By Alicia Cruz
The Black Urban Times
She was four-years old when her mother was brutally murdered right before her eyes. That was 18 years ago. Today, her mother's killer is finally facing murder charges.
When police began investigating the April 6, 1993 disappearance of then 22-year-old Jessica Smith, Christina Smith, now 22, told the officers "Daddy shot mommy in the head."
Six days after the shooting, Jessica Smiths' body was found in a vacant lot.
The Bronx District Attorney's office, who would have prosecuted the case back then, were concerned about using the little girl's statement in order to seal the fate of Jessica's then-live-in boyfriend, DeJohn Hoffman and their number one suspect. Prosecutors declined to charge Hoffman, now 47, and the case went cold.
Then, in 2006, cold-case detectives re-opened the Smith homicide and visited Hoffman at his new address: The Eastern Correctional Facility in Napanoch, New York where he was serving time for a 1993 conviction in connection to a Brooklyn shooting of a bystander during an attempted robbery at a Brooklyn bodega.
Blood-stained clothing and the testimony of a former partner-in-crime
helped secure an indictment on two counts of murder against Hoffman back in December 2010, The New York Post reported.
Today, Christina Smith, having never gotten over her mother's death, resides in a New Jersey Mental Health facility suffering from Schizophrenia. Relatives say she has suffered with mental health issues since an early age.
"I don't think she understood what happened -- that her mother was dead," said aunt Kim Smith-Tippens, 49. "After that, she just shut down."
When police began investigating the April 6, 1993 disappearance of then 22-year-old Jessica Smith, Christina Smith, now 22, told the officers "Daddy shot mommy in the head."
Six days after the shooting, Jessica Smiths' body was found in a vacant lot.
The Bronx District Attorney's office, who would have prosecuted the case back then, were concerned about using the little girl's statement in order to seal the fate of Jessica's then-live-in boyfriend, DeJohn Hoffman and their number one suspect. Prosecutors declined to charge Hoffman, now 47, and the case went cold.
Then, in 2006, cold-case detectives re-opened the Smith homicide and visited Hoffman at his new address: The Eastern Correctional Facility in Napanoch, New York where he was serving time for a 1993 conviction in connection to a Brooklyn shooting of a bystander during an attempted robbery at a Brooklyn bodega.
Blood-stained clothing and the testimony of a former partner-in-crime
helped secure an indictment on two counts of murder against Hoffman back in December 2010, The New York Post reported.
Today, Christina Smith, having never gotten over her mother's death, resides in a New Jersey Mental Health facility suffering from Schizophrenia. Relatives say she has suffered with mental health issues since an early age.
"I don't think she understood what happened -- that her mother was dead," said aunt Kim Smith-Tippens, 49. "After that, she just shut down."
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