What happened to Cherish Perrywinkle? Donald Smith appeals his death sentence for rape and murder of 8-year-old
This week the Florida Supreme Court will reportedly hear arguments whether Donald Smith – who kidnapped, raped, and killed – an eight-year-old girl seven years ago deserves a new trial. Senior Assistant Attorney General Charmaine Millsaps said in a brief filed in the case, “Specifically, the pretrial publicity was so expansive that it saturated the community for years, provided a one-sided and continuous narrative leading to one conclusion at trial, Mr. Smith’s inevitable conviction, and death sentence.”
Continuing further, Millsaps explained: “There was over four years between this crime and jury selection. Furthermore, Duval County is a large diverse county with hundreds of thousands of eligible jurors of which it is difficult to believe that twelve unbiased jurors, uninfluenced by the publicity and indifferent to, or even totally unaware of, social media posts, could not be found.” The lawyer also wrote that the photos of the victim, Cherish Perrywinkle, should not have been revealed during the trial. “These photographs depicted a naked child with severe injuries to her vagina and anus, as well as skin removed from the front of her throat to show deep bruising around the trachea. The probative value was substantially outweighed by the prejudicial effect because, to show these images to the jury, would ‘shock’ them and ‘inflame their passions,” Millsaps added.
What happened to Cherish Perrywinkle?
It was June 21, 2013, when Cherish and her mother – Rayne Perrywinkle – were approached at the Dollar General store on Edgewood Avenue West in Jacksonville by Smith. The convicted murderer offered to buy Rayne a dress along with a $150 gift card. The court documents stated that the single mother agreed to both. Later, the criminal also convinced Rayne to come with him in his car at a nearby Walmart, where he claimed to buy the card. Smith also said that his wife, who was imaginary, will join them there.
At around 11 in the night when Smith’s fake wife did not turn up he offered to buy dinner at the McDonald’s inside the store, while waiting for her. He also asked the little girl to come with him to select the food of her choice. Since the store had numerous cameras, as well as its workers, were all over, Rayne sent her daughter. But when Cherish did not return after a long time, Rayne became anxious. She also got to know that McDonald's was not open at the time. “I don’t want him to kill her. I don’t want to be one of those parents who go through this. I don’t understand why he would leave right now,” Perrywinkle told a 911 dispatcher at the time.
The investigators then checked the surveillance footage from Walmart in which they saw the child leaving the store with Smith. Cherish was following him closely. Eventually, he was identified as a convicted sex offender, who was at the time out of prison. He had a huge dark past dating back from 1977 that consists of a lewd assault on a child, an attempted abduction on a 13-year-old girl, harassing phone calls to a 9-year-old girl, and an attempted abduction on two teen girls by trying to lure them to his vehicle with pornographic magazines.
On June 22 at around nine in the morning, the same year, cops found Smith’s van off of I-95 near downtown Jacksonville. They also discovered him wearing the same clothes from the previous night. Another “suspicious” van was also spotted around Broward Road at the same time. Nearby from a nearby swampy ditch, Cherish’s remains were discovered. Her dead body was full of injury marks.