Hey y’all, it’s Julie Mattson, your host on Pushing Up Lilies. This week, we’re diving into a truly disturbing case - Tyree Lincoln Smith, the Florida man who brutally murdered and cannibalized a homeless man in Connecticut, has now been granted conditional release a decade after his horrific crime. We’ll break down the gruesome details of the case, the court’s decision to let him back into society, and what this means for public safety. Should a man who committed such an unspeakable act ever walk free? Join me as we unpack this chilling story and the terrifying reality of violent offenders being released back into our communities. * Listener discretion is advised.
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00:06
Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I'm your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
00:24
Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Hey guys, trying to get back to normal since filming the Blocks in Tulsa a couple of weeks ago, I'm still amazed at the number of friends that I met there, the people that I connected with, and we're actually planning a reunion already.
00:49
We have a weekly Zoom call together where we can talk and we also have a Facebook group. So it's kind of cool just to connect with like-minded people. That's been really exciting. But I was off from the medical examiner's office yesterday feeling a little under the weather going back into the office today.
01:11
So hope that everyone is good to me. I know that we have been really, really busy and behind the scenes. You know, we do a lot of paperwork, a lot of phone calls, a lot of follow-ups. We reach out to doctor's offices for medical records and we review those records and we get a lot of calls from funeral homes saying that families have not made arrangements yet or calls from the medical examiner's office saying that a funeral home hasn't picked the body up yet.
01:42
It's just kind of troubleshooting all day long. During the day, at any given time, there's normally five of us in the office and I'm not going to lie, sometimes we're all on a phone line. Our office is fairly busy, but we're small.
02:00
compared to like Dallas in Houston. And having worked in both of those offices, I can say that the caseload is much lighter and I love it. It's perfect. It's such a great group of people. The job again is amazing.
02:17
I mean if you love this kind of thing, then you would love the job. And I know when I tell people what I do for a living, everyone's always like, oh that was my calling. That's my dream job. I wish I had done that.
02:29
And I'm just going to tell you, it is not too late. I mean occasionally medical examiner's offices may hire part-time, especially if you're a nurse. You're good at reviewing medical records. You're knowledgeable about medications.
02:46
That's a big part of what this job is. Speaking of nurses, I ran across a case that happened on the 22nd and it's kind of horrifying. I know back when I worked in the ER. We had days where those crazy people would come in and you were kind of scared of them but you felt somewhat safe still.
03:10
Like when inmates would spit on the nurses and occasionally you'd get a grumpy person who had dementia that might try to bite you or something like that but it wasn't near as violent and aggressive as people have become these days.
03:27
This case happened in Pennsylvania and it was at UPMC Memorial Hospital. A man apparently armed with a pistol and carrying zip ties entered the ICU at the hospital and took staff members hostage. Now he was eventually killed by the police in a shootout that also left an officer dead.
03:53
Three workers, a doctor, a nurse, and a custodian and two other officers were also all shot and wounded in this attack and a fourth person was injured because they fell. So my guess would be that they were trying to get away or something like that and fell and somehow got hurt.
04:13
Now Diogenes Archangel Ortiz who was 49 was holding this female staff member at gunpoint. Prior to doing that he bound her hands with zip ties. Now Ortiz had previous contact with the hospitals ICU earlier during the week.
04:36
Apparently his wife had been diagnosed with an illness, we're not sure what, and was not given a good prognosis and was on a vent. It's unknown if she's still alive or not but he intentionally targeted the workers there in the ICU for whatever reason.
04:59
because I believe I don't know if she had still been hospitalized there or what but she was at one time. Now the officer who died was identified as Andrew Duarte of the Westboro PD. He joined the police there in 2022 after five years with the Denver Police Department and he was highly regarded for his work.
05:22
UPMC Memorial is a five-story hospital. It has 104 beds which is not huge. It opened in York in 2019. Now York, Pennsylvania has a population of about 40,000 and it's well known for its creation of York peppermint patties in 1940.
05:45
It's just surprising how healthcare is one of the nation's most violent fields with workers suffering more non-fatal injuries from workplace violence than workers in any other profession. And this is not just from people coming in, you know, yielding a weapon and pointing it at everybody and opening fire.
06:05
But this from just patients in the ER. I know that I have friends that work in the ER and they'll text message me and tell me that they've been cussed at and patients are throwing things at them. And like I said, I've been bit before.
06:22
I've had poop thrown at me. And I mean, the violence can get worse. I'm not going to complain. But I'm just saying these poor nurses, I mean, they had to have been traumatizing. I believe the hospital is still closed.
06:41
So it's going to take some time for the staff members who were involved in that incident to recover from it. I'd have PTSD. I mean, if someone came in and pointed a gun at me, I mean, I know I feel like I probably already have it just from the minor issues that I had to deal with when I worked there.
06:57
But that's absolutely crazy. I just cannot imagine. And I'm again, I guess the risk is always there, you know, that people aren't always given a good prognosis. And many times, you know, family is going to blame staff.
07:12
And I don't know, it's just it's so sad. Now, on another note, I did find another story that I wanted to cover today. And this one kind of outrages me. I know that a lot of my content has been about people who were jailed and then let out on parole and then continued to commit crimes.
07:32
This is kind of one of those cases that could turn into a very similar situation. Now, this man was institutionalized. He confessed to the murder of a homeless man in Connecticut in 2011. Now, in that case, he killed this victim and ate his body parts in a cemetery.
07:56
He was granted. a conditionalized release. Now I do not understand this and tell me if I'm wrong, I feel like if you've murdered and eaten a person, your chances of rehabilitation are probably not very good.
08:14
And if you're schizophrenic like him and you require medications to keep from hearing voices that tell you to do things like kill people and eat them, that you probably don't need to be walking around in public.
08:28
I know I dang sure don't want you living next door to me or next door to my child. You should not be allowed to walk around the grocery store with people. But Tyree Smith was granted a conditional release by the Connecticut State Psychiatric Security Review Board this last Friday on the 21st.
08:51
This would allow him to leave the Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown. Now he will. remain under supervision, and he will continue to receive mental health services, thank God. But his doctor actually said that the cannibal killer has rehabilitated, and he's taking medications to help with psychosis in the voices in his head.
09:17
What if he's discharged and he runs out of medication? He can't find a job because he's schizophrenic, and he's a felon, and he doesn't have any money, and he stops taking his medication, and he starts hearing voices again, and is psychotic, and starts killing.
09:40
Now, it surprises me with statistics like they are of people being released and then recommitting violent crimes that they're even considering this. Now, the doctor actually stated that this guy is a joy and is considered a support to other people, and that he's a calming presence for other patients in the institution.
10:06
Well, that's nice. He's calm when he's medicated, so let's turn him loose and run the risk of him being unmedicated and see how he acts. He denies visual hallucinations today, and he denies the desire to harm others or himself again today.
10:28
But others, and this is kind of where I fall in, can test that he should remain in a hospital and he should be watched closely. Curious to see what you guys think about this. Sounds really scary to me.
10:43
He killed an eight part of his victim, but he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and a lot of people try to pull that and it doesn't work for him. They're found insane and able to go to actually the prison system.
10:59
This guy went to this mental institution. Even if you're insane, even if you're found guilty by reason of insanity and you're not able to go to jail, that doesn't make you innocent. So this whole thing confuses me.
11:15
Now in 2013 when he went to trial, a three-judge panel found him not guilty again by reason of insanity in this 2011 death of Angel Gonzalez. But he was committed to this Connecticut Valley Hospital for 60 years.
11:34
If he had to stay the entire term, he wouldn't be released until 2073. But for some reason, 12 years after this crime, we're going to just like basically turn him loose. Smith confessed to killing Angel Gonzalez, who was homeless at the time.
11:57
with an axe inside an abandoned home in Bridgeport, before removing parts of his brain, an eye, and several organs that he later consumed at Lakeview Cemetery. Now again, he's been diagnosed as a schizophrenic, and the plan is for him to receive day passes, but confine him to the hospital grounds initially.
12:23
So we're going to do this gradually. And then as he makes progress, he'll receive additional freedoms like supervised offsite visits, and then maybe eventually be able to be out completely. I'm not really sure like how long this progression is.
12:44
I don't know if this is like an experiment. I'm not sure why we're doing it at all, much less gradually. But Smith's cousin, Nicole Rabb, testified that the day before Smith killed his victim, he came to her house and ranted about Greek gods and wanting to get blood on his hands.
13:05
The next day, he showed up at her house again, covered in blood and holding a weapon. He gave her the gory details, so he actually disclosed exactly what happened. He told her that he killed the victim with an axe, that he ate the victim's organs while drinking sake, saying that he finally got the blood that he wanted.
13:33
Smith also told his cousin that the eye tasted like an oyster. Okay, I don't like oysters, but I'm for sure never eating them again. He consumed body parts at this cemetery after apparently bashing Gonzales' face and head in with an axe.
13:53
Less than a month after the killing, Smith was was treated and released from St. Vincent's Medical Center's Behavioral Health Services in Westport after being discovered in a pharmacy bleeding from his wrist, which he slashed with a box cutter.
14:10
And this was before they knew that he committed the crime. He had been at this behavioral center because apparently he tried to commit suicide with this box cutter. He was eventually discharged from that institution and then he returned to Florida, which was where he was arrested on January 23rd of 2012.
14:31
I'd like to hear y'all's thoughts on this. I'm not okay with the idea of him roaming the street and I understand that they're wanting to do it gradually and that they probably feel like he's rehabilitated.
14:46
Again, he's medicated. I don't know. I mean, I'm curious to see what your thoughts are. I personally would not be okay with this. I just think that there's some things that you can't rehabilitate from.
14:59
I think murdering a person with an ax and then eating part of them is something that is just going to be really hard to bounce back from. I can't imagine. It's hard for me to believe that this person is able to be rehabilitated and we've seen it so many times where people are released and, you know, they've been great in prison.
15:24
They were good. So they get out on good behavior. They become ministers and they minister to other inmates. They are able to work and they do well, but I feel like it's all just a ploy to get out early and commit crimes.
15:43
I don't know. I know that, again, I think I told y'all that I did my psych rotation in nursing school at a forensic mental hospital. It was so interesting, but I can't imagine anybody that I met at that facility ever walking the streets again.
16:01
And I mean, I know I got to sit and talk to them, sit like a rat next to them, and talk to them. And I couldn't imagine any of them ever just living in the world that we live in again after the crimes that they committed.
16:17
I mean, one guy had killed his entire family and burned the house down. Another guy had actually eaten a guy's eyeballs. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I just don't think there's a way to be normal after that.
16:34
And if being normal, you know, quote, unquote normal requires that you take medications every day and requires that you be a reliable person that has a job and makes money to get your medications and is responsible enough to take them every day.
16:53
I just, that's a lot. what to put on somebody who has a history of schizophrenia and murder. I think you're giving them way too long of a leash, I guess would be the best way to say it. But yeah, surely give me your input on this one.
17:12
I would definitely like to see what your thoughts are. If you know somebody who's been rehabilitated after committing murder or committing a major crime, who has gone to prison and been released and are living a somewhat normal life now, I'd love to hear about it.
17:28
You don't hear those stories very often at all. Something that we deal with at our office too, and I was thinking about this the other day and I wanted to share it with y'all. Whenever we're called, the police are not supposed to touch anything in the crime scene, move anything around, sweep, clean, wipe the body off.
17:53
move the body like everything is supposed to be as found when we get to the scene. You know, I had a scene the other day and it's always so nice when someone empties the pockets and lays everything out and they have the ID and they have all the money laying out and they've collected all the medications from the bathroom and the drawers and the cabinets and they're all laying out on the bed.
18:18
So when we take our pictures, it's important for us to tell our doctor, hey, the police did this. This is not something that the person did before they died, before they shot themselves or whatever. I can remember years ago I had a guy that actually died at a movie theater.
18:36
The fire department completely emptied his pockets before I got to the scene and everything that was in his pockets was laying on the ledge inside this movie theater. Just all, you know, laying out for me, here's everything in his pockets, you know, and we try to educate him, you know, hey, you're not supposed to touch the body.
18:56
In the big picture, like we know, like in this case, this was a natural death. The guy died of a heart attack during a movie. He was in his 50s. He was there alone and he was found by the girl who came to clean the theater after the movie ended and poor thing, she thought he was asleep and kept trying to wake him up and he didn't budge and turns out he was dead.
19:21
But all these items, you know, laying out on the ledge again, so they're like touching the body. So what if this had been a homicide? I mean, it wasn't, but that's not their decision to make before they empty the pockets.
19:36
So I guess is my point. And that's kind of how the medical examiner looks at it. Like you can't make that decision. You can't determine the cause and manner of death and then decide that it's okay to touch the body, move the body around, empty the pockets.
19:53
and all the things. I mean I think a lot of people think that it's doing us a favor. I personally think that they know that if we were there we wouldn't allow it and so they're doing it before we get there because it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
20:10
But as a general rule no one except the medical examiner makes a decision on the cause and manner of death in a medical examiner case except for the medical examiner. And we cannot assume that the movie theater death was natural but it might not have been.
20:30
Someone may have poisoned his junior mints. We do not know. Touching the body, moving the body, emptying the pockets and all that stuff is something that no one is supposed to do. I know even in the hospital I think I've talked to y'all we've had every once in a while nurses that'll wipe someone's face off and pull out the E T tube and empty out.
20:52
the pockets and put them in a body bag and then call us. That's not okay either. So it's a crime scene until it's not a crime scene. I think that's the hardest lesson to teach people. It's the hardest lesson for people to understand is that it's a crime scene until the medical examiner determines that it's not and until the medical examiner has collected any evidence that might be there to back up their beliefs,
21:25
it's a crime scene. Even I try to touch the body as little as possible. And of course, on our trace cases where we think there might be hairs or fibers, we don't manipulate the body at all. In those cases, we don't even empty pockets because we don't need to manipulate it.
21:43
We don't need to knock anything loose. We wanna keep all the evidence there that we can so that the medical examiner has as much evidence as they can possibly get to catch the person who may have murdered and dumped the body in a trace case.
21:59
So we don't manipulate those bodies at all. I mean, we try to turn them as little as possible. We don't remove their jewelry. We don't empty their pockets, any of those things. And so I think if you're a nurse in a hospital or a police officer, I can't guarantee that the medical examiner or coroner in your area is going to think of things the same way as we do.
22:24
But in our area, they don't like anything to be touched. They want our photographs to basically be the same as the police officer's photographs when they arrive. It does require sometimes that we stay on the scene a little longer, but that's okay.
22:40
We need to preserve as much evidence as possible in all of our cases. Anyway, just my soapbox there for a minute. I love to educate, and I know if you work... in the ER, it's important to know that until the medical examiner clears a case or releases a case, it's not okay to wipe off a body or remove any medical interventions just because you could possibly be removing evidence.
23:08
I have had them bag the hands and bag the body on a homicide victim. Again, those are decisions that the investigator makes on scene and those rules are pretty much regulated by the medical examiner.
23:24
Anyway, I am kind of looking forward to going into work, not feeling my best yet, but I think I'm going to survive. I start my morning. One of my co-workers brings me a diet Dr. Pepper with vanilla from Sonic every morning and that's how I start my day.
23:40
And you know what, when I don't have that, my day's just not the same. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm so spoiled. My husband makes fun of me because of my diet doctor pepper obsession. He says it's running through my veins and I think he's probably right.
23:54
Anyway, it will be this morning, but I hope y'all have a great week. I am so ready for school to be over. Let me tell you, I've been staying up late doing homework and the class I'm taking now is only three weeks long.
24:09
My next class is only three weeks long. So as you can imagine, it's very condensed. It's very fast paced. It's a lot of information in a short period of time. It's hard to do that and work two jobs, but I'm making it happen.
24:23
Anyway, my time management skills have gotten a little bit better, but I'm still not great at it. I hope y'all have a great week and I look forward to talking to y'all next week. Bye y'all. Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies.
24:38
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