BALTIMORE _ The husband and stepdaughter of Jacquelyn Smith, 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, were arrested and charged with killing her, police said.
They were arrested while trying to flee the country, Interim Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said.
Keith Smith and Shavon Smith are charged with first-degree murder.
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. Dec. 1, according to police.
Her husband, Keith, and his daughter, Shavon, 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 begging in the rain. They said the man had come up to the car under the guise of thanking Jacquelyn Smith for her generosity, and then reached into the car and snatched her necklace and pocketbook, stabbing her in the process.
"Like everyone in our city, state and across this nation, we mourned the senseless killing of Jacquelyn Smith. To now learn that family members staged this brutal killing is beyond belief and represents a double tragedy," Mayor Catherine Pugh said in a statement Sunday.
"They were responsible for taking Jacquelyn's life with unconscionable cruelty and contrived to do so in our city under the guise of random violence, exploiting the legitimate fears of our residents," she said.
The case drew national attention, causing some _ including Oprah Winfrey _ to express concern about giving money to panhandlers. In the days after Smith's killing, some of Baltimore's homeless citizens said they noticed a decrease in the number of people willing to roll down their windows and help.
