Arrest made in carjack killing of father of two in Chester County
"This was a senseless and cold-blooded killing," D.A. Tom Hogan said. "The defendant needed a car and money, so he killed an innocent victim to get what he wanted."
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A 30-year-old Chester County man has been charged with fatally shooting a father of two during a carjacking in Oxford on Thursday night, officials said Wednesday.
Investigators identified Hakeem Smith as a suspect in the killing of Sam Algarin after examining surveillance video that showed Smith with the victim's GMC Terrain at a Turkey Hill store shortly after the slaying and finding his palm print on a door window when the vehicle was later recovered, with blood inside, in Westtown Township, authorities said.
Police said Algarin, 31, was killed after picking up his SUV about 9:30 p.m. Thursday at a Starbucks parking lot in Oxford, where he had left it while on an after-work outing with his mother and two sons using her car.
Algarin, a long-time parts manager at an auto dealership who lived in Quarryville, Lancaster County, was supposed to rejoin his family at his mother's home, but never arrived. Police found his body later that night on the side of Limestone Road in West Fallowfield Township, authorities said. He had been shot once in the chest.
"This was a senseless and cold-blooded killing," Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan said in a statement. "The defendant needed a car and money, so he killed an innocent victim to get what he wanted."
Besides the surveillance video and the palm print, investigators also found one of Smith's fingerprints on Algarin's cell phone after it was discovered in a field two miles from where the victim's body had been found, officials said.
Smith, who had been thrown out of his mother's Oxford house the same day as the killing, was arrested in West Chester on Tuesday after a police officer recognized him. He fled into a house before surrendering to a SWAT team, authorities said,
He has been charged with murder, robbery, and related offenses and is being held without bail at the Chester County Prison.
Hogan described the victim as a good father, son, and employee who had been "dumped … on the side of a road like trash."