© Ned GerardTyree Smith listens to testimony during his trial in Bridgeport Superior Court, in Bridgeport, Conn. on, July 8th, 2013. Superior Court judge John Kavanewsky ordered Smith committed to the stateโs maximum security psychiatric hospital in Middletown for up to 60 years for the murder of Angel "Tun Tun" Gonzalez.
Tyree Lincoln Smith, 36, of Lynn Haven, Fla., was ordered committed Monday by a three-judge panel in Bridgeport Superior Court. The panel in July found him not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
Smith apologized for killing Angel Gonzalez, whose mutilated body was found in a vacant apartment in Bridgeport in January 2012, a month after he was hacked to death.
"I'm really sorry for what I did, that I couldn't be myself," Smith told the judges. "It really had nothing to do with the other person."
The apology surprised relatives of Gonzalez who were in the courtroom, the Connecticut Post reported.
"We waited two years to hear Tyree say he was sorry," said Talitha Frazier, who wore a T-shirt with Gonzalez's photograph. "What he said today caught me off-guard, but I feel he meant what he said."
Judges John Kavanewsky, John Blawie and Maria Kahn were urged by a prosecutor and social worker to protect society from Smith.
"He poses a significant danger to himself and the community," psychiatric social worker Julie Jacobs testified.
State's Attorney John Smriga added, "I am concerned there is an expectation he would do this to other people if he was allowed to be free."
Smith, who grew up in Bridgeport and Ansonia, Conn., was committed to the Whiting Forensic Division of Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown.
His cousin, Nicole Rabb, testified in July that she saw Smith on one evening in December 2011 carrying a bloody ax and chopsticks and wearing pants that appeared to have blood on them. She said Smith told her he killed a man with the ax, ate his brain and eyeballs and drank sake in a local cemetery.
A psychiatrist testified that Smith heard voices that told him to eat Gonzalez's brain to better understand human behavior and eat his eyes to gain vision into the "spiritual realm."
Well, he went down to dinner in his Sunday best
Excitable boy, they all said
And he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy
He took in the four a.m. show at the Clark
Excitable boy, they all said
And he bit the usherette's leg in the dark
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy
He took little Susie to the Junior Prom
Excitable boy, they all said excitable boy
And he raped her and killed her, then he took her home
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy
After ten long years they let him out of the home
Excitable boy, they all said
And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones
Excitable boy, they all said, excitable boy
Well, he's just an excitable boy
Warren Zevon
I think that kind of covers it, eh?
R.C.