Friend Says Accused Killer of 11-Year-Old Girl ‘Literally Had Demons’

Abbiegail “Abbie” Smith, 11, of Keansburg, was found dead Thursday morning in the back area of the Hancock Arms Apartments in Keansburg, where Smith lived with her mother. The death is being investigated as a homicide. (Keansburg Police Department)

The teenager accused of stabbing an 11-year-old borough girl to death this week “literally had demons” and had shown a pattern of lashing out in anger, according to people who knew him and his family.

Andreas Erazo, 18, was charged Thursday with murder hours after authorities found AbbieGail “Abbie” Smith’s body behind an apartment complex where they both lived. He’s being held in jail until a detention hearing Wednesday.

Bobbie Burdick, 19, who described herself as a close friend of Erazo, said he is easily angered and sometimes threatened violence.

“He literally had demons he was fighting,” Burdick, who met Erazo through a mutual friend while he was attending Middletown High School, told NJ Advance Media.

The two once attended a high school dance together, and Erazo became irritated because he thought Burdick’s dress was too short, she said. He yelled at her in front of a group of their friends until she went inside to change, said Burdick, who has known Erazo for at least four years and also knows the Smith family.

Erazo was controlling and constantly expressing worry that everyone was against him, she said. He became “another person” when he was angry and sometimes threw things at the wall, Burdick said.

He physically threatened her, but never acted on those threats, Burdick said.

“Every time he did get mad, I would walk away,” she said. “Say we were fighting and he was like, ‘Say one more thing and I’m going to hit you.'”

After growing up in Middletown, Erazo moved to Eatontown when he was 16 or 17 and then to Keansburg, Burdick said. He had a very difficult relationship with his mother, and his father was not in his life, she said.

Burdick said Erazo recently called her from Middletown’s ShopRite and asked her to drive him to Eatontown because he and his mother were fighting. She didn’t go, she said.

Erazo was once level-headed and a good student, Burdick said, but his behavior changed in his junior year of high school when he stopped playing intramural football and basketball. She said he befriended a group of kids who abused drugs.

Burdick said Erazo was a sturdy, 6-foot-1 teenager. The girl he is accused of fatally stabbing was 4 feet tall and weighed about 85 pounds, police said.

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SOURCE: NJ.com, Marisa Iati and Luke Nozicka