Francis M. Zito, sentenced to death for murdering two Eastern Shore police officers last year, died yesterday at University of Maryland Medical Center, the state prison system reported.

The 43-year-old had been hospitalized for several weeks with cancer, a law enforcement source said. He had been transferred to the hospital from the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center - the state's Supermax prison in Baltimore.

Patricia L. Chappell, an attorney who represented Zito, said she was told he had been suffering from lung cancer.

Zito, who was mentally ill, admitted to killing Centreville Officer Michael S. Nickerson, 24, and Queen Anne's County Sheriff's Deputy Jason C. Schwenz, 28. He received two death sentences in May for the killings, and a life sentence for attempted murder of another officer.

On Feb. 13 of last year, Schwenz, Nickerson and State Trooper Richard Corey Skidmore answered a complaint about loud music at the trailer park where Zito lived in Centreville.

Nickerson and Schwenz were killed as they stood in Zito's enclosed porch and tried to enter his trailer through the front door. Skidmore, who was not injured in the shooting, subdued and arrested Zito.

At trial, Skidmore contradicted Zito's testimony that police tried to enter his trailer with guns drawn. Zito blamed police for the incident, saying that their entry into his trailer was a violation of his constitutional rights.

Zito had suffered since childhood from a form of schizophrenia and had spent most of his adult life in and out of mental hospitals. But the jury rejected Zito's defense that he was not criminally responsible due to mental illness. Queen Anne's State's Attorney David W. Gregory Jr. said Zito knew what he was doing when he fired several shotgun blasts at the lawmen.

Decades before the shooting last year, Zito, then 22, told a doctor at Haverford State Hospital in Pennsylvania that there was a "war within himself." He was diagnosed as having a paranoid personality and a drinking problem, along with a history of drug abuse.

According to a psychological evaluation, Zito dropped out of school in the 11th grade and had planned to join the Army. "Indeed some of the patient's delusionals are of being a soldier, constantly at odds with the enemy," according to the report. "In this connection he has strong, not well suppressed, desires to retaliate for the many years of suffering that have been forced upon him."

Before he was sentenced to death, Zito expressed remorse for his actions.

"I didn't want or plan for this to happen," he told the jury. "I'm sorry for the police officers' loved ones."

Few details were divulged yesterday about Zito's death.

Noting medical confidentiality, Capt. Priscilla Doggett, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Correction, would not comment on Zito's treatment, saying there was nothing suspicious about the inmate's death.

"There was no foul play. It was not a suicide," Doggett said.