What did Eric Smith do when he was 13 and where is he now?
John Parsons
Published Jan 05, 2026
Eric Smith was only 13 years of age when he killed Derrick Robie, 4, in Savona, New York. Smith’s case collected far reaching media consideration as, in 1994, a jury collectively viewed him to be blameworthy of second-degree murder.
Trigger Admonition: Notices of youngster s*xual misuse.
Smith baited Robie into the Steuben District woods, where he choked him, beat him with rocks, and sodomized him with a stick. The adolescent admitted and later attempted as a grown-up.
Smith was given nine years to life in jail and set free from the Woodbourne Restorative Office in Sullivan Area on February 1, 2022, at 42 years old. He initially became qualified for parole in 2002, however the Leading group of Parole had recently turned him down multiple times prior to delivering him.
Reports express that Eric Smith currently lives in Sovereigns, New York, as a liberated person.
A forthcoming episode of CBS 48 Hours, named Eric Smith: Betting on an Executioner, narratives the fabulous case this Saturday, May 6, at 9:00 pm ET.
“28 years following a 13-year-old was imprisoned for the homicide of a 4-year-old kid, he is delivered released early; with the casualty’s parents.”Eric Smith’s new delivery came after he served 28 years in the slammer for killing a youngster when he was just a teen
As per CBS, Eric Smith, who was set free from jail in February last year in the wake of being denied parole multiple times beforehand, burned through 28 years in the slammer for the 1993 homicide of a 4-year-old kid named Derrick Robie.
On August 2, 1993, Smith, a neighborhood 13-year-old from a modest community named Savona in New York, killed Robie, who lived across town. The youngster detected the kid strolling alone to a day camp at the recreation area in the first part of the day hours and tricked him into a lush region where he choked the youngster and beat him the tar out of with rocks. Robie’s body was found hours after the fact after a missing report was recorded.
In the days that followed, a family companion of the Smiths, Marlene Heskell, developed worried about the 13-year-old’s way of behaving. She guaranteed the youngster asked her “what might occur if it [the killer] ended up being a youngster.” She likewise reviewed that he visited a similar park near the crime location, which then, at that point, persuaded her to think that “he could truly know something or have seen something.”
CBS reports that Heskell then communicated her interests to Smith’s mom and the two ladies took him to the police where he at first denied seeing four-year-old Robbie, however in the long run admitted to the homicide.
In August 1994, Eric Smith, 14, was attempted as a grown-up and condemned to nine years to life in jail. Smith was held in an adolescent detainment place and was moved to an office for grown-ups after he turned 21. Just about nine years after his wrongdoing, he had his most memorable parole hearing. His parole was denied, an interaction which went on for almost twenty years until October 2021 when the board at last to deliver him.
As indicated by sources, Smith’s delivery was postponed for quite a long time until he tracked down a reasonable spot to live. The 42-year-old was set free from the Woodbourne Restorative Office in Sullivan Province on February 1, 2022, subsequent to burning through 28 years in jail.
Become familiar with the many years old body of evidence against Eric Smith in an impending CBS 48 Hours episode this Saturday.