Jury acquits Baltimore man in 1981 murder
Phillip Lee had been charged in the brutal killing of Anna Dorthea Smith, 75
The 1981 killing of Anna Dorthea Smith will remain unsolved.
A Baltimore jury acquitted Phillip Lee of murder last week in the decades-old cold case. Jurors in the weeklong trial found the 58-year-old Northeast Baltimore man not guilty of all charges.
Prosecutors said DNA evidence linked Lee to the gruesome killing. The 75-year-old Smith was found bound, gagged and suffocated to death on her bed.
But Lee’s public defender told jurors the evidence had been compromised. His defense attorney, Jane McGough, did not return messages seeking comment Wednesday.
The prosecutors based their case on DNA recovered from semen found on Smith’s bed, but tested years after her death. Prosecutors told jurors they also found DNA evidence from a second unidentified man.
“Decades-old cases that rely on DNA evidence are always complex, especially when there are multiple parties involved,” said Melba Saunders, spokeswoman for the state’s attorney’s office. “We strongly believe that there was enough evidence to convict; however, the jury decided otherwise. We respect the jury’s decision and our office will do its best to support the legacy and loved ones of Ms. Smith.”
The Cold Case Unit reviewed the evidence in 2005, suspecting DNAtests unavail- Anna Dorthea Smith was found bound and gagged in her Shipley Hill home in West Baltimore. able in 1981 might bring new leads. It found and tested semen from Smith’s bed, which led to the case against Lee.
During her opening statement, McGough told jurors the evidence was not a complete match.
Smith lived on West Fairmount Avenue in the Shipley Hill neighborhood. Jurors were shown a photo of her in a pink house dress standing before flowers.
A neighbor called police in December1981 after noticing Smith’s back door cracked open. Detectives found the door had been pried. Inside, the only light came from her sewing machine.
Detectives found Smith’s body on the bed. She was gagged with a ball of cloth. A sweater was wrapped around her head. She had been dead for a few days.