HEY JOE, WHERE YOU GONNA GO, WHERE YOU GONNA RUN?

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

The Old West image of desperadoes making a run for the border to avoid capture by beating the lawmen to the Rio Grande was relived yet once again when 52-year-old Keith Smith and his 28-year-old stepdaughter, Valeria Smith were arrested Monday.

Both were arrested in Harlingen by troopers of the Texas Department of Public Safety as they headed south toward the river and into Mexico. They were arraigned Monday morning by Cameron County Ass. District Judge/Magistrate Louis Sorola.

Sorola gave Maryland authorities 10 days to pick up the pair. But Baltimore police have asked for five more days before they pick them up.

The couple are accused of killing Kevin Smith's wife his wife and blaming her death on a panhandler.

Cameron County Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. Joe Elizardi said a Baltimore detective requested a five-day extension Tuesday. That means Smith and  Kevin and Valeria Smith  could remain in Texas until March 20. They agreed to be extradited Monday.

The warrants issued for Keith Smith and Valeria Smith list murder, conspiracy, assault and weapons charges in the Dec.1, 2018, killing of Jacquelin Smith. Her husband said she rolled down her window to give money to a panhandler, who stabbed her.
But Baltimore police announced  Sunday that story wasn't true and Smith's husband and step-daughter and placed a nationwide alert for the couple.

This was not the first time - and probably not the last - when criminals fleeing the law have made for the border. The other recent case, also heard by Sorola, was the case of the woman from Minnesota who was a suspect in the murder of her husband there and and of a Florida woman she met while she was on the run.

That nationwide manhunt came to an end after officials arrested Lois Anne Riess, 56, outside the Sea Ranch restaurant on South Padre Island.

Riess is suspected of killing her husband, David Riess and of Pamela Hutchinson in Florida in order to assume Hutchinson’s identity.  

South Padre Island’s Police Randy Smith said status as a tourist destination could mean Riess intended to stay.