According to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, a man entered a guilty plea to kidnapping his ex-girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter and killing her by strangling her with a pink cellphone charger.
In the 30th Judicial Circuit Court in Ingham County on Monday, Rashad Maleek Trice, 27, entered a guilty plea to one count each of first-degree murder and first-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with the 2023 killing of 2-year-old Wynter Cole-Smith and the assault of her mother.
Trice is slated to serve a mandatory life term in jail. On August 16, a judge will formally sentence him.
“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 stated. “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.”
Rather than going via county prosecutor’s offices, Nessel’s office took on the case because it involved various felonies around the state.
“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.”
Trice entered a guilty plea to federal counts pertaining to the same conduct in March, preceding this. In that case, his sentencing is set for July 19.
The federal criminal complaint states that on July 2, 2023, at 11:19 p.m., Trice’s ex-girlfriend phoned the Lansing Police Department following an incident in her residence, during which she claimed to have stabbed him in self-defense.
The complaint claimed that in retaliation, Trice repeatedly stabbed her and then sexually abused her before escaping the residence with Wynter and a 1-year-old boy in tow. Wynter was missing when the police searched the residence and discovered the one-year-old.
When authorities learned that Trice had taken the 2013 Chevrolet Impala belonging to the ex-girlfriend’s mother, they released an Amber Alert with information on the vehicle and a photo of Wynter.
A policeman in St. Clair Shores, a Detroit suburb located roughly 90 miles east of Lansing, noticed the Impala at 4:50 a.m. on July 3 and attempted to pull it over. After a brief pursuit, Trice took off and collided with another police vehicle, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit stated that despite discovering “a significant amount of blood was present in the vehicle consistent with Trice’s stab wounds” and pieces of a pink charging wire, authorities were unable to locate Wynter, which prompted a furious hunt.
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Trice claimed he last saw Wynter with her mother on body camera footage from the arrest, and he denied having taken Wynter. Following the kidnapping, FBI investigators tracked Trice’s whereabouts using cell sites.
Wynter’s body was discovered by authorities on July 5 just before 7 p.m. in an alleyway close to Coleman A. Young International Airport, between Olympia Street and Edgewood Avenue, close to Erwin Avenue.
“[Wynter’s] cause of death appeared to be strangulation with a pink cell phone charging cord, that was recovered with the body,” the affidavit stated. “The pink cell phone charging cord was consistent with the pink cord parts recovered from the Chevrolet Impala.”
