Cannibal who hacked a homeless person to death and ate his eye and brain found NOT GUILTY

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Cannibal who hacked a homeless person to death and ate his eye and brain found NOT GUILTY of murder by reason of insanity

Tyree Lincoln Smith, 35, was found not guilty of the Dec 2011 murder, by reason of insanity
He hacked homeless man Angel Gonzalez to death, and then ate his eye and parts of his brain
Smith was arrested trying to flee to Florida in Jan 2012 and charged with murder
The three-judge panel found that the defense proved he was insane at the time
Smith is likely to spend the rest of his life in a mental hospital

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A 35-year-old Florida man who was accused of killing and then eating parts of a homeless man in Connecticut was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

Tyree Lincoln Smith of Bridgeport will still likely spend the rest of his life locked up, but in a mental facility and not a prison.

A three-judge panel found that while the prosecution proved Smith had indeed killed homeless man Angel Gonzales, the defense also proved that Smith hadn't committed murder per se because he was mentally ill.

The decision was met with joy from family members of the victim.

'Justice has been served!' Talitha Frazier, sister-n-law of Gonzales yelled. 'I don't care where he serves the rest of his life as long as it's behind locked doors.'

Earlier, Talitha had gotten into an argument in the courtroom with one of Smith's family members, distraught at the decision.

'Tyree, Tyree! I'm your blood, I'm your blood,' the man who would only identify him as a relative of Smith's said.

'I ain't saying he didn't do it, I know he did - but I'm his blood,' the man said.
Smith will be taken to Whiting Forensic Institute in Middletown, Connecticut until his next court date on September 9. Psychiatrists will then testify as to whether it's safe to send him back into the community - which is unlikely.

'We have to look at the big picture,' said Smith's lawyer Joseph Bruckmann. 'We can't overlook that he ate part of the man's brain and his eyeballs in a cemetery.

'The defendant was unable, as a result of a mental disease, a psychosis attended by command hallucinations, to control his conduct within the requirements of the law,' one of the judge's said.

'There have been two tragedies in this case,' said Bruckmann. 'The first was the senseless death of Mr Gonzalez, and the second is that Tyree Smith has been a tortured soul for many years. He's been tortured by voices for decades and now that he is properly medicated he is horrified he caused Mr Gonzalez's death.'
Smith was arrested last year and charged with murder over the killing of Angel Gonzalez, whose decomposed body was found on the third floor of an abandoned building in the town.

Police in Bridgeport said Smith was covered in blood when he told his cousin about the murder, after developing a lust for blood he needed to satiate after eating a rare steak.
Gonzalez's body was found 39 days later by an inspector for a mortgage company.

Smith came to the attention of authorities when his cousin contacted Bridgeport police about Gonzalez's slaying.

She told detectives that Smith had arrived at her house on December 15th, 2011, and said he wanted to 'get blood on his hands' before going to the abandoned home, where he used to live, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

The next day, Smith returned to the cousin's house with blood on his pants, hands and an ax, the affidavit said.

Police say he told his cousin he had 'gotten his blood'.

Smith told his cousin, Nicole Rabb, that he killed Gonzalez with the ax and beat the man's face and head. He said he then collected one of his victim's eyes, 'which tasted like an oyster', and some of his brain matter and consumed them in a nearby cemetery, washing it down with sake, according to court documents.

'Tyree told his cousin the blows to Gonzalez's head were so severe that he was able to remove an eye from the man's head along with pieces of brain matter and a piece of his skull,' the arrest warrant says.

When he was arrested, Smith admitting seeing the body and said there were no eyes in it. He said he did not touch it, though.
However, Smith admitted to the detectives that when his mother asked him if he killed the man, he confirmed that he had.

Less than a month after the killing, Smith was treated and released from St. Vincent's Medical Center's Behavioral Health Services in Westport, Connecticut after being discovered in a pharmacy bleeding from his wrist, which police said he had slashed with a box cutter.

He was eventually discharged and returned to Florida, where he was arrested on Jan. 23, 2012, and charged with murder.