Police: homicide suspect ate victim's brain

LYNN HAVEN, Fla. (AP/WTNH) - A Florida man has been arrested for allegedly hacking to death a Connecticut man and eating the victim's eye and part of his brain, police said Wednesday.

Tyree Lincoln Smith, 35, was arrested Tuesday night on a Connecticut warrant for murder, according to police in Lynn Haven, Fla.

A property inspector discovered the body of Angel L. Gonzalez on Friday on the third floor of an abandoned home in Bridgeport, Conn., according to that city's police department. A medical examiner determined that the cause of death was blunt head trauma and ruled Gonzalez's death a homicide.

On Monday a cousin of Smith's in Connecticut contacted the Bridgeport police about Gonzalez's death. She told detectives that Smith had arrived at her house Dec. 15 and said he wanted to "get blood on his hands" before going to a park and then to the abandoned home, where he used to live, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

The next day, Smith returned to the cousin's house with blood on his pants, hands and an axe, the affidavit said. Smith's cousin said he told her that he was sleeping on a porch at the abandoned home when we was awakened by a Hispanic man and invited inside. Then Smith described beating the man's face and head with the axe and collecting one of his eyes, a piece of his skull some of his brain matter, which he consumed in a nearby cemetery, the affidavit said.

"It's crazy, gross, a killer eating him," said Abner Morales, "just thinking about it turned my stomach."

"It's gross, it's nasty," said Jacqueline Morales. "He should have the death penalty. The way he was killed, he should be killed like that too."

The cousin told detectives she called Smith's mother, who notified police on Dec. 16 that they may want to check the abandoned home and that her son had "mental issues," the affidavit said.

Smith had left Connecticut for Florida on Friday on a Greyhound Bus, the cousin told detectives. Police and Smith's relatives reached Smith by telephone, and in a recorded call Smith admitted that he had been at the abandoned house and that he told a relative that he had killed the man, according to the affidavit.

Federal, state and local law enforcement officers took Smith into custody at an apartment Tuesday night without incident, Lynn Haven police said.

It was not immediately clear whether Smith had an attorney.

"I'm not trying to hear that he's insane," said Talitha Frazier, "or he don't have...his mind is not there. I want justice to be done, 20 to life and no parole."

A memorial service for Gonzalez is expected to be held on Friday.