As a teenager in the early 1980s, Marie Molea was captain of the cheerleading team and homecoming queen at Lynn Classical High School.

She later got married and started a family. She went to college and became a school nurse. She ran the Boston Marathon. She doted on her children, cheering for them at sports games and Irish dance meets.

But everything changed when Molea started experiencing bouts of paranoia, leaving her family perplexed and concerned. She gradually became consumed by mental illness. As her condition worsened and her physical health declined, Molea withdrew from the robust life she had built — a decades-long downward spiral that ultimately left her unhoused on the streets of Boston.

Last week, the family learned that Molea, 61, had been killed in a shooting no

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