A 13-Year-Old Killer: The Murder of Derrick Robie

A 13-Year-Old Killer: The Murder of Derrick Robie

On August 2, 1993, 4-year-old Derrick Robie was lured into a wooded area one block from his home in Savona, New York, and murdered. The suspect was 13-year-old Eric Smith, a neighbor, and the homicide investigation that followed made Smith the youngest defendant ever tried as an adult for murder in New York State, leading to a second-degree murder conviction, a sentence of 9 years to life, and 11 parole board hearings across 27 years.Savona had fewer than 1,000 people in it, and Derrick knew most of them by name. He sat on a corner greeting neighbors and the town called him the unofficial mayor. When he disappeared on a walk he had made a hundred times with his mother, everyone assumed an outsider had come through. The truth was already inside the village, riding a bike, and it had been leaving warning signs for 4 years that nobody knew how to read. This is a story about two boys, one town, and a question a family friend could not stop thinking about.

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