Man convicted of murdering his wife, a killing he blamed on panhandlers

Keith Smith, the Maryland man suspected of killing his wife three years ago and blaming her murder on a panhandler, was convicted Thursday of first-degree murder.

Jurors found Keith Tyrone Smith, 55, of Aberdeen guilty of first-degree murder and deadly weapon with intent to injure in the 2018 stabbing death of his wife, Jacquelyn Smith, following a week-long trial.

Wife murdered

Jacquelyn Smith, an engineer for Aberdeen Proving Ground, was fatally stabbed Dec. 1, 2018. Her husband called 911 that night, saying his wife had been stabbed by a panhandler in East Baltimore.

Jacquelyn Smith

Keith and his daughter Valeria Smith, made a tearful plea to catch the killers of Jacquelyn, only for prosecutors to find out they were in on it.

By then, the father daughter duo had fled town after his wife’s murder. They were arrested three months later near the U.S.-Mexico border, roughly 1,700 miles from Maryland.

Valeria Smith pleaded guilty in September 2019 to accessory in exchange to testify against her father, who she says masterminded the whole thing.

Keith Smith trial

During the trial, Valeria recalled in detail the events that unfolded the night of her stepmother’s murder. She said they were out celebrating a belated birthday when her father took a detour to Druid Hill Park. At some point, she said, he slowed down and stabbed his wife.

She testified that her father was calm afterward, but his demeanor changed when he called 911. She told the court that once her father discarded the murder weapon, a knife, in the woods, he told her to lie to police and say a panhandler stabbed his wife.

A day or two after the murder, she said, her father went to his wife’s workplace to get paperwork for her life insurance policy. He was the beneficiary.

A special agent with the FBI also took the stand, saying Google and cellphone data placed both Smith and his daughter in Druid Hill Park at the time of the murder, not in East Baltimore as Smith claimed.

Valeria Smith will be sentenced Dec. 13.

Her father, Keith Smith faces a maximum sentence of life in prison plus three years at sentencing on Feb. 28.