Family of slain 4-year-old sees murderer sentenced The Associated Press BATH - Heeding a heartbroken father's plea, a judge sentenced a teen-ager Monday to nine years to life in prison - the maximum - for luring a 4-year-old boy into the woods and crushing his skull with a rock. The 14-year-old killer, Eric Smith, cast his eyes downward but showed no emotion. Eric confessed in 1993 to leading Derrick Robie on a supposed shortcut to a day camp they attended in the western New York village of Savona. In an overgrown lot, Eric choked the boy and bashed his head with a 26-pound rock. He then sodomized the body with a stick. "When Derrick came into this world I cried and when Derrick left this world I cried," Dale Robie, his voice trembling, said in asking court for the maximum. "I have felting the whole realm of loving and losing." After Judge Donald Purple passed sentence, Robie, a 34-year-old printer, said, "We got what we came for." Eric was tried as an adult and convicted of murder. The defense had argued unsuccessfully that he suffers from "intermittent explosive The Associated Press AFTER THE ORDEAL: Dale Robie talks to the media following the sentencing of his son Derrick's murderer, 14-year-old Eric Smith, in the Steuben County Court on Monday in Bath, N.Y. Smith was given nine years to life, the maximum sentence, for the bludgeon- death of the 4-year-old boy in disorder," characterized by uncontrollable violent impulses. He will serve at least the first part of his sentence at a lockup for juveniles; he could be transferred to prison at 18. Eric, who was 13 at the time of the The Associated Press TEEN-AGER SENTENCED: Eric Smith, 14, shows no emotion during the reading of his sentence Monday in Steuben County Court in Bath, N.Y., for the murder of 4-year-old Derrick Robie. slaying, could be free by age 22 and "back among us at some point in his 20s," Prosecutor John Tunney said. Under state law, a child as young as 13 can be tried as an adult for murder, but faces a more lenient sentence. NEWS August 1993.
