Man who killed 2-year-old Wynter Cole-Smith sentenced to life in prison without parole

Almount Smith (right) gives a victim impact statement during the sentencing of Rashad Trice, 28, in Lansing for the 2023 murder of his 2-year-old granddaughter Wynter Cole-Smith on Aug. 16, 2024. Trice, appearing over Zoom (left), was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols

A case which began in July of 2023 as a search for a kidnapped 2-year-old, Wynter Cole-Smith, garnering statewide attention in Michigan, has ended with the sentencing of Rashad Trice, 27, on Friday in a Lansing court to life in prison for her murder and the sexual assault of her mother.

On July 2, 2023 Trice sexually assaulted and stabbed his former girlfriend, Cole-Smith’s mother, and kidnapped the two-year girl who was found dead after a three-day search in a Detroit alley, having been strangled by a phone cord.

It was an unimaginable hate within Trice that led to that fateful day, the girl’s paternal grandfather Almount Smith said during his victim impact statement on Friday, a hate that leaves everyone who loved the two-year-old with the question of “why”.

“Why was my baby… my little angel used as collateral?” Smith said to Trice who appeared over zoom. “You took someone special from me, my only grandchild.”

Cole-Smith was a toddler full of love, her maternal grandmother Willeen Cannon said in a statement read in court by Michigan Assistant Attorney General Danielle Russo Bennetts. She even loved Trice, who was not her father, but had been involved in her life.

“This act of pure evilness Rashad has committed is irreversible in its actions and cannot be forgiven. My granddaughter’s life was taken before she had the chance to even know who she was, use the potty [and] say complete sentences,” Cannon’s statement said.” Rashad took her life like an animal, the same way a four-legged beast takes the young of other wild animals.”

In addition to the sentencing in Lansing on Friday where the judge ordered Trice to serve life in prison without possibility of parole, Trice will be sentenced in a federal case later this month for the incident where federal prosecutors decided not to pursue the death penalty .

Michigan state courts do not offer the death penalty, a constriction that Cannon said falls short of what Trice deserves.

“I believe the death penalty would be a wake up call to a lot of offenders perhaps. I really wanted the death penalty for Rashad, but I appreciate the current sentence that he’s receiving on this date. Rashad has no business in the outside world for the crime he has committed. He would only destroy more lives if given the opportunity to do so,” Cannon’s statement said.

Trice was sentenced Friday to life in prison without possibility of parole, the harshest penalty Michigan courts offer, and one that is fitting of someone that escalated domestic violence to the unimaginable extreme and who shows no remorse, Russo Bennetts said.

“Those who are in the business of dealing with domestic violence, intimate partner violence, we see the escalation of it all the time, but I think it’s so rare to see it escalate to this,” Russo Bennetts said. “To escalate to such abuse on an intimate partner and then kidnapping the child, the brutal, unimaginable loss of a child, and then fighting with the police and putting the community at risk and danger, and just the escalation of such violence in this case, and such loss…there’s few cases where life without parole makes sense, and that’s this case.”

Trice was charged with 20 criminal charges across multiple counties for Cole-Smith’s kidnapping and murder as a person who was a habitual violent offender that had had run-ins with law enforcement in the past.

Ultimately in July Trice took a plea , reducing the number of charges to first-degree murder and first-degree criminal sexual conduct, with the murder charge carrying a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Ingham County Public Defender Keith Watson, representing Trice, told the court that it was the first time and hopefully the last time that he stood beside somebody and let them offer a plea of guilty when a mandatory life sentence was on the table.

“I certainly would never recommend this to any client, and I did not, in this case… I can tell you that this was Mr. Trice’s independent decision, my team and I prepared to proceed to trial,” Watson said.

Everyone in the case will suffer for the rest of their lives, Watson said, including Trice who he thinks lives with an attachment disorder that impairs his decision-making abilities.

Though nothing can bring the two-year-old girl back, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement Friday there is a level of solace for the girl’s family in not having to sit through a lengthy trial

“Thanks to the tireless work of law enforcement and prosecutors in my office, the man responsible for these horrific acts will never again endanger our communities,” Nessel said.

Cole-Smith came from an extended family of kind and caring people who understood social responsibility and compassion, her paternal grandmother Sharen Eddings said in a statement read by Russo Bennetts.

“Wynter was better than you then and she remains better than you today, she will always be better than you,” Eddings wrote addressing Trice. “But for our family, it’s time to hold our heads high, catch our breath and begin the painful process of healing.”

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