The Case of Eric Smith, Steuben County, New York, August 1994
Description: Eric Smith
Image copyright: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/10/48hours/main660314.shtml
-Erich Fromm
A toddler, a blonde four-year-old child named Derrick Robie, weighing close to forty pounds, was brutally murdered on August 2, 1993. According to the New York Times, reported Jon Nordheimer wrote the details of the crime. Little Derrick Robie was lured into the woods by his killer, who then “placed his arm around Derrick’s neck, in a choke hold and cut off his breathing as the boy struggled” 1. Unfortunately, the crime goes on.
When the victim was on the ground, his killer “took a paper towel and plastic sandwich wrap from the boy’s lunch and stuffed them in his mouth, lifted a 26-pound rock in the air and smashed it several times against the boy’s head…he took another rock and hurled it into the boy’s chest and inserted a four-inch stick up the boy’s rectum” 2. Lastly, the killer went into Derrick's lunch bag and he smashed a banana and took Derrick's Kool-Aid, and he poured that Kool-Aid into the hole that had been made by the large rocks 3.
Robie’s body was discovered on August 2, 1993 in the patch of woods, half-way between his day-camp destination and his home. Crime scene investigators went on to discover that Robie’s body was played with, even after he was dead. Lead investigator, Charles Wood explains, “The left sneaker had been removed and was lying near Derrick's right hand. And his right sneaker had been removed and was lying near Derrick's left hand. It almost looked like the body had been posed in that position” 4.
Investigations carried on and gradually, details about the crime began to leak out into the public. Two of these public members were John and Marlene Heskell, particularly Marlene who began an investigation of her own. One of the details of the crime was the most interesting for her. Why would someone smash a banana from their victim’s lunch? Surely, an adult would just have discarded the fruit and moved on. But in the murder of Derrick Robie, the killer had deliberately smashed the banana.
Police were hopeful when they discovered that Eric Smith, a neighbourhood boy, was possibly the last one to see Robie alive and perhaps they could use his help to solve the case and catch a killer. At first, Smith denied that he had seen Derrick but then just as quickly, he changed his story. Investigator John Hibsch said, “He’s [Smith’s] looking right at me. He’s very upbeat, very happy. He likes the fact that he’s being talked to. He’s actually enjoying this5.”
Investigators questioned Smith who denied seeing Robie. Once during questioning, Smith starting getting emotional. Hibsch described it this way, “His voice started cracking. He put his head down and brings his fists up and his fists were vibrating a little bit and he goes, ‘You think I killed him, don’t you?”6. Smith then asked to take a break and when he was given a glass of Kool-Aid, he “grabbed and just threw it on the ground”7, reminding Hibsch of the state of Robie’s body.
Eric Smith confessed to the crime several days after the murder had taken place, after many other inconsistencies were found in his story. Eric Smith was young and freckled, with a “Tom Sawyer-like boyishness and aviator glasses”8 and his appearance NEVER matched his crime.
Eric Smith was thirteen years old.
Smith was charged with second degree murder as an adult under a New York law that allowed those 13 and older at the time of the crime to be tried as adults. Multiple defences were mounted against Smith to explain why he had done what he had done.
For example:
-Smith’s mother Tammy ingested a drug called, Tridone, to help control her seizures while she was pregnant with her son, Eric. This drug may cause birth defects and is probably responsible for Smith’s developmental delays and speech problems, as well as his ears being set low, affecting his self-esteem and making him the target of bullying. The bullying was responsible for Smith’s uncontrollable rage and may even help to explain why he brutally murdered someone so small and who was never able to defend himself—“he was powerless to stop it”9. District Attorney Tunney explained, “for once, Smith felt like the victimizer and not the victim”10
-Smith’s defence lawyer, Kevin Bradley offered mental disorder as a defence, but the jury rejected an insanity plea11, even after listening to stories about Smith’s toddler-temper tantrums during which he would bang his head on the floor.
-Defence psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Herman diagnosed Smith with intermittent explosive disorder i.e. uncontrollable rage. Quoting Dr. Herman, “[Eric has] literally deadly rage and anger. After the episodic rage, the child appears to be normal”12. An expert from the prosecution, however, explained that the disorder was extremely rare in someone so young and after medical testing (i.e. brain functions, hormone levels etc.) they “found nothing to explain his violent behaviour”13. Dr. Herman was not shaken—“something happened to his brain; we just can’t measure it”14
-His parents were briefly the subject of scrutiny. Smith had reportedly asked his step-father for help with his anger, who told him “to hit a pillow until he felt better”15. His parents should have cued in to his anger and psychological problems and intervened before it was too late (the beauty of hind-sight?).
Throughout the trial, Smith remained without emotion and never “showed any remorse”16. Prosecutor John Tunney explained that his main concern was whether or not Smith knew what he was doing and if he knew it was wrong. “Did he know that when he was strangling Derrick, that he was strangling a child, a person? If he knew what he was doing was wrong, that he shouldn’t have been doing it, then he can have every psychological, psychiatric problem in the world…and he’s still responsible for what he did, under the law.”17
And this is just what a unanimous jury decided on August 17, 1994.
Smith, now 24 years of age and is currently serving the maximum sentence of nine years to life in Clinton Correctional Facility where he was transferred at age 21 from Brookwood Juvenile Detention Center 18.
The reason I chose this case to add to the timeline was because it related to general class discussions about the theory of delinquency. Delinquency can never be explained by just one theory or by just one school of thought.
Why did Eric kill? Was it the drugs his mother ingested while pregnant and the birth defects they caused? Was it his development delays interacting with the bullying and victimization that he went through? Was it a psychological anger problem that compelled him to find an outlet for his anger? Was it Stephen King novels and short-stories, in which “children and death, which Eric said were his favourite19? As we’ve discussed, juvenile crime and delinquency cannot be explained by just one theory each and every time; there is variation and also the fact that what compels one person will not compel another. So instead of trying to find the correct answer, perhaps we should be asking the right questions. As discussed there were many possibilities to the question “why” and the best possible answer after analysing this case is, “I don’t know.” A lot of the time the question of “why” cannot be answered and this will always be unacceptable to many.
References
1. Nordheimer, J. (1994). 14-Year-Old Convicted in Murder of Preschooler in Upstate Town. The New York Times, August 17, 1994, accessed April 7, 2008 from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E5D61130F9342575BC0A962958260&sec=health&spom=&pagewanted=print
2. Nordheimer, J. (1994).
3. Rather, D. (2004). Why Did Eric Kill? Dan Rather Talks To Teen Killer About Why He Killed A 4-Year-Old Boy. CBS News, 48 hours, December 10, 2004. Accessed April 7, 2008 from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/10/48hours/main660314.shtml
4. Rather, D. (2004).
5. Rather, D. (2004).
6. Rather, D. (2004).
7. Rather, D. (2004).
8. Nordheimer, J. (1994).
9. Nordheimer, J. (1994).
10. Nordheimer, J. (1994).
11. Nordheimer, J. (1994).
12. Rather, D. (2004).
13. Rather, D. (2004).
14. Rather, D. (2004).
15. Nordheimer, J. (1994).
16. Nordheimer, J. (1994).
17. Nordheimer, J. (1994).
18. Rather, D. (2004).
19. Nordheimer, J. (1994).