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Zymere Perkins, 6, died after being beaten with stick 'like a piñata' and thrown against wall by mother's boyfriend, court hears

The trial of Rysheim Smith in the September 2016 murder of 6-year-old Zymere Perkins, the son of his girlfriend Geraldine Perkins, began at the Manhattan Supreme Court on December 2
UPDATED JAN 23, 2020
(Source : Getty Images)
(Source : Getty Images)

MANHATTAN, NEW YORK: A court heard the horrific details in the death of a young boy who was tortured for months before he was brutally beaten and hanged by his mother's boyfriend.

The trial of Rysheim Smith in the September 2016 murder of six-year-old Zymere Perkins, the son of his girlfriend Geraldine Perkins, unfolded at the Manhattan Supreme Court this past Monday, December 2, according to the Daily Mail.

The jury was shown graphic photographs of Zymere's battered body where they could see his gruesome injuries, including cuts and bruises to his neck, head, and ribs. His chest and belly were also covered in scratches, scars, and bruises.

Detailing the disturbing events leading up to Zymere's death, Assistant District Attorney Kerry O'Connell said Smith picked up the young boy, "held him by the arm and began to beat him with a stick like a piñata."

After beating the six-year-old, Smith allegedly "waterboarded him in the shower," dropped him on the floor, and beat him with a broken broomstick and a shower rod. Zymere lost consciousness at this point, following which Smith hung him on the back of the bathroom door by his t-shirt.

While he had likely taken his "last breath" already, Smith then proceeded to take him off the hook and threw him against a bedroom wall, where he fell to the floor. "Tellingly, he did not call out to his mother… because he knew his mother was not going to protect him," O'Connell said.

Perkins, who was accused of watching "passively" as her boyfriend abused her son, reportedly waited "several hours" before checking on the young boy, by which time it was too late. She then carried him from their 135th Street Harlem home to an area hospital where he was declared dead.

"He was extremely cold," testified ER nurse Michael Nelson of Zymere. "I felt the coldness of him through his clothes," he said. "This child was dead for a while. There was no bringing this child back."

O'Connell told the jury that Smith killed Zymere in a fit of anger after he got fed up at the young boy over his constant bed-wetting, and an incident where he defecated in the living room and then tried to hide the feces. She said, however, that the abuse had been ongoing for more than a year.

She described the torrid conditions in which Zymere lived at the home, where flies had laid eggs in feces that was embedded into the carpet and crawling with maggots.  

The young boy was "deprived of food as punishment," she said, and revealed that, "When he was caught eating from the garbage because he was so hungry, the defendant beat him mercilessly. He had broken ribs on broken ribs. This child had more fractures than he had ribs."

Smith faces the possibility of life in prison if he's convicted of second-degree murder, manslaughter, and other charges.

Perkins pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter in 2017 and has already spent three years behind bars. She is expected to receive a further two to six years in exchange for her testimony against Smith.

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