Good Samaritan Stabbed To Death While Trying To Help Panhandler

A Harford County woman stabbed to death in east Baltimore early Saturday morning after helping a panhandler is being remembered for having a “heart of gold.”

Friends say Jacqueline Smith lived in Aberdeen and was likely only in the city to drop family members off. They’re in disbelief the man who killed her got away.

A smiling photo of Smith is now plastered all over the east Baltimore block where police are searching for her killer.

Baltimore police say the 52-year-old was in the car with her husband and his daughter just after midnight, when she rolled down her window to hand money to a woman holding a sign, asking for help to feed her baby.

A good deed suddenly repaid with violence.

“And that’s when an unknown man approached the vehicle, stabbed the woman, and then left the location,” Jeremy Silbert, with the Baltimore Police Department said.

The whole incident happened less than a block away from Latrobe Homes.

Two of Jacqueline’s friends — who did not want their names released — describe Jacqueline as a woman with a heart of gold.

“A very loving, caring person. A very hard working woman. Just…just sweet,” a friend said.

And while they’re skeptical about the story told to police, they don’t doubt she’d help someone in need.

“It just don’t sound right to me. It just don’t sound right, it really doesn’t,” another friend added. “But if it did, I can see her doing that. Going in her purse and giving someone some money. Because she’s the type of person who would do that for anybody.”

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh weighed in on Smith’s death.

“We don’t want people destroying other people’s lives,” she said. “This is unconscionable and as I’ve continued to say, one life lost in this city is one life too many.”

Pugh said this is a reminder not to roll down your windows for panhandlers.

The man police are looking for is possibly in his 30s and has a goatee. Anyone with information is asked to call police.