A Connecticut cannibal was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity Tuesday.
Tyree Lincoln Smith was charged with murdering a homeless man and then eating his brain and eyeballs in a nearby cemetery in December 2011. Smith claims that he was ordered by voices to kill and eat the victim, Angel “Tun Tun” Gonzalez.
The Connecticut Post reports that Gonzalez’s body was found a month after his murder in an abandoned Bridgeport apartment, the same one Smith grew up in.
The three-judge panel found that the State’s Attorney proved that Smith did kill Gonzales, but that Smith’s attorney, Joseph Bruckmann, proved his client was legally insane.
“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,” said John Kavanewsky, one of the Superior Court judges who heard the trial.
During the trial, Yale University psychiatrist Reena Kapoor testified that Smith had been suffering from psychotic incidents since he was a child. She also said that Smith retained his hunger for human flesh after the incident.
Kapoor testified that the voices told Smith to eat Gonzalez’s brain to gain a better understanding of human behavior and his eyes to see into the “spirit realm.”
Smith’s cousin, Nicole Rabb, also testified that she saw Smith with blood on his pants and a hatchet. Smith then told her that he killed a man with a hatchet, ate some of his body parts in a local cemetery and washed them down with sake.
On August 9, the judges will determine whether Smith is safe to send back into the community or needs to go to a mental hospital.