The family of a man who had his eyeball and brain eaten by a psycho killer are outraged after the perpetrator was granted conditional release.
In December 2011, Tyree Smith was previously found not guilty by reason of insanity of slaughtering Angel ‘Tun Tun’ Gonzalez with a hatchet and eating his body parts, as per a Daily Mail report.
35-year-old Smith was drinking sake while he feasted on Angel ‘Tun Tun’, and was arrested for the insane offense before being taken to a mental facility where he was expected to stay for 60 years.
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However, the psycho killer has been granted conditional release, and that decision has left the victim’s family outraged.
On Friday, the state’s Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB) made the decision to grant Smith permission to leave Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown.
Although he was originally expected to remain at the facility for 60 years, the new controversial verdict from the hospital board has Angel’s family and lawmakers concerned.
‘Murder and cannibalism and release in the same sentence. That’s a problem. That’s concerning to me,’ State Senator Paul Cicarella said to WFSB.
The review board came to the decision after a forensic psychiatrist convinced them that Smith’s schizophrenia, along with his drug and alcohol disorders, are under control as he’s constantly followed treatment.
‘To quote the director there, he is a joy. He is considered a support to the other people there,’ Dr. Caren Teitelbaum said, according to WFSB. ‘Once he was stable he was a really calming presence for other patients.’
What his conditional release means is that he will live in a communal space while being afforded strict supervision as he continues treatment.
According to the Times Union, officials said Smith has already been living in a community facility, yet Friday’s ruling formally discharged him from Whiting Forensic Hospital.
He has been residing in a Waterbury group home since the PSRB revealed he was ‘stabilized’ in 2023, as per News 12.
‘He has maintained clinical stability. Adhered to the medications and continued to engage in group and substance abuse treatment’, Teitelbaum reaffirmed.
‘He also denied visual hallucinations and a desire to harm others or himself.’
WFSB reported that the doctors admitted that should Smith go off his medication, he could become a huge threat to society.
Gonzalez’s mangled body was found in a vacant Bridgeport apartment in January 2012, where Smith had lived as a child.
Smith’s cousin, Nicole Rabb, testified that the day before the killing, the psychotic killer granted conditional release visited her home, ranting about Greek gods and his desire to get “blood on his hands.”
He returned the day after, this time covered in blood and holding a weapon. He described the gruesome details of the killing, including eating Gonzalez’s organs while drinking Japanese rice wine, saying he had “gotten his blood.”
Court records show that Smith told Rabb the victim’s eye “tasted like an oyster” and that he consumed body parts at a cemetery after striking Gonzalez’s face and head with an axe.
A three-judge Bridgeport panel ruled in July 2013 that Smith would be institutionalized. They determined that while Smith had killed and eaten parts of Gonzalez, a homeless man, it was not legally murder because Smith was mentally ill.
Superior Court Judge John Kavanewsky denied Smith’s release at the time, believing he was a danger to himself and others.
More than a decade later, circumstances have changed, but not everyone supports the psychiatrists’ decision.
“This terrible decision puts public safety in jeopardy and sends another awful message to Connecticut’s violent crime victims and their families,” Senators Heather Somers, Paul Cicarella, Henri Martin, and Stephen Harding said in a statement.
“This person should never be out,” the Republican lawmakers asserted, calling the verdict “outrageous” and “mind-boggling,” The Times Union reported.
One of Gonzalez’s heartbroken relatives voiced concern about the conditional release of the psycho killer before the decision was finalized.
Talitha Frazier, Gonzalez’s sister-in-law, questioned during a previous hearing: “How do we really know he’s not going to do this again?” She added that their family is terrified by the possibility of a similar scenario unfolding.
“His grandkids are scared. His daughter is scared—she couldn’t come today, her sugar dropped to 52,” she told WFSB on Friday.
Smith apologized for Gonzalez’s death in court just before being found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2013.
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“I’m really sorry for what I did, that I couldn’t be myself. It really had nothing to do with the other person,” he said. At the time, Frazier burst into tears as she was left stunned by Smith’s words.
“We waited two years to hear Tyree say he was sorry,” she told the Connecticut Post. “What he said today caught me off guard, but I feel he meant it.”
