This is a true crime list about 10 children who committed murders.
DISCLAIMER AND WARNING: Some of the contents are graphic and very disturbing, especially because many of the victims were children themselves. Reader discretion is advised.
11/24/20...
A loner and bullied boy who, overwhelmed by pain and anger, killed a 4-year-old is still seen as a symbol of the loss of innocence. Eric Smith is guilty of one of the most horrific crimes committed by a child in modern times.
Soon to be 5-year-old Derrick Robie was known as the unofficial mayor of the tiny village of Savona, New York, because he used to sit on his bike and wave to cars that went by the streets. In the morning of August 2, 1993, he was ready to go to his summer recreation program, that was being held in a park only a block away from his home. His mother Doreen couldn't walk him, as she usually did, because she had to take care of her youngest son Dalton, who was just a baby at the time. Derrick insisted he could go on his own, he kissed his mother, said that he loved her, and off he went.
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Around 11 am, Doreen went to the park to pick him up and found out that Derrick had never arrived there.
His body was found hours later in a small patch of woods, halfway between the park where he was headed and his home. Evidence found that the killer had lured Derrick from the sidewalk and strangled him. He then had dug up a very large rock and a smaller one and battered the boy with them. But this was not enough for him. He had smashed a banana that Derrick had in his lunch bag and also taken a Kool Aid to pour it in the wounds in the head. He had concluded with sodomizing the poor child with a small stick and posed the body in a specific position, removing the shoes and arranging them around it. The cause of death was determined to be blunt trauma to the head with contributing asphyxia.
Initially, these disturbing details of the crime were not made public, but some years later the Robie family insisted that the whole story had to be told, in order to prevent Derrick's killer to be set free.
Four days later, 13-year-old Eric Smith walked into the police command center to see if he could be of help in solving the crime. He repeatedly talked to investigator John Hibsch, to whom he denied seeing Derrick the day he was murdered. Only to abruptly change the story shortly after, almost knocking Hibsch off the chair saying "Right across the street from the open field. And that's when I saw Derrick", putting himself right on top of the crime scene. He consequently was able to describe the boy's clothing and the fact that he had a lunch bag in his hand before he started getting emotional, also by throwing on the ground a glass of Kool Aid his father had brought him.
Eric M. Smith, red hair, freckles and thick glasses, was a troubled boy, born with development delays caused by an epilepsy drug his mother Tammy had taken during pregnancy, and relentlessly bullied by older children at school. As a toddler, he threw temper tantrums and banged his head on the floor and growing up his anger issues had worsened, so much that he had asked for help to his stepfather, Ted. On the other hand, he enjoyed spending time with his grandparents, Red and Edie Wilson, that he would always hug and kiss.
When some details about the murder were released in the local news, Eric's family and neighbours started suspecting his involvement, also remembering how much Eric hated bananas. To the point that he could have had a reason to smash the banana of Derrick's lunch bag in a burst of anger.
All of them knew that Eric was hiding something, but "in no way did we [felt] he had done it" and begged him to tell what he knew.
All evidence was against young Eric and it took him three more days to confess to the murder, a couple of days after Derrick's funeral.
The trial took place in August 1994 and it was focused on giving an answer to the question "Why did Eric kill?".
Eric's defense attorney Kevin Bradley, with the testimony of psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Herman, pointed out that the boy suffered from a very serious mental disease, an intermittent explosive disorder causing individuals to act out violently and unpredictably. In conclusion, Eric didn't know he was doing something wrong, his pain and rage just overwhelmed him. Quoting Bradley: "The fact that he seemed normal afterwards shows he is not normal".
Instead, the prosecution believed that Eric indeed knew full well that his actions were wrong because he admitted that he had lured Derrick into the woods for the killing so no one could see. Prosecutor John Tunney concluded that Eric chose to do something horrible on purpose. "He can have every psychological, psychiatric problem in the world, and he's still responsible for what he did, under the law" he stated.
Because of the sexual nature of the crime, the question of whether Eric was abused was repeatedly raised at trial, but there was no evidence that anyone had sexually abused him and he himself denied it years later.
Throughout his trial, the boy showed no emotion, expressed no remorse and never explained why he killed Derrick.
On August 14, 1994, the jury unanimously found him guilty of murder in the second degree and he was consequently sentenced to the maximum sentence for a juvenile: nine years to life in prison.
Eric was held at Brookwood Juvenile Detention Center and then transferred to the maximum security adult prison Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, when he turned 21 in 2001. He is currently incarcerated at medium security prison for male inmates Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Sullivan County, New York.
He has been denied parole ten times since 2002. During his parole board in April 2016, his new attorney Susan Betzjitomir, who believes that he should be released, allowed him to read a statement he prepared to demonstrate that he has changed. He apologized to Derrick and his family and gave a chilling explanation for the killing: "Because instead of me being hurt, I was hurting someone else."
Even this time, Parole Board found that Eric's release would pose a risk to "the public safety and welfare of the community".
To honor Derrick, volunteers bulldozed the scene of the crime and put in a new ball field in memory of the little T-ball player. The Robie family still lives in Savona and has not exchanged a single word with the Smith's since Derrick's murder.
On October 5th 2021, at the age of 41, Eric appeared for the 11th time before the Board of Parole and was granted release on February 1st, 2022.
