Brain-eating cannibal back in public life after 10 years
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.
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.
At least in my state, mental health group homes vary widely by supervision level. Some allow you to come and go like it’s a private home, others are under lock and key.
Let's fucking hope
Likely is the key word. Some group homes have strict supervision while others have effectively no supervision at all.
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.
We did have psych facilities for a long time, but a lot of abuse was discovered, and our fix for it was to close all those facilities down and release everyone, who mostly just became homeless.
it's a complicated issue, and we need to get society on board with the idea of treating mental health (to both a sufficient and humane degree) in addition to physical health. moving away from the institutionalization model was intended to ensure people weren't just locked away to rot at the state hospital under the "supervision" of indifferent or hostile caretakers.
without community support and with the move toward profit-driven healthcare, people aren't going to get what they need. now our institutions are just literal prisons instead of asylums.
but anyway, i know you know most of this already (the shortcomings of the profit-driven model), as someone working in healthcare.
The problem is our justice system only focuses on the punishment part. Rehabilitation is either non-existent for most inmates or completely inadequate. The likelihood of this man being mentally stable enough to be safely reintegrated into public life is extremely small.
He didn't go to prison though, he went to a pysch ward, seems like exactly the kind of thing you'd be advocating for.
So the fault lies with the inadequacy of the justice and healthcare system. But my point still stands - simply locking someone away does nothing to actually help.
maybe not... a high profile case like this may well have attracted the attention of more competent psychiatrists, or motivated his care team/state to seek it out. it also seems possible to me that his psychosis was very treatable with the right meds, but that he had not been able to access that care previously.
so yeah. mental health care is health care, and in this case it's important not only to the well-being of Mr. Smith but to his community as well. i agree with you that, for the american "justice" system, most cases are treated as it punishment is the correct response.
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...
what exactly is the solution to a fucking murdering cannibal?
Serious mental health treatment, rehabilitation, and medication. Extensive monitoring by mental health professionals, routine check-ins… Basically what they’ve done.
I’m not saying just release the dude, wash their hands of him, and say “good luck”…
Did he fuck him too?
If this comment was on Reddit you'd be downvotes to hell.
That’s crazy, but it’s not
He ended someone’s life. That alone should remove him from society forever.
Now his entire release hinges on him being compliant with his meds to not end someone else’s life.
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):
the restoration of something lost or stolen to its proper owner.
recompense for injury or loss.
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.
What kind of recommendation do you suggest if someone eats your husbands brain for example, or rapes you? What if someone wants, as decompensation, that the other person suffers as much as they did? What if they want a sum of money the person can not pay? What if they want the person to go to prison for life?
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
You definitely do already and just don't know it.
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 👀
In this issue I refuse to be liberal. If your mental illness causes you to kill and eat people, you don't get to rejoin society. If I was the mentally ill cannibal, I would never want to be out. Same thing happened up here in Canada, we have cannibals and terrorists running around free cause they're "rehabilitated" and the rest of us? Fuck us and our safety
Well then it’s a good thing you don’t make the rules
And look at all the crime he's committed. Oops, wait, he hasn't.
They wouldn't tell us if he did. All this situation has taught me is that if I wanna murder someone, eat part of them. I'll get away with it with a slap on the wrist and some pills
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.
Technically cannibals would be one solution to a full planet.
Lol you ain't wrong. Maybe we can air drop a bunch into a gated community somewhere 🤔
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.
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!!!!!!
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.
I feel like there's a lot of steps between rehabilitating a chronic shoplifter and a guy who killed and consumed a guy's brain. Even if someone is rehabilitated should they escape punishment? Should we not punish people for what they do to others?
Sometimes the lessons that stay with you longest are learned through pain. Sometimes you need to feel hurt to understand it.
If the guy was truly determined by actual professionals (aka: not you) to be fit to return to society, then what’s the issue?
What gain does anyone get from unnecessarily punishing him longer? It’s just a waste of time and resources to inflict pain on an individual because people can’t accept that someone can change.
Punishment does very little in the way of teaching a lesson. Do some actual research.
Edit: furthermore, this was an incident of mental illness and a severe psychological break. You can’t punish that out of someone. That makes no sense. This man needed serious help, got it, and has been compliant with his treatment.
He wasn't punished. He was "found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity" and placed in a state psychiatric hospital. That's not punishment, that is treatment and care. That's also why he is being released - they have determined that he is stable enough to be back in society. (I have my doubts that he will remain stable without being in a psychiatric hospital but I guess we'll all see.)
"What gain does someone get from unnecessarily punishing him longer?" Safety. If you have someone who commits a premeditated murder (insane or not). Then granting them the opportunity to do it again is a serious risk.
Additionally, schizophrenia doesn't just completely go away. Most cases are episodic, the fact that he is fine now does not mean he's "cured". You at the very minimum need to be able to force continuous treatment until his death.
The fact that punishing people serves little utility, doesn't mean that you should release murderers. The fact that protecting society by imprisoning people, "punishes" the people does not mean that you shouldn't protect society by imprisoning people.
You clearly don’t understand any of the psychology behind this. Stop pretending you do.
While I trust professionals in many things, I'm not sure how much experience they have dealing with cannibals who harbor murderous intent. Can you honestly say to me that what little money and resources it takes to keep this single man locked up is worth the possibility of him doing it a second time? What's a second life worth? Ten years?
I think people like you are a hair from being as insane as the people they lock up. Not all crimes should be forgiven and cold blooded murder is at the top of that list. Sure, he should be allowed to earn more freedoms but released back into society?
Absolutely fucking not.
There's a wide gulf of distance between someone with antisocial personality disorder or psychopathy who fully intends to murder another person and someone experiencing profound psychosis to the point that they don't even know that their own actions are real. This guy was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the first place because he's the latter and not the former. The latter can be safe in public, if adherent to medication regimens, therapy, and monitoring. The former must be housed away from the public for life.
I say that as a healthcare professional with experience with both people who have severe psychiatric disorders and also people who are in prison. The original court found this man actually did not have murderous intent and that makes all the difference.
Tell that to the victim
Better look over your shoulder then, buddy. We’re everywhere
Since I fully agree with what the commenter you're replying to said, I'll assume you're lumping me into that group too.
Sure, call me insane. Call me crazy. Call me fucking nuts and say I need a straight jacket. Whatever floats your boat.
You're not one of the people that can lock me up though and it's pretty clear why. So just remember that "crazy" motherfuckers like me are driving next to you on the freeway, shopping behind you in the grocery store, living down the hall, etc. We could lose it at any point!
Fear of what you don't understand and ignoring expert opinions are destroying society. Which side of that would you like to be on?
Plus, you're talking to another human being, it's just fucking disrespectful.
Your comment was good and all but really I just want to tell you I love your profile picture. Don’t see enough ODST love out there. The Superintendent was such a great idea
Hell yea! Still sad there was never a sequel, it was such a unique experience
sadfasfasdf
Ten years is the price of someone else's entire life? There should be no system in which robbing someone of their future so deliberately should be washed away.
He wanted to eat someone. You don't have to murder to get access to a corpse. Cold blooded murder should not be seen as 'correctable'. A man lost his entire life. He loses only ten years. Fuck that.
asdfasfadsf
Murder is 20 to life. How did he get half the minimum sentencing? Ah, plead insanity and then wiggled around the system by getting a clean bill of health so long as he stays on his meds.
What happens if he misses a dose? Hell I missed mine today because I got busy. My blood pressure is a little high but he might decide to kill and eat someone.
Why the fuck is that an acceptable risk to you?
asdfasfsda
Man murdered another man, consumed his brain, and got out in half the minimum sentencing time. There is no further context or situation that remedies this, despite how desperate you are to do so.
People who had weed on them get more time then this. My last comment got downvoted but when he does it again I will be here to say I told them so.
That’s just an argument for legalizing weed.
I'm still in disbelief that people are comfortable letting a literal axe murdering cannibal back into society because a small group of people think he's all better now. I really don't give a shit if he's all better now. The amount of people who do this are small enough they shouldn't get a second chance with society.
You’re about one step away from eugenics there, buddy
asdfasdf
Did you read the party where he was sentenced to 60 years? The system was ready to keep him for basically his whole life.
I'm ready to reform criminals and the insane for anything but murder or especially violent crimes. Nobody's life should be gambled on whether or not we have a perfect understanding of mental health. I get that you disagree but I can't comprehend how. I wouldn't want this guy in my city let alone my state.
“I’m for reforming people, but only if I think it’s okay :)”
-you, essentially
What they said actually had meaningful nuance. We should be more careful when it comes to potential murder.
You realize he's going to be in a group home, right? It's not like he's just being let out on the streets.
So either he's able to leave the group home freely which defeats what you just said entirely or he doesn't get to leave and it's just prison with extra steps. I don't get your point.
Maybe you missed the part of severe mental health issues?
This guy didn’t just wake up one day and decide “hey, I’m going to eat someone :)”
Do everyone a favor and don’t comment on things you clearly know nothing about.
Cool - he shouldn't be welcomed back into society if those issues are to fucking murder and eat someone. I don't give a shit how enlightened you think you are, someone should not suffer because you have a boner for "giving everyone a chance at recovery :)" The group of people insane or malicious enough to premeditate their kills is small enough I'm comfortable putting them in a box until they die so nobody else has to be murdered with a fucking axe and eaten you absolute loon.
Well it’s a good thing you don’t make these decisions :)
Try being less sadistic