‘Cherish did not die quickly, and she did not die easily,’ state attorney tells jurors

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‘Cherish did not **** quickly, and she did not **** easily,’ state attorney tells jurors

Jurors’ eyes turned red. Some shook their heads. Some wiped their eyes. Others ******* their faces in their hands. As photos showed how mutilated the body of Cherish Perrywinkle, just 8 years old, had become, some jurors even looked away.

Monday served as the opening arguments and testimony in the trial of Donald James Smith, charged in the kidnapping, ***** and strangulation of Cherish. Her body was found in June 2013 the morning after Smith led her away from her mother at a Jacksonville Walmart. He potentially faces the ****** penalty.

“Cherish Perrywinkle was 8 years old,” State Attorney Melissa Nelson told the jury in an opening statement. “She weighed 67 pounds. Separated from her mother, from her little sisters, from all she knew what was safe in this world, she spent the last petrifying hours of her life with him.”

Rayne Perrywinkle cries on the witness stand in front of defendant Donald Smith (left) as they listen to the recording of her 911 call Monday on the opening day of his ******* trial. In the 911 call, she tells police that her 8-year-old daughter Cherish left a Walmart with Smith without her knowledge on a night in June of 2013. [Will Dickey/Florida Times-Union]

The opening statements brought an uncomfortable silence as Nelson ***** out the details of Cherish’s ******. The defense, meanwhile, urged jurors to focus on the law, not emotion, retribution or revenge. The jury must ensure the state meets the burden of proof, attorney Julie Schlax said.

“Good morning, we are here in this courtroom because the state of Florida is seeking the ****** penalty, and you have just heard an emotionally charged opening statement designed to anger you,” Schlax said. “What we are asking you to do as Americans in this country is to ask the state of Florida to live up to the burdens of proof, because they share it alone.”

Smith, now 61, had been out of jail for three weeks. He has a ********* history of preying on children going back to the 1970s.

Nelson told jurors that Smith strangled Cherish so roughly that her eyes began to bleed. “Cherish did not **** quickly, and she did not **** easily. In fact, hers was a brutal and tortured ******.”

Later in jail when a group of ****** toured, Smith was caught on tape talking with another inmate, Nelson said.

“He said, ‘I sure would like to meet those ****** at the Walmart.’

“He said, 12- to 13-year-old ****** were his target.”

Monday prosecutors opened their case by going through video and testimony from 12 witnesses. The witnesses ranged from a couple in the Walmart parking lot who Smith talked with when he said he was going to get food, to a police officer who pulled Smith over and realized his pants were soaked. They asked a ****** scene analyst about the debris found on Cherish’s body and why it must’ve been intentionally put there to hide the little girl. They asked a mother and daughter who called 911 how they knew to be suspicious of white vans.

But first, they questioned Cherish’s mother.

In the last 4½ years, Rayne Perrywinkle has had emotional outbursts at Smith’s hearings, but on Monday she remained mostly resolute answering meticulous questions about what happened the night of June 21. She said it began when a man noticed her shopping with her three daughters, putting back clothes at a Dollar General because she couldn’t afford them. The man told her he had a $150 gift card to Walmart. He said his name was Don, and he said he had little ones of his own. He offered her a ride to Walmart.

“I should’ve told him no,” she later told a 911 operator, “but my ****** need clothes so bad. I’m so sorry.”

As the audio from that phone call played, Perrywinkle wiped her eyes. She told prosecutors Smith had put rope in the shopping cart, and he offered to buy Cherish new shoes, but Perrywinkle said no. The heels were higher than even she would wear.

After she testified, Smith told his attorney not to question Perrywinkle, explaining to the judge that “I don’t want her to have to go through anything she doesn’t have to go through. I’m done.”

It was a contrast to his attorney’s opening statement when she spent much of her time telling jurors she would question why Perrywinkle went shopping at night with young daughters and why she accepted the help of a man she later described as “creepy.”

This is the first ******-penalty trial of Nelson’s tenure since she took over the office a year ago. The 4th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office has sent far more people to ****** row than any other in the state, and the office rivals almost any other in the country in its rate of getting ****** sentences.

During Nelson’s opening statements, she described the wounds to Cherish’s body in awful detail, and she told the jury that it’s her custom to explain the weaknesses in a case, but “I’m here to tell you there are no problems of proof that will come before you.”

At one point, Nelson told the jury, “Every mother’s darkest nightmare became Rayne Perrywinkle’s reality.” When the defense objected, Nelson repeated it louder and more forcefully.

“You will be changed at the end of this trial,” Nelson promised jurors.

Andrew Pantazi: (904) 359-4310

This story was updated to add a video.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union:

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