Posted by - Who: Eric M. Smith, born 22 January 1980 in Savona, New York.
- The victim: Derrick Robie, 4.
- When: 2 August 1993; Eric was 13.
- Sentence: nine years to life, the maximum then available for a juvenile.
- Today: released on parole on 1 February 2022, after 27 years.
Eric Smith is an American criminal who in 1993, at the age of 13, killed a little boy of only 4.
Who Eric Smith was
Eric was born in Savona, a small town in New York State, on 22 January 1980. He had developmental delays affecting the way he walked, talked and learned, and some physical deformities caused by an epilepsy drug his mother had taken during pregnancy.
His low-set, protruding ears, thick glasses, red hair and freckles made him an easy target for bullies, who tormented him constantly from second grade on. At home he was abused by his father. Already as a child he had begun hurting animals, and at 9 he was smoking.
The murder
On 2 August 1993, Eric was riding his bike to a summer day camp in a local park. At the same time Derrick Robie, nearly five, was also on his way there. His house was a few metres from the park and his mother had decided to let him go alone.
Eric saw little Derrick and lured him into a hidden spot in the nearby woods. He strangled him until he passed out and then struck his head with a large rock.
Then he opened the boy’s lunch box, took out a juice drink and poured it on his wounds. He went on to abuse the child’s body further, but out of respect for the little victim I will not report those details.
Then he took off the boy’s little shoes, placed them by his hands and left. Derrick died of the head injuries and asphyxia. His body was found four hours later, after his mother went to pick him up at the park and discovered he had never arrived.
The discovery of the body
When Derrick’s body was found nobody suspected Eric. When he was questioned, along with everyone else at the park, he said he had not seen the boy, but then changed his story.
He said he had seen him on his way to the park. The police asked Eric to describe little Derrick, and as he did so he became more and more nervous and emotional.
Everyone thought Eric had seen something, perhaps the killer, and was afraid to talk.
In the following days the boy asked a neighbour and family friend what would happen if the killer turned out to be a child, and what a DNA test could reveal.
These questions convinced Eric’s parents that their son might have witnessed something traumatic. They talked to him and begged him to tell the truth.
On 8 August, six days after the murder, Eric confessed everything to his mother, and that same evening the family informed the police. For his parents it was a trauma: they could not believe their boy was capable of such an atrocity.
The trial of Eric Smith
Eric was tried as an adult: he was the youngest murder defendant ever tried as an adult in New York State. The trial began on 2 August 1994, exactly one year after Derrick’s death, and the case made national headlines.
He underwent extensive medical tests, which found nothing to explain his violence. The defence psychiatrist diagnosed intermittent explosive disorder, but the prosecution’s expert said the disorder was very rare at his age and described him as a boy who is “comfortable and excited by aggression”. He was instead diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression.
On 16 August 1994 he was found guilty of second-degree murder and on 7 November sentenced to the maximum then available for a juvenile: nine years to life. When the verdict was read his mother broke down in tears and his grandfather collapsed and was taken to hospital.
He spent three years in a maximum-security juvenile facility and then several adult prisons. Between 2002 and 2020 he was denied parole ten times, partly because of the opposition of Derrick’s parents.
On 7 October 2021, at his eleventh hearing, he was finally granted parole, after 27 years in prison. At the hearing he expressed deep remorse and said he had been engaged since 2019. He walked out of prison on 1 February 2022, and in April 2025 he was discharged from parole supervision.
The motives
Why would a 13-year-old boy kill a child? How is it possible for him to be capable of such violence? Apart from the psychiatric evaluation, we know that Eric was often mocked for his appearance and mistreated.
Eric then decided to vent his anger on little Derrick.
Bullying is a serious problem, especially in the United States. If Eric had not been mistreated, mocked and humiliated constantly, or if someone had helped him, would he still have committed this horrific crime?
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