This week, a Maryland woman will testify that she assisted her father in covering up the killing of her stepmother on Dec. 1, 2018, and blaming it on panhandlers.
According to Law & Crime, Valeria Smith, 31, pleaded guilty in 2019 to being an accessory after the fact to her father, Keith Smith
, 55, murdering her stepmother Jacquelyn Smith, 54.According to authorities, Keith Smith told police officers was that he was driving home in Baltimore with Jacquelyn and Valeria after celebrating the latter’s birthday. He said Jacquelyn gave some panhandlers $10 through the car window, but then they snatched her necklace, took her purse, and stabbed her multiple times. Keith told police the suspects were a man in a blue hoodie, who allegedly stabbed Jacquelyn, and a woman in a brown coat who was carrying a baby.
Assistant State Attorney Shaundria Hanna said in her opening statements last Thursday that Keith regularly told this particular story, but the details of the incident changed; inconsistencies emerged over time.
Police officer Sgt. Daniel Santos testified that police officers couldn’t find the crime scene of the alleged robbery although they returned to the exact intersection where Keith Smith said it happened. They did not find any evidence that the robbery occurred nor either of the panhandlers.
Valeria said she helped her father try to cover up the murder by throwing away Jacquelyn’s purse at a bus stop.
Keith and Valeria were arrested just 20 minutes from the Mexico border. Valeria is facing 10 years in prison. Her sentencing is scheduled to take place Dec. 13, after her father’s trial.
“I was strung out on drugs and scared for my life,” Valeria Smith previously wrote the judge. Her attorney saying she lived with bipolar disorder, according to The Baltimore Sun. “My father made me leave the state,” she wrote