Episode 227: Tyree Smith
Angel Gonzales’s sister-in-law Talitha Frazier with a photo of him
Tyree Smith was born in January of 1977 to parents Cheryl Rabb and Adolph Smith. He lived in both Bridgeport and Ansonia, Connecticut, growing up in the Riverside Apartments housing project and attending Ansonia High School. Tyree did well in school up until his junior year of high school when his grades suddenly began to slip and he ended up dropping out in September of 1994. He then enrolled in Job Corps, which is a labor training program designed to help young people learn job skills while also being able to earn their high school diploma. Unfortunately, it seems that around this time period was when Tyree’s mental health became noticeably bad as there was a reported incident where Tyree was found outside in the middle of winter in only his underwear.
Following this incident, Tyree was hospitalized for a brief period at the Yale Psychiatric Institute. After his inpatient stay, Tyree was sent to live with his uncle in Sacramento, California. He went on to have a son and worked at various coffee shops. At one point he was the manager of a video game store and his cousin Nicole had said that he had done some modeling work as well. Tyree had what sounded like his first run in with the law in 2007 when he was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend. He ended up being released on probation after no time served. In September of 2010, it became more clear on his Facebook page that he was struggling mentally as a post made during this time stated, “Omw to the shrinks now. Cya guys.”
In December of 2010, Tyree had lost his job at a local Starbucks while still living in California, and the job loss seemed like a major stressor for him. Shortly after becoming unemployed, he reached out to his brother-in-law and asked him for his help with getting a gun. At this time he was allegedly hearing voices telling him he needed to kill specific people, including a corrupt police officer in Bridgeport who was involved in illegal drug activity and a priest he thought was a pedophile. As his behavior began to escalate, his family became alarmed and worried for his safety, so they alerted authorities in California. This resulted in an investigation and the removal of Tyree’s young son from his care for the child’s safety.
After this, Tyree was able to receive some psychiatric care when he was inpatient at a hospital in California, and he was in and out of the hospital for some time. While in the hospital he passed time by writing a book titled “The Book of Michael” that a psychiatrist involved in the court proceedings about legally declaring Tyree criminally insane described as “nonsensical. You can't discern any kind of meaning from it.” A post on Tyree’s Facebook from January of 2011 read, “I've tried really hard to write this book. First i lose 150 pages worth of work, now somehow my flashdrive to back it up is missing. It has about 300 pages worth of work on it. I really do hope i misplaced it, which i cant see due to the fact i do not move anything on my desk. I am not going to accuse my son as i somehow always do when something turns up missing." Eight hours later, he posted “Ok, i drink ALOT. But theres no way in hell this flashdrive was sitting in litterally in front of me like this. All i had to do is raise my head. It was even eye level too. Ok, im done being paranoid. Thanks again. I should stop playing so many wargames." Another post from that same month stated, “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?"
He moved to Lynn Haven, Florida in July of 2011 and stayed with 41-year-old Michelle Renee Matisons, an author and former assistant professor in women’s studies at California State University in Sacramento. She had met Tyree in Sacramento as they had lived two doors down from one another before she moved to Lynn Haven in 2010. Tyree’s mental health continued to deteriorate and he spent most of his time working on his book and drinking heavily, usually drinking sake. Tyree would often go on walks to clear his head after drinking, and his neighbors noticed immediately that he would usually be barefoot and have an odd expression on his face. Lynn Haven, Florida was known as a quiet and safe area, as well as a predominantly white area, so Tyree stood out immediately. A neighbor in Michelle’s apartment building that Tyree was staying in had reported him to the building manager after coming upon Tyree standing outside at 10:00 a.m., barefoot and holding a bottle of wine, looking up at the sky.
While he was seen as strange and a loner, he was mostly regarded as generally harmless. One neighbor had called him “Black Jesus” because of his beard and his frequent barefoot walks. This quickly changed on January 24th, 2012 when his neighbors watched in shock and horror as the SWAT team arrived at the apartment and arrested him. The previous month in December, Tyree had been in Bridgeport, Connecticut visiting when he had suddenly shown up at his cousin Nicole Rabb’s apartment. She noted that he was disheveled, drinking from a bottle of sake and talking about his book he was writing about Greek Gods and rape. He had a small black backpack over his shoulder, and inside was an axe. He told Nicole that he needed to get blood on his hands.
Tyree then went to an apartment building on Brooks Street in Bridgeport where he had used to live at an earlier time in his life. The building was abandoned and boarded up at this time and Tyree was outside in the cold laying on the ground. A houseless man, 43-year-old Angel Gonzalez, nicknamed “Tun Tun,” had also at one time lived in the apartment building before it was boarded up. He had been staying in the vacant building and came across Tyree, and Angel invited him inside out of the cold. Once inside, Tyree heard a voice in his head that said, “This is your blood.” Tyree proceeded to take the axe from his backpack and repeatedly strike Angel in the head and face. He then left the apartment building and went to a local cemetery.
The next evening, Tyree was at Nicole’s house for dinner when he told her that he had gotten his blood. She could see that he had a small amount of blood on his pants and his hands. He then told her in great detail about how he had killed Angel with an axe, then told her that he had eaten pieces of his brain as well as his eye in the local Lakeview Cemetery. He chose the cemetery because one of his cousins was buried there, so he ate over his grave. He then washed them down with his sake. Tyree also told Nicole that he got sexual pleasure from blood. Horrified, Nicole kicked him out of the house before alerting Tyree’s mom Cheryl. Cheryl called the police the next day, alerting them that they needed to do a welfare check on her son and that he may be at the Brooks Street apartment building. When police arrived, the building was vacant from what they could tell as they were unable to gain entry inside. due to the building being boarded up. On January 11th, 2012, Tyree went to fill several prescriptions at a CVS in Fairfield, Connecticut. He was quickly sent to the hospital as he had slashed his left wrist severely with a box cutter and was found in one of the aisles of the CVS bleeding heavily and collapsed on the floor.
Tyree then went back to Lynn Haven, Florida to once again stay with Michelle after she let him into her apartment when he told her that he was homeless. He continued writing his book on her laptop. The next evening, SWAT came to arrest Tyree for the murder of Angel Gonzales. Angel’s mutilated body was found on a mattress on the third floor by a mortgage inspector over a month after the murder on January 20th, leading authorities to locate Tyree for an arrest. There was significant blood splatter around the room. Police initially thought the missing eye and pieces of brain were from rats, but learned what had really happened when they put all the pieces together from Tyree’s cousin’s account. The medical examiner ruled that Angel’s death was a homicide as a result of blunt force trauma to his head.
Psychiatrist Dr. Reena Kapoor with Yale University worked extensively with Tyree, and she shared in court that during her work with him he had offered to eat her as well. She said that Tyree told her that he ate parts of Angel’s brain and his eye so that he could better understand human behavior and gain vision into the "spiritual realm". Dr. Kapoor also learned that after eating Angel’s brain and eyes, Tyree then went to a nearby Subway for a sandwich as he was “still hungry.” He had also told police that the eye tasted like an oyster. In July of 2013, Tyree was officially determined to be not guilty by reason of insanity due to his significant mental illness at the time of the murder. His lawyer, Joseph Bruckmann, stated, “There have been two tragedies in this case. The first was the senseless death of Mr. Gonzalez, and the second is that Tyree Smith has been a tortured soul for many years. He's been tortured by voices for decades and now that he is properly medicated he is horrified he caused Mr. Gonzalez's death."
On September 9th, 2013, 36-year-old Tyree Smith was ordered to be committed to Whiting Forensic Hospital, a high-security psychiatric hospital in the state, for 60 years. On February 22nd, 2025, Tyree was granted a conditional release after a review hearing regarding his case by the Connecticut Psychiatric Security Review Board. This came as a shock to the public as this decision was made despite promises that he would be kept in a psychiatric facility for 60 years receiving much needed treatment and keeping him away from the public. In addition to public concern, Angel Gonzales’s sister-in-law Talitha Frazier voiced her own concerns that Tyree could be hiding the severity of his mental illness and asked, “How do we really know he’s not going to do this again?” She stated, “It’s not fair. He gets to be in contact with his son, reunite with his son. He now gets to talk to his dad. Well I don’t get to talk to my brother-in-law… so sorry. I don’t want his apology. He’d have to talk to God about that.”
Image sources:
people.com - “‘Bridgeport Cannibal Killer’ Is Granted a Conditional Release in What Some Lawmakers Call a ‘Mind-Boggling’ Decision”
ctpost.com - “Bridgeport man who killed and ate a man released into group home”