Husband, stepdaughter arrested in death of woman they initially said was k*lled by panhandler

husband and stepdaughter of the woman who was killed in an East Baltimore stabbing in December — after her husband said she gave money out of their car window to a panhandler — have been arrested in her death, police said Sunday.

Earlier in the day, Keith Smith, 52, and Valeria Smith, 28, were arrested by Texas state police in Harlingen, near the Mexican boarder while trying to flee the country, acting Baltimore police Commissioner Michael Harrisonsaid. Warrants charging them with first-degree murder were issued Sunday, Harrison said.
Jacquelyn Smith, 54, an electrical engineer at Aberdeen Proving Ground, was stabbed to death at North Valley and East Chase streets about 12:30 a.m. on Dec. 1, according to police.

Her husband, Keith Smith, and his daughter appeared at a tearful news conference at the scene, just days after the stabbing, blaming it on a man who had approached after she had reached out the window to hand money to a woman allegedly begging in the rain. They said the man had come up to the car under the guise of thanking Jacquelyn Smith for her generosity, then reached into the car and snatched her necklace and pocketbook, stabbing her in the process.
Several members of Jacquelyn Smith’s family had questioned the story from the beginning, her brother Marcel Trisvan, of Havre de Grace, said.

“I already know it’s Keith,” he said. Trisvan said police have provided no information to the family, but that detectives had increasingly been asking the family about his sister’s relationship with her husband.

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