Maryland Baltimore City
Jury finds Baltimore man guilty of murder in death of police spokesman's younger brother
Facebook photo / HANDOUT
Dionay Smith, 24, was found fatally shot in his home in July 2017.
Dionay Smith, 24, was found fatally shot in his home in July 2017. (Facebook photo / HANDOUT)
Tim PrudenteContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun
A Baltimore jury has found Terrell Gibson guilty of murdering Dionay Smith, a 24-year-old father and the younger brother of T.J. Smith, chief spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department.
After Friday's verdict, Gibson now awaits sentencing in Baltimore Circuit Court. The trial began Monday.
Smith, 24, was found shot to death in his Upton apartment in July 2017. Within days, police arrested Gibson, who lived a mile away, and charged him with murder.
Prosecutors said the 22-year-old Gibson had been captured on surveillance cameras entering the apartment where Smith's body was found.
The murder trial for Terrell Gibson began Tuesday with prosecutors saying surveillance cameras captured the 22-year-old entering an apartment to kill the brother of the city police spokesman.
The shooting death of Dionay Smith in July 2017 rattled the city, showing that no family was safe from...
Smith's death rattled the city, and it showed that no family was safe from Baltimore's pervasive street violence — not even a family closely connected to the police department. T.J. Smith has been with the city department since 2015. He was previously director of media relations for Anne Arundel County police.
After the verdict on Friday, he wrote online of his continued grief. His brother had three toddlers, worked two jobs and volunteered at the Kids Safe Zone in West Baltimore — a haven for neighborhood children to play.
"While I am pleased with the jury's decision, it does not bring back Dion," his brother wrote. "His three children, two sons and daughter, will only have distant memories from the three years they had to spend with him.
"Our job, as a family, will be to ensure they know that their father was a kind-hearted soul who was taken from this earth far too soon," Smith wrote.
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