Michigan man gets another life sentence in 2-year-old’s kidnapping death
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A federal judge has handed a Michigan man who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing a 2-year-old girl a second life sentence. Rashad Trice acknowledged that he took Wynter Cole Smith from her home in Lansing in July 2023 as part of a dispute with the girl’s mother, his former girlfriend. A search for the girl stretched from the state capital to the Detroit area. Her body was eventually discovered in a Detroit alley. She had been strangled with a cellphone cord. Federal prosecutors took jurisdiction of the case because the car and other tools used in the crime were made outside Michigan. U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker sentenced Trice to life on Friday, one week after Trice was sentenced to life on state charges.
