A man who killed and ate a man has been released back into public life after ten years.
Tyree Smith, from Bridgeport, Connecticut, killed a homeless man and then ate his brain and eyeballs according to officials.
The horrific case made headline news, with Smith found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity after a July 2013 trial.
In lieu of a stint behind bars, Smith was ordered committed to a state psychiatric hospital for 60 years.
But now, ten years after the grim incident, the state Psychiatric Security Review Board said Smith was ready to be transitioned back into the community.
Smith has been released from the facility, Connecticut’s most secure, as of writing.
He will be living in a Waterbury group home, and is not allowed to associate with anyone involved in criminal activity.
The board stated in its report: “Tyree Smith is an individual with a psychiatric illness requiring care, custody and treatment.
“Since his last hearing Tyree Smith has continued to demonstrate clinical stability.
“Mr. Smith is medication compliant, actively engaged in all recommended forms of treatment, and has been symptom-free for many years.”
During the trial, Smith’s cousin Nicole Rabb claimed he arrived at her Connecticut home in December 2011, talking about Greek gods and ruminating about needing to go out and get blood.
When she saw him the next evening she noticed what appeared to be specks of blood on his pants and that he was carrying chopsticks and a bloody ax.
Smith then allegedly told Rabb he killed a man and ate his brains in the Lakeview Cemetery while drinking sake, and grimly warned he intended to eat more people.
A month later, police found Angel Gonzalez’s mutilated body in the vacant apartment on Brooks Street in Bridgeport where Smith had lived as a child.
Police later recovered the bloody ax and an empty bottle of sake in a stream bed near the Boston Avenue cemetery.
The defense’s case rested on the testimony of Yale University psychiatrist Dr. Reena Kapoor, who testified that Smith had kept his lust for human flesh after his arrest, even offering to eat her.
Kapoor claimed Smith suffered from psychotic incidents since childhood and heard voices that told him to kill people.
She then said the voices ordered Smith to eat the victim’s brain so they would get a better understanding of human behavior and the eyes so that they could see into the “spirit realm.”
Kapoor added that Smith went to Subway after eating the man’s body parts.
The report on Smith’s release said: “He denied experiencing cravings but stated that if they were to arise, he would reach out to his hospital and community supports and providers.”
Some of y’all really need to figure out the difference between punishment and rehabilitation…
And which one actually works.
Stop stroking your hate boners and start advocating for real solutions. You don’t fix pain with more pain. All that does is exacerbate the cycle.
The US justice system unfortunately runs on emotion and punishment rather than rehabilitation, thanks in no small part to the whole privatized prison system. The average American would rather see someone suffer than get the help they need. This is a particularly strong mindset ironically among the conservative religious, but there are plenty of liberals who think that way too. This country needs reform on so many systems…
It’s not about pain, at least not for me. If he was in the most comfortable psych hospital in the world, where they fluffed his pillows and shined his shoes, if he ate better and slept better than I do, that would be fine. But releasing him?
I mean, he’s going to a group home. He’s likely going to be carefully managed for the rest of his life. This is more of a reduced level of monitoring.
I hope that’s true, but I’ve known group homes that are… somewhat lax. The state of mental health care (and funding) in this country does not inspire hope regarding his monitoring.
I suppose we just have to hope that he’s not lying about not having urges. As someone with mental illness, I’ve lied my socks off to avoid the psych ward before.
He’s likely going to be carefully managed for the rest of his life
Let’s fucking hope
The problem is we don’t care enough to have psych facilities like that. Which is why we have an entire wing of the emergency department at my hospital dedicated to holding people who are doing nothing but waiting for a bed at one of the trash facilities we actually do bother to provide. No real treatment in the emergency department except meds, but also not safe enough to send them home. Scary that there’s somebody now who needs the bed in that facility more than this guy does.
I’ll say I’m proud of this country the day we provide good, comfortable lifelong treatment facilities for people like this, alongside quality rest homes for our elderly. We have the resources to do it, and the fact that we don’t is an absolute indictment of our society.
What are “real” solutions, in your opinion? What do you feel should be done for the victims and their loved ones and family?
Nothing can really be done for them. Locking him up won’t do anything for them, either. One could argue for some form of restitution, but then you’d have to ask if they even want anything from the guy.
The real solutions are adequate mental healthcare and access to medication, as well as routine monitoring and check-ins. All following an extensive inpatient treatment and rehabilitation program… So, basically what they’ve done here. Fighting pain with more pain doesn’t do anyone good. It’s entirely reactionary. Locking someone up for life does not help anyone.
Helping the person get the treatment they so desperately need does.
I am not talking abou the perpetrators, though. I wanted to know what should be done to care for the victims of violent crimes.
Like I said - restitution.
Locking someone up doesn’t do anything for the victims or their families…
Also, just take a look at wrongful conviction rates - and that’s just the confirmed ones… How many do we miss?
Are we really willing to let so many innocent people be locked away or even killed? Debts can be repaid for a wrongful conviction, but a prison sentence cannot, and a death sentence- well, duh.
Again, like I’ve said - and I feel like a broken record with this - prison does not help anyone. If anything, it makes things worse. I mean, you’re really gonna try to tell me that locking a bunch of convicts together for years or decades at a time and then just dropping them back into society once they’re done is a good idea??? No.
Help. Support. Therapy. Proper monitoring and, if necessary, medication. THAT helps. Don’t look at the “what”, look at the “why”.
We need to STOP the cycle of institutionalization, and START reforming people into productive members of society.
Also, it’s way fuckin cheaper on the taxpayers, if that’s what you care about
I only care for the victims and I still didn’t get an answer. “Restitution”, what does that entail in detail? What’s your concrete plan of action to help the victims of violent crimes? How do you stop them from getting revenge? How do you handle them if they do take revenge? What happens with criminals who are repeat offenders? What about those were people know they plan an attack on someone?
People like you pretend to care for people but I never get an answer to these questions. Victims are blissfully ignored in your crusade to help and protect violent criminals. It’s just an interesting observation you can make all the time.
estitution (noun):
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the restoration of something lost or stolen to its proper owner.
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recompense for injury or loss.
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the restoration of something to its original state.
Didn’t think I had to spell it out for you…
Obviously in this circumstance it would be definition number 2.
-
Naw this dude is damaged goods. What happens when they cut his meds or if he stops taking it? Other peoples brains gonna be looking very tasty in that group home.
No, this a death penalty thing and that’s a mercy. You kill a guy and eat his brains there’s no coming back, just kill the bastard cheaply and use the resources to rehabilitate someone that can readjust like a drug user.
Planets fucking full anyways to keep a cannibal alive tbh. Make room for good people.
Planets fucking full anyways
Piss off with this Malthusian bullshit, will you?
Never been stuck in traffic huh?
A problem easily avoided by using more space efficient modes of transportation, and also not particularly relevant to my objection that overpopulation is a Malthusian myth.
Which will never happen because you’d have to rip up cities and replan them.
But whatever I’m sure your gonna say it’s a “matter of resource distribution” not a space problem but I’ll just say this, we will never solve the distro problem because of greed.
Plus every new person born is gonna generate a shit ton of carbon. They’re gonna need a place to live. That’s space that used to be an ecosystem.
So idk maybe you want the planet to be turned into Courascant (one big planet sized city). Sure there’s space for trillions of humans if we stack em up high! Good luck feeding them.
So, resolve a murder with more murder… Yeah, that’s a real great solution
That’s kinda how we dealt with shit for millenia. One thing about humans is we are very good at making more.
Too bad the guy who got his brain ate can’t be rehabilitated.
One thing about humans is we are very good at making more.
By that logic, let the man keep eating brains. Let the man eat YOUR brain. You’re clearly not using it, and we can always just make another person to replace you, right?
Fine! But I get to try to kill him first. If he can beat me he can have my stupid fucking brain. Being alive sucks anyways. You’re doing me a favor. One less wage slave for the corporations OH NO!!!
I don’t want to live near a city that a fucking psychotic brain eating killer is free to walk the streets! That’s absolute madness
Evidently you don’t understand the prevalence and severity of mental health issues, cause this could happen anywhere…
Unfortunately our healthcare system is so fucked up, and society is full of people like you that would rather hurt people than help them, that this sort of thing is only exacerbated.
Stop being part of the problem. Be part of the solution.
The dude ate someone’s fucking brain, you live next to him if you’re fine with that
Rather him than you
Besides, if he likes me I’m less likely to be on the menu
You, however 👀
You definitely do already and just don’t know it.
Taking the story at face value, imagine how horrible you’d feel knowing what you’d done. I really hope they are doing better now but fuck having those memories.
What nobody ever cares about are the victims. I would rather worry about how his victims poor family feels knowing he got away with it and is free, while their relative is dead and eaten
Well now I’m confused cuz I thought Lemmy didn’t want a vindictive criminal justice system? If he caused problems by being unwell and is now well after treatment, why should he continue to be punished by being held against his will?
I think your mistake is in thinking that Lemmy is a single person with a single train of thought.
This post coulda fooled me
I feel like threads like this also make a good case that people really, REALLY, don’t understand psychosis. Dude doesn’t just hear a whisper in his brain and star murdering. Those voices build and build and build until you literally can’t hear yourself think. Then you break, your mind isn’t your own, the voices have entirely drowned you out and you’re tired because they haven’t let you sleep in days and you’ve been off doing who the hell knows because you aren’t even in control anymore.
I’m all for rehabilitation over incarceration, full stop. But holy fuck this is a wild ass story.
The American punitive view vs. a rehabilitative one is terrifyingly real in these comments. It was an awful awful thing that happened, and he should be monitored the rest of his life, but if it is determined by medical professionals (a.k.a. not you) then he deserves to lead a full life, and have the opportunity to contribute to a society that he caused harm too instead of being a cost to taxpayers everywhere for the rest of his life, while he is medicated and able to rejoin society, that harms everyone even more in the long run.
This man should have had the health supports he needed before this ever happened, likely something exacerbated by the US medical system.
Also to dispel some common myths:
- Due to legal fees, it costs significantly MORE to sentence someone to death in the US (sidenote, also one of the few 1st world countries still conducting the backwards barbaric practice), than the cost of them continuing to serve life in prison; it is not the “cheap” option.
- Insanity pleas on average 1) yield longer sentences in mental facilities than similar cases where there was no insanity plea, b) if not successful in getting an insanity sentence yield longer jail sentences on average. From a criminal judicial standpoint, there is very rarely any advantage to pleading insanity, and it’s even rarer still that someone actually gets it when they were not in fact insane. The testing, and level of evidence needed far exceeds what you can gather from a casual read and comment online. It is a hugely rare thing legally, we just tend to hear about them as they’re represented in the media at disproportionate rates compared to standard trials.
To all my American friends, not shitting on you, you’re a wonderful country, of largely wonderful people, but with some bad bad bad policies that I hope will improve in coming years.
Love,
Your hat.
The unfortunate reality is our system doesn’t typically rehabilitate anyone. So, it’s understandable that people are incredulous. I wish things would change. Never seems to be much political interest in how prisoners are treated.
Regular people thinking they know more than experts + internet forums. Name a more iconic duo.
He ate a man’s brains and eye balls.
Eww gross.
He went to subway after eating the man’s body parts.
EWWWWW! GROSS!
He ate someone’s brain and eyeballs. He will never be ready to be a part of society. Ever.
I live near waterbury, if I see this freak I’m walking the opposite way
Removed by mod
Everyone can change
Not in my experience it ain’t . Once an asshole always an asshole. That shits in your DNA. The most they do is go sociopathic and pretend they changed but they always crack.
You know who else thought certain negative personality traits were genetic?
MY MOM!!
If you have depression and tried to commit suicide, will you always end up depressed and try to end your life?
Or is there more to it all?
Mental illness is not that straightforward.
Dude ate a guy. Would you live next door to him?
Unequivocally, yes I would. I work with people who have severe psychiatric disorders pretty regularly. The difference between someone who is untreated vs. someone who is stable and adherent to their med regimen can be light years.
Part of the reason we fear people with psychiatric disorders so much is because we, as a society, fail these people. We have no reliable system for remanding them to get help, if we see signs they are decompensating. The only system we provide is one that only starts to function when they’ve reached crisis level.
That’s not their fault; it’s ours. They deserve better. A better system could have prevented this crime.
“We as a society fail these people”
How do we fail people that would die off without continuous support?
There is a difference between pointing out that certain policies have better outcomes and ascribing moral fault to a society for the actions of an insane fringe.
Fucking bizzare! Who the fuck is down voting this post ?
I was tempted to. I always hate these posts. If he’s healthy and doing well and observed, I’m glad he’s out. Hopefully he benefits society.
Anyone else think the Sake part of the story is really weird too? Like, is that the preferred pairing with human flesh? Who makes that recommendation? A cannibal sommelier?
Thats the weird part? Not Subway?
It’s a shame there is no spirit realm, he killed these men in vain… so senseless.
