More than 30 years ago, 13-year-old Eric Smith raised concerns with his family when he asked what would happen if he was the child who killed their 4-year-old neighbor Derrick Robie.
The morning of Aug. 2, 1993, investigators found Robie’s body and quickly determined that the young man had been strangled and beaten to death, according to CBS News’. 48 Hourswhich reported at length about the story and its decades-long fall in the small town of Savona, New York.
“[Eric] He asked me what would happen if he became a child. I said, ‘I think they really need psychological help.’ And he– ‘Oh, well,’ you know. And then he left,” Marlene Heskell, a friend of the Smith family, recalled 48 Hours. “And that’s when it all came together for me that, well, he might really know something or he might have seen something.”
Less than a week later, Heskell and Eric’s mother brought the 13-year-old to the police station, where he confessed to the murder after seeing him walking alone to his summer camp. About a year later, Eric was convicted of murder and sentenced to nine years in prison.
While the horror was felt in the village of 940 people, the trauma happened every two years for Robie’s family when Smith went on parole. In 2021, Smith, then 41 years old, was granted parole and moved to Queens, New York, according to CBS.
AP Photo/John Hickey
Eric Smith
What Made a Young Man Kill?
In the years after his 1994 conviction, Smith frequently spoke to the media about his crime and the possibility that he would ever see life outside of prison again. In a 2004 interview, Smith opened up about the abuse he faced and how he saw the opportunity to engage in violence against others as a way to change his situation.
Smith grew up in a hostile family, which Rochester Democrat & Chronicle reported. Plus, he told the parole board, he was bullied by his classmates because of “my ears, my glasses, being short, my red hair, pretty much everything.”
“Instead of hurting myself, I was hurting someone else,” Smith said at a 2004 parole hearing. 48 Hours.
48 Hours/CBS
Derrick Robbie
Years of Treatment, and Alleged Changes
After 28 years behind bars, Smith said at a parole hearing that he was a changed man, according to CBS, citing years of therapy that he said helped him deal with his emotions.
“You can call me a monster, a brutal murderer, a demon child, Satan incarnate,” Smith told local WENY in 2009. “That’s not what I am.”
Smith wanted to become a counselor and help other kids who were being bullied, according to the CBS affiliate.
“I want to, you know, get married and raise a family,” he said. “You know, touch, you know, work. Follow the American dream. “
Release of Eric Smith Controversy
Smith’s chance came in 2021 when the parole board agreed to allow him to be released from prison, according to the Democrat & Chronicle.
Dale and Doreen Robie strongly opposed Smith’s requests for parole years ago, according to the newspaper, even pushing for a state law that would require years between parole hearings for violent offenders.
“I wasn’t as worried about us as everyone else was,” said Doreen 48 Hours when asked how he felt after Smith’s release.
“I don’t let him take up space in my head,” the mother added. “I don’t care where he is, what he’s doing. … ’cause I don’t care.”
Read the first article on People