Brutal Slaying of Four-Year-Old Derrick Robie

Brutal Slaying of Four-Year-Old Derrick Robie 

On August 2nd, 1993 four-year-old Derrick Robie left his residence in Steuben County, New York to go to summer camp; the walk was only one block away and was a straight shot the full path there. His mother had been looking after her newborn baby all morning and a free Derrick asked her to let him walk by himself for the first time: With considerable uncertainty, she accepted. Unknown to her, this would be the last time she would see her firstborn kid. Derrick’s mama Doreen left to pick him up at 11:00 a.m. only to find that he never came to camp that day and four hours later, his savagely tortured corpse was found in a wooded area in between his home and the summer camp. 

The cruelty of the crime scene was shortly clear: Derrick was discovered with his head bludgeoned by a big rock, nude after being sodomized by a tree branch, and choked. A postmortem disclosed his official reason for death as strangulation, and with this data, Steuben County police started their killing inquiry. To discover a logical intention and murderer, the initial step in their investigation was to attempt and copy Derrick’s last moments. They understood he vanished between school and residence, and the probable chance was that he met someone in that short distance that had sinister motives. Detectives theorized that Derrick was attracted off the sidewalk into the timbers and choked into unconsciousness before being barbarian beaten and brutalized. 

Right around the time that detectives assumed how Derrick killed, thirteen-year-old regional boy, Eric Smith went to the local police station to offer up facts on the murder. He alleged that he was kicked out of summer camp that day and was stepping home when he saw Derrick going along the sidewalk; when he was prepared to provide an accurate explanation of what Derrick was wearing that day, he started an unexpected suspect. However, he declared this is where their interaction ended. A close family friend learned facts of the crime scene that included the evidence that whoever killed Derrick had smashed the banana in his lunchbox and dumped his kool-aid on his corpse. She remembered Eric’s particular hate for bananas and took this to the awareness of his parents. When they met him about the possibility of him being the murderer, he readily admitted to his crimes. 

Once Eric was trapped, the backstory of his life came to light and he was painted as a child everyone should have expected to do something like this. He was characterized as a loner and was often insulted by not only his friends but his stepfather. When Eric confessed to his stepfather that he liked to hurt people, he indicated that Eric went into the backyard and hit items to calm himself down. Soon after, he came in all damaged and bloody from punching a tree so hard. Eric’s step-sister finally came forward and confessed that Eric’s stepfather and her father had abused her as a child and she understands Eric was molested too, despite him never acknowledging to these claims. 

Eric eventually gave a striking explanation of that day: He had a terrible day at school and was kicked out for a bad attitude. He was storming on his way home, wanting to discharge all that anger the only way he understood how. He saw a little, weak little boy and concluded how easy it would be to assure him to obey him into the timbers. Once Derrick obeyed him into the woods, he choked him and bludgeoned him to death with a stone. He claimed that he put a stick into Derrick anus to ‘check if there was still a heartbeat.’ The sheer cruelty of his crimes became abundantly obvious to all those aware of the case and he was tried as an adult. 

Eric Smith was convicted to nine years to life in jail and has been rejected parole nearly a dozen times despite him claiming that he is a different person and would be a valuable part of society. His consultants and friends also understand he has true guilt for his crimes.