As far as Baltimore prosecutors are concerned, this is one down, one more to go. Valeria Smith pleaded guilty on Thursday in the death of her stepmother Jacquelyn Smith. This leaves her father Keith Smith as the remaining defendant.
Her trial was set to begin Thursday, but she pleaded guilty to accessory to the murder.
Jacquelyn Smith was murdered last December. At the time, authorities believed that she was killed after she gave money to a panhandler. The official story changed. Authorities arrested the victim’s husband and stepdaughter near the U.S.-Mexico border in Combes, Texas last March. Keith Smith told a lie, they said.
“Something needs to be done, because now you don’t know whether or not you’re going to give and this person’s going to take your life or they’re going to say thank you,” Keith Smith said in December, according to The Baltimore Sun. Back then, people saw him as a grieving husband. “There are some desperate people. They don’t need help; they’re trying to hurt you.”
[Screengrab via WJZ]