ALBANY, N.Y., April 14 (UPI) -- A man sentenced to nine years to life in a New York prison for killing a young boy when he was 13 has been turned down for parole again, authorities said Monday.
Eric M. Smith, 34, has spent more than half his life behind bars and is now in the Collins Correctional Facility south of Buffalo. A three-person parole board rejected his seventh request for release Friday, the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said.
Smith was convicted of the 1993 killing of Derrick Robie, 4, in Savona, a small village in Steuben County near the Pennsylvania line. Investigators said Derrick was walking to a summer camp program in a nearby park when Smith lured him into the woods, strangled him, hit him with a rock and used a stick to sexually assault his body.
Sentenced for second-degree murder as an adult, Smith was transferred from a juvenile detention facility to an adult prison in 2001. He is eligible to apply for parole every two years.
[Rochester Democrat & Chronicle]
