Police track leads in probe of killing

“How could she have fought back?” the sister of the 5-foot 112-pound victim asked.

BY JEANNE STARMACK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — As police continued the search for her killer, family and friends remembered Angeline Fimognari as a quiet, selfless woman who faithfully went to church every day.

Fimognari, 80, was shot in the parking lot of St. Dominic’s Church on Lucius Avenue Saturday morning after she attended 8 a.m. Mass there. Police believe the motive was robbery. Fimognari’s sister said her purse was stolen.

Police believe Fimognari was the last person to leave the Mass. They said they were called to the parking lot around 10 a.m. after a parishoner who was meeting with a priest at the church found her slumped over in the driver’s side of her car. The car door was open.

Police said she had been shot in the head. They said they didn’t know what type of gun had been used.

The car had been parked close to the door of the church, said her sister, Betty Milano.

Two priests at St. Dominic’s told police they were eating breakfast at 8:30 a.m. when they saw a man run through the parking lot toward Lucius Avenue, then west toward Market Street.

The man was about 20 years old, 5-foot-10 and 160 pounds. He had on a black skull cap.

Police searched the area with a dog but got no results.

The church has surveillance cameras that were recording, police said.

They said Sunday there was no update on whether a suspect has been identified.

Meanwhile, family, friends and neighbors prepared to say goodbye to a woman who they say loved God and the church and her family.

Fimognari lived on Sheridan Road in the Brownlee Woods section of Youngstown. Milano lives two doors down from her sister’s.

Though Fimognari never married or had her own children, she still loved kids, said her sister. “She was a mother to my children and grandchildren,” said Milano, who also called her sister a “beautiful person.”

“She wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Milano said. “She gave to you, and wanted nothing in return.”

“She was a woman who prayed for many,” said a family friend, Patti Ruggieri of Boardman. “To best describe her: She exemplified the faith of God,” Ruggieri added.

“It just broke my heart today,” Fimognari’s next-door neighbor, Beverly Dobos, said Sunday. She said she found out her neighbor was the woman who’d been shot at church after Fimognari’s nephew came to tell her.

She said she did not know Fimognari well, but would wave to her as she passed through her yard on her way to her sister’s. Fimognari tended a vegetable garden and still mowed her own yard.

She was frail though, at 112 pounds and 5-foot-1-inch tall, according to the police report. She was also a cancer survivor, said Milano.

“How could she have fought back?” Milano said, as she and friends who gathered at her home Sunday night questioned why anyone would need to shoot her to get her purse.

Milano questioned why the church didn’t have better security.

“It’s a beautiful church in a bad area,” said Ruggieri, who added that she lived in the neighborhood before and knows people there who’ve had their cars stolen.

The women also said the crime happened in the daylight, when people normally feel safer.

“It’s a lot of gangs,” said Ruggieri. “We’re going to have to be more cautious.”

Milano said a service is planned for her sister Wednesday at St. Charles Church in Boardman. Arrangements were tentative Sunday evening.