Michigan Man Sentenced to Second Life Term for Kidnapping and Killing 2-Year-Old
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A federal judge in Michigan gave a man a second life sentence after he pleaded guilty to taking and killing his ex-girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter.
Rashad Trice was given his sentence by U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker on Friday. This came one week after he was given a life sentence in state jail without the chance of parole for killing the girl and a sentence of 60 to 90 years for assaulting her mother in Ingham County Circuit Court.
The officials say that Trice and his ex-girlfriend fought at her apartment in Lansing in July 2023. After she stabbed Trice, he continued to attack her sexually and cut her more than once. After that, he left.
There, she left her 1-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter, Wynter Cole Smith, at her mother’s apartment in the same building. The girl could not be found by the cops who arrived.
When cops saw Trice, they saw him crash his car in a Detroit suburb. The girl wasn’t with him, though. Dogs, drones, and airplanes were used to look for her along a highway between Lansing and Detroit. The FBI finally found the girl’s body in an overgrown alley in Detroit. She was choked to death with a cellphone cord.
Because the car and other tools used in the crime were not made in Michigan, the case was turned over to federal authorities.
In March, Trice pleaded guilty to a federal charge of kidnapping with the intent to kill. He admitted that he took the girl from her home because he was angry with her mother. A charge of kidnapping a minor was dropped by the prosecutors, but Trice still had to serve a life term because of his plea.
A lawyer for Trice, Scott Graham, told The Associated Press on Friday, “Mr. Trice deeply regrets these tragic events and he accepts responsibility for his actions.”