halloween they were going to decorate the space with pumpkins.
“It was going to be the most beautiful, fall, spooky wedding,” McCrickard said.
She described her sister who is three years younger than her as “the most amazing, wonderful person" and "my best friend."
McCrickard said Marshall was "goofy" and loved spending time with her nieces.
At the time of the shooting, Marshall was taking her dog Scruff for a walk on Neuse River Greenway trail.
"She had called her fiancé Rob and said, 'I’m walking the dog, I’m hearing these gunshots, can you come home?' And that was the last conversation that they had had,” McCrickard said.
McCrickard said Marshall's dog “Scruff sat with her all night and didn’t leave.”
Marshall spent four years in the Navy stationed in California, but also spent time in Asia, including Japan, her sister said. After serving, Marshall got a degree in pastry arts.
She was also an office manager for a small chiropractic office in Raleigh.
“She helped turn it into a much larger, multi-provider practice and she was the heart and soul of that office," McCrickard said. “The entire office staff was with my parents and her fiancé last night outside the neighborhood.”
Now the family is left "numb" and in "disbelief." McCrickard said her parents are "crushed."
Ginny Marshall, Marshall’s mother, sobbed as she spoke about the loss of her daughter.
“Mary’s birthday is next week and she was going to be married in two weeks,” she said with tears running down her cheeks. “We don’t know what to do.”
McCrickard said she wants the shooter, identified by police as a 15-year-old in critical condition, to survive and face justice.
“I want him to know what he did and how he completely shattered our lives and we are never going to be the same. I don’t want him to get off," she said.
“She is just a light. She loved everyone. The most loyal, loving person I’ve ever known. And we just want people to know that about her,” McCrickard said.
Marlene Lenthang reported from New York, Jamie Morrison from North Carolina.
