Rashad Trice, 26, 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)
A man pleaded guilty to kidnapping his ex-girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter and murdering her by strangling her with a pink cellphone charger, according to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office.
Rashad Maleek Trice, 27, pleaded guilty Monday in the 30th Judicial Circuit Court in Ingham County to one count each of first-degree murder and first-degree criminal sexual conduct for the 2023 slaying of 2-year-old Wynter Cole-Smith and the assault of her mother.
Trice faces a mandatory life sentence in prison. A judge will formally sentence him on Aug. 16.
“The scars left by Mr. Trice’s horrific and brutal crime spree will forever etch themselves on the lives he shattered,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement. “While nothing can ever fully heal the grief of Wynter’s family and loved ones, I hope today’s plea can be a step toward healing.”
Because multiple crimes spanned the state, Nessel’s office handled the case as opposed to county prosecutor’s offices.
“By consolidating the prosecution and securing a life sentence through plea, we have ensured the safety of the community while protecting surviving victims from the trauma of a lengthy trial.”
This comes after Trice pleaded guilty in March to federal charges related to the same crimes. He’s scheduled to be sentenced in that case on July 19.
According to the federal criminal complaint, Trice’s ex-girlfriend called the Lansing Police Department around 11:19 p.m. July 2, 2023, 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 the ex-girlfriend’s mother’s 2013 Chevrolet Impala and police issued an Amber Alert that included a picture of Wynter and a description of the car. At about 4:50 a.m. on 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 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.”
As Law&Crime previously reported, police body camera footage showed Trice telling one officer as he was being handcuffed: “I’ll probably do the rest of my life in prison.”
That is, in fact, the sentence he now faces.
Brandi Buchman and Alberto Luperon contributed to this report
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