Rashad Trice, 26, allegedly kidnapped Wynter Cole-Smith, 2, from her mother’s home in Lansing, Michigan, killed her, and abandoned her body in an alley. (Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office/Lansing Police Department)
The man accused of strangling his ex-girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter with a pink cellphone charging cord and dumping her body in an alley near an airport was arraigned on federal charges Monday, according to the U.S Attorney for the Western District of Michigan.
Wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, 26-year-old Rashad Maleek Trice responded ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to questions U.S. Magistrate Judge Ray Kent asked about his rights and whether he understood the charges during the hearing, the Detroit Free Press reported. Trice pleaded not guilty to kidnapping resulting in death, which carries a potential death sentence as punishment, and kidnapping a minor, which contains a life prison sentence if convicted.
“The alleged facts in this case are staggering, and my deepest sympathies go out to the mother, to the father, to the family,” U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan Mark Totten told reporters following the hearing, according to the Free Press. “My office is fully prepared to do everything necessary to establish the facts beyond a reasonable doubt.”
In a press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Devin J. Kowalski, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Michigan, said it took a team effort to arrest Trice and recover Wynter’s body.
“The sadness for those of us working the case is outmatched by our resolve and focus on the continued, careful work supporting the prosecution. Over 30 law enforcement agencies banded together on this case, culminating in tremendous heroism by those Eastpointe and St. Clair Shores Police Officers apprehending the accused and by those FBI Agents who recovered Wynter,” Kowalski said.
According to a criminal complaint, Trice’s ex-girlfriend called the Lansing Police Department around 11:19 p.m. July 2 after an altercation in her apartment where she said she stabbed him in self defense. In response, Trice stabbed her multiple times and then sexually assaulted her before she fled the apartment, leaving behind Wynter and a 1-year-old boy, the affidavit said. When police checked the apartment they found the 1-year-old but not Wynter.
Officers discovered Trice stole his ex-girlfriend’s mother’s 2013 Chevrolet Impala and as a result police issued an Amber Alert that included a picture of Wynter and a description of a car. About 4:50 a.m. July 3, a police officer in St. Clair Shores, a suburb of Detroit which is about 90 miles east of Lansing, spotted the Impala and tried to conduct a traffic stop. Trice took off, but crashed into another police car after a short chase, the affidavit said.
While investigators found “a significant amount of blood was present in the vehicle consistent with Trice’s stab wounds” along with portions of a pink charging cord, there was no sign of Wynter, setting off a frantic search, the affidavit said.
In body camera footage from the arrest, Trice denied taking Wynter and said he last saw her with her mother. FBI agents used cell sites to track Trice’s whereabouts after the kidnapping. Just before 7 p.m. on July 5, officers found Wynter’s body in an alley between Olympia Street and Edgewood Avenue near Erwin Avenue, not far from Coleman A. Young International Airport.
“[Wynter’s] cause of death appeared to be strangulation with a pink cell phone charging cord, that was recovered with the body,” the affidavit said. “The pink cell phone charging cord was consistent with the pink cord parts recovered from the Chevrolet Impala.”
Trice told FBI agents in an interview on July 4 that he and his ex got into an argument over money which became violent, according to the affidavit. During the interrogation, Trice allegedly said “I am already a monster.”
In a text message to his father who asked him what happened to Wynter, he responded “she’s gone,” the Free Press reported.
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