BRONX MAN IS CONVICTED FOR BEATING DEATHS OF HIS GRANDMOTHER AND RIKERS ISLAND CELL MATE

Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson announced today that a 22 year-old Bronx man has been convicted of murder in the deaths of his grandmother in November 2000, and his Rikers Island cellmate in January 2001.

Following a non-jury trial before Acting State Supreme Court Justice Ira. R. Globerman, Derek Smart, of 1170 East 229th Street was found guilty of 2 counts of Murder in the 2nd degree for the deaths of Mattie Conyer, 78 and Robert Konopka, 45. Smart is facing a term of up to life imprisonment when he is sentenced on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 in Part DV.

The first murder occurred on November 16, 2000, when the defendant beat his grandmother in the head with a mallet, crushing her skull. The victim’s son, who called the police, discovered Conyer’s body that evening. Smart was arrested the next morning when he returned to the apartment wearing blood stained clothing.

While incarcerated and awaiting trial in connection with his grandmother’s death, the defendant claimed to hear voices and was transferred to the psychiatric observation section of the Rikers Island jail known as the Anna M. Kross Center. Smart was placed in a two-man cell with Konopka. On the day of Konopka’s death, Smart was seen by a prison psychiatrist and returned to his cell around 6:15PM. Prison records show that officers checked the cell at 7PM and found nothing unusual. At 7:15PM Smart called officers to the cell and pointed to the body of his cellmate. Konopka was pronounced dead a short time later at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens. The medical examiner ruled his death to be the result of blunt force trauma to the head.

Supervising Assistant District Attorney Richard R. Best and Major Case Assistant District Attorney David Birnbaum prosecuted this case.