A 62-year-old man has been sentenced to death for the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl who he abducted from a Walmart after befriending her impoverished family and promising to buy them food.
Donald Smith sat emotionless as he was sentenced to death in Jacksonville, Florida, on Wednesday.
In 2013, he abducted eight-year-old Cherish Perrywinkle from a Walmart where he had taken her with her sisters and mother under the pretense of buying them clothes.
Cherish’s mother had met him hours earlier at a different store where he approached them and asked if they needed new outfits.
He lied that he had a $100 gift card for Walmart and convinced them to go with him there, claiming his ‘wife’ would meet them at the store.
David Smith, 62, was sentenced to death on Wednesday for raping and murdering eight-year-old girl Cherish Perrywinkle in 2013. He is pictured in court on Wednesday (left)
Surveillance footage shows Smith walking out of a Walmart with Cherish at 10pm on June 21, 2013. Her mother and sisters were inside and he told them they were going to buy cheeseburgers from a nearby McDonald’s
Once inside, he took Cherish away from the others, claiming that they were going to go across the street to buy cheeseburgers from McDonald’s.
Cherish was found dead the next day under a tree in a marsh. She had been sexually abused by Smith, a registered sex offender, for hours.
On Wednesday, her mother Rayne attended Smith’s sentencing. She later told the Florida Times-Union: ‘I want him to burn in hell.’
Judge Mallory Cooper told him: ‘Donald Smith, you have not only forfeited your right to live among us, you have forfeited your right to life at all.’
Smith approached the girl’s mother in a Dollar General store at around 7.30pm on June 21, 2013, and asked if she wanted a new dress.
He then gave the story about his made-up wife and said he would use the gift card to buy all three of Perrywinkle’s daughters clothes if they went with him to meet her at the nearby Walmart.
Smith and Cherish are circled. Her mother Rayne is also shown. She agreed to go with the pedophile after he offered to buy her daughters clothes. They did not know each other before he approached the family in a Dollar General store three hours before Cherish vanished
Cherish followed the man unsuspectingly as he led her out of the store and into his van
The girl’s mother Rayne (right) and her two other daughters are shown at a memorial service for Cherish in 2013. Rayne said she desperately needed to buy the children clothes but couldn’t afford to so went with Smith hoping that he was a Good Samaritan
The girls’ mother said she felt she could trust him because he’d said he was married.
They piled into Smith’s van then went to the Walmart where they looked at clothes for an hour.
Surveillance footage from inside the store shows Cherish wandering off to different sections of the store with Smith, her mother completely unsuspecting.
At 10pm, Smith offered to buy the family food from the McDonald’s nearby and Cherish’s mother allowed her to go with him.
She went to the front to find the pair but they never returned and the store closed not long afterwards.
She called 911 immediately, telling the operator: ‘I hope to God he doesn’t kill her. I hope to God he doesn’t rape her.
‘I don’t understand why he would leave right now unless he’s going to rape her and kill her. That’s the only reason.’
Smith was arrested after police pulled his van over the day after he snatched the girl. Cherish was strangled to death and had been sexually abused by him for hours beforehand
She wept that she had only gone with him to the store because she was struggling to provide for her children and thought that he was simply a Good Samaritan.
‘My girls need clothes so bad. That’s why I let him do it,’ she cried.
Smith was arrested the next day after a police officer spotted his van on the road and pulled him over.
He was wet and claimed that Cherish did go with him but said she jumped out of the vehicle while they were stopped at a red light.
Earlier in the morning, his van was seen parked at a church. When police went to once he was in custody, they found Cherish’s body wedged under a fallen tree.
She was half naked and had been strangled.