A Brooklyn man who is charged with throwing his four-year-old brother off the roof of an apartment building had been struggling with mental health issues – it has been revealed.
Shawn Smith, 20, was walked out of the 70th Precinct in handcuffs Saturday evening charged with the murder of his younger brother Shimron Smith earlier that day.
Relatives told the New York Daily News that Smith, a native of Guyana, had been suffering mental health problems which had prevented him from coming to the US for several months.
He was also said to have been placed in Kings County Hospital for more psychiatric treatment after breaking down a door in his family’s Flatlands apartment a few months after he eventually made it to the US.
Shimron Smith’s family released a photo of the four-year-old boy after he was found dead in the early hours of Saturday morning
Shawn Smith, 20, walking out of the 70th Precinct on Saturday as he is charged with murder
‘You could see in his eyes, he was deteriorating,’ said Robin Frith, who is married to Smith’s grandfather. ‘He was a sick person — you could see it!’
‘If you’re schizophrenic, you’re hearing voices and (they’re) telling you what to do,’ Robin Frith said. ‘There were people (from the hospital) who were visiting the house and he wasn’t speaking to them.’
Shimron Smith was found unconscious and unresponsive in a courtyard outside the apartment block in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Shawn Smith flagged down a police car and led cops to the scene where he calmly told them he had thrown the boy off the roof 45 minutes earlier.
The boy died at the scene after the emergency services were called to the building in Brooklyn at around 3.30am.
Shimron Smith was found dead at the scene having fallen from athe top of an apartment building in Flatbush, Brooklyn
Police arrested Shimron’s brother, Shawn Smith (pictured), 20, who has a history of schizophrenia
According to his mother Shawn had spent three weeks in the mental health facility and ‘was okay’ when he came back.
Relatives said Smith often refused to take the medication he was prescribed when he was discharged from the hospital after breaking the door because he believed it was poison.
Despite his struggles, he worked a part-time job with his cousin doing demolition work.
‘Even the night before it happened, all of us, we sit here on the chair over here, we’re sitting and laughing and laughing,’ his mother said.
Smith was charged with murder after his arrest. His arraignment was postponed indefinitely on Sunday while he was evaluated at Bellevue Hospital.
Officials said 20-year-old Shawn Smith, the victim’s brother, admitted to throwing his brother off of the building’s roof