Keith Smith, right, and his stepdaughter, Valeria Smith, were arrested on Sunday near the U.S.-Mexico border in Harlingen, Texas, and were both charged with first-degree murder. (Baltimore Police Department)
A Maryland man and his stepdaughter were arrested Sunday near the U.S.-Mexico border and were charged in last year's killing of the woman's mother that was once blamed on a panhandler, Baltimore police said.
Baltimore police said Keith Smith, 52, and his daughter Valeria Smith, 28, were attempting to flee the country but were apprehended by Texas State Police in Harlingen, near the border of Mexico. Both have been charged with first-degree murder, police said.
Keith Smith’s wife, 54-year-old Jacquelyn Smith, was found stabbed to death on Dec. 1, 2018. Smith had told police that his wife was stabbed to death after giving money to a panhandler in East Baltimore, according to earlier reports. The case attracted national attention. But on Sunday, police alleged that is was Smith and his stepdaughter – not the panhandler – who were responsible for his wife’s death.
“The information and evidence points it wasn’t a panhandler,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison told reporters on Sunday.
MARYLAND WOMAN THOUGHT KILLED BY PANHANDLER WAS ACTUALLY KILLED BY HUSBAND: POLICE
Smith’s family reportedly became suspicious after investigators began asking questions about him, The Baltimore Sun reported. A family member said Smith had told the family he was moving to Florida and left Baltimore in mid-February.
A spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety highway said the department had received information on Smith and his vehicle. A Texas state trooper spotted Smith and his stepdaughter leaving a grocery store parking lot in a rental car around 10 a.m. and arrested them on warrants from Baltimore, the report said.
Smith and his stepdaughter were reportedly taken into custody without incident and were being held at the Cameron County jail as of Sunday evening.
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