Jury Watches Interrogation Video In Murder Trial For Keith Smith, Who Blamed Panhandler For Wife's Death
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- On day three of the trial against Keith Smith, the man who's been charged with first-degree murder after his wife was stabbed to death, video recordings of his interrogation were played in court.
Mr. Smith is accused of killing his wife Jacquelyn Smith and then blaming it on a panhandler.
Prosecutors played video of the defendant being interrogated. At one point a detective said, "I have gathered amazing evidence." The detective went on to say "Something happened in that car between you two, you're the cause".
Even though Keith Smith repeatedly denied he had anything to do with his wife's murder, the detective said "You are absolutely the reason your wife is dead."
The detective was so convinced, he told the life insurance company to hold off on the payout because her husband was a suspect in the case.
The detective's confidence came from cell phone data that pinged Keith Smith's phone in Druid Hill Park for more than 10 minutes. In addition to that, one detective testified that they reviewed nine blocks of both public and private video surveillance and no cameras captured evidence that would validate the allegation that Jacquelyn Smith was murdered in East Baltimore.
One detective said Keith Smith's daughter Valeria Smith eventually took them to the park and told them what happened to her stepmom. Valeria Smith pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.
Jacquelyn Smith, an engineer at Aberdeen Proving Ground, was killed in December of 2018. Her husband blamed it on a panhandler. Prosecutors say he later left for Florida.
But while he was there, detectives got warrants to wiretap his phone and found out he was sending a package back to Baltimore to his daughter.
A postal service worker testified on Friday that he got a call to intercept that package and when they opened the package, it was a cell phone and a number.
Keith Smith may have been trying to dodge the radar of investigators because one law enforcement witness testified that he changed numbers.
A detective testified that cell phone towers eventually had a hit on Smith's phone in Brownsville, Texas. He and his daughter were arrested three months after the murder near the U.S.-Mexico border.
