A year later, Wynter Cole-Smith's father says the pain still cuts deep

Friday marks one year since 2-year-old Wynter Cole-Smith’s body was found in an alley on Detroit's east side. She was kidnapped and murdered by her mother’s ex-boyfriend last year.

Her father, Almount Smith, says the pain still cuts deep.

“It’s like the great sword that’s stuck in the stone,” he said. “How you gone get it out?”

Smith says living without his child is a parent's worst nightmare. He says his bad dream began when he first got the phone call that his daughter had been kidnapped.

“Nobody wants to be woken up like that,” he said, recalling the night he received the tragic phone call.

Hear from Wynter's family from last year below:

The kidnapping didn’t take long to make national headlines.

"Soon as I landed, that’s when a lot of the Amber Alerts were going off," Smith said.

The man who killed Wynter pled guilty to murder in both federal and state courts. He will be sentenced later this year.

But Smith says it doesn’t bring any comfort because his baby is still dead.

“You said you could’ve stopped when you had the chance. You said you knew better. But you didn’t," said Smith.

Now, Wynter's family is left with nothing but memories.

“She liked pizza, macaroni and cheese and ribs,” he said. “One of the funniest things, just waking up and then I’ll leave the room, come back and her head just up looking. That was probably one of my most favorite memories.”