Valley Independent Sentinel

Ansonia Police: Suspected Cannibal Not A Suspect Here

by Eugene Driscoll | Jan 26, 2012 3:43 pm

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Posted to: Ansonia, Derby, Oxford, Seymour, Shelton

The female cousin of suspected ax-murdering cannibal Tyree Lincoln Smith told police she thought Smith was involved in a fatal shooting in Ansonia.

However, local police said they have no open homicide investigations from the time frame the woman is referencing.

Smith, who lived in Ansonia in the 1990s, is in custody in Florida awaiting extradition to Connecticut. Bridgeport police believe Smith killed 43-year-old Angel “Tun Tun” Gonzalez with an ax on Dec. 15 and then ate the man’s eyeball and a portion of his brain.

The gruesome crime is making international headlines. Click here for more info.

On Thursday afternoon the Connecticut Post published a story saying Smith’s cousin Nicole Rabb, a Bridgeport resident, thought Smith was responsible for a fatal shooting in Ansonia, near where his family was living at the time. The family lived on Olson Drive.

Ansonia Police Lt. Andrew Cota said Bridgeport detectives contacted the department recently to ask about any fatal shootings from the early 1990s.

Cota said Ansonia police are checking their records, but at the moment they have no unsolved killings from the time period mentioned.

“We don’t have open homicides from the time she said it occurred,” Cota said.

Ansonia has three recent homicide cases open.

Isaia Hernandez was shot and killed in March 2011 on Wakelee Avenue. His killing happened just days after Daryl Rhys Venson, 25, was shot at killed in Ansonia near the intersection of Hill Street and Root Avenue.

Bernice McFadden was shot and killed in the Riverside Apartments on Olson Drive in July 2009.

Cota said Smith is not a suspect in the city’s open homicide investigations.

“We’re close on those (cases), but this guy’s name never came up,” Cota said.

There is the possibility of unsolved shootings from the 1990s, Cota said, but there are no unresolved homicides — at least homicides that police know about.

“We went through our system and between four or five of us, we don’t have an open homicide,” Cota said.

Cota has been an Ansonia police officer since 1991.

A 35-year-old man who was friendly with Smith in the 1990s in Ansonia said he is still trying to wrap his head around the accusations. He estimated Smith to have graduated from Ansonia High School in 1994. The school district wasn’t able to confirm that Thursday.

Smith was a quiet kid when he lived on Olson Drive. He didn’t get into trouble. His mother seemed strict. The two walked home from school together.

“I went to high school. He was a fine kid in high school,” said the 35-year-old man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“He was quiet. All I can speak of is from the high school times, because he moved after that. He was a quiet kid. He really stayed in the house a bit. He stayed on his porch and played. That was pretty much it,” he said.

The man said he had not seen Smith in about 20 years.

They reconnected in recent years on Facebook.

“We reconnected through social media and we talked a bit there. You know ‘Hi and bye,’ talked about some old things,” he said.

However, Smith’s posts on Facebook grew increasingly strange.

“He did come across a little weird on Facebook once we reconnected,” the man said. “He posted something about how we’ll know each other in another life. He was posting things that were making people uncomfortable.”

Many of Smith’s status updates on Facebook page, which was still publicly available as of Thursday, are routine . His last direct post was in July 2011.

Some of his posts are about playing video games. Some are about writing a book.

His Jan. 12, 2011 update is strange:

“Devouring your flesh. Smelling your bodies burn in a heap. I hate the day they created you filthy humans. There. Thats whats been on my mind since a child. Happy?”

The post triggered a conversation between Smith and a woman who identified herself as his high school sweetheart.

Her profile page Thursday indicates she is clearly in shock over Smith’s alleged crimes:

“At a loss for words. I tried to be there and encourage him when he was going thru. Our last phone conversation a few months ago i keep askin myself what could i have possibly said to change the outcome of his actions?! I knew hell we knew something wasnt right just didnt think he would commit such a horrible crime. My high school sweetheart an axe murderer and (cannibal)??!!”

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