Tyree Smith Update: Fla. man committed to 60 years in psychiatric ward in Conn. murder-cannibalism case
(CBS/AP) BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - A Florida man found not guilty by reason of insanity in the death of a homeless man he admitted killing and partially eating, has been committed for up to 60 years in a maximum-security psychiatric hospital in Connecticut.
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Tyree Lincoln Smith, 36, of Lynn Haven, Fla., was ordered committed Monday by a three-judge panel in Bridgeport Superior Court. The panel found him not guilty by reason of mental disease in July.
Smith apologized for killing Angel Gonzalez, whose mutilated body was found in a vacant apartment in Bridgeport in January 2012, a month after he was hacked to death.
"I'm really sorry for what I did, that I couldn't be myself," Smith told the judges. "It really had nothing to do with the other person."
Judges John Kavanewsky, John Blawie and Maria Kahn were urged by a prosecutor and social worker to protect society from Smith.
"He poses a significant danger to himself and the community," psychiatric social worker Julie Jacobs testified.
State's Attorney John Smriga added, "I am concerned there is an expectation he would do this to other people if he was allowed to be free."
Smith, who grew up in Bridgeport and Ansonia, Conn., was committed to the Whiting Forensic Division of Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown.
His cousin, Nicole Rabb, testified in July that she saw Smith on one evening in December 2011 carrying a bloody ax and chopsticks and wearing pants that appeared to have blood on them. She said Smith told her he killed a man with the ax, ate his brain and eyeballs and drank sake in a local cemetery.
A psychiatrist testified that Smith heard voices that told him to eat Gonzalez's brain to better understand human behavior and eat his eyes to gain vision into the "spiritual realm."
