Bad Samaritan: The Horrific Abduction and Murder of Cherish Perrywinkle
Web of Deception
On the evening of Friday, July 21, 2013, Rayne Perrywinkle gathered up her three young daughters and headed to a nearby Dollar General store in their hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. Since the family didn’t own a car, they set out on foot for the twenty-minute walk, arriving at their destination around 7:30. Although they hadn’t intended to stay long, the shopping spree would quickly evolve into a nightmare no one could have foreseen.
Though they needed to pick up a few household items, the main reason for their visit had been to purchase clothes for the oldest child, eight-year-old Cherish, who would be boarding a plane the next morning to spend the summer with her father in California.
A single mother who lived on limited funds, Rayne was used to watching every penny. Even so, she wanted her daughter to have at least one new outfit to wear on her journey.
As they were looking through sundresses, a frilly white frock had caught Cherish’s eye. Since it was missing a tag, they had asked a cashier to do a price check. When it turned out to be a bit more than she could manage, Rayne had reluctantly returned the dress to the rack, over her daughter’s protests.
While they were up front near the registers, Rayne had noticed a middle-aged man loitering at the entrance. She would later learn that when she and her children walked back through the store, he had asked the cashier if they were putting the dress back. When he found out that they were, he went looking for them.
After finding them browsing in the kid’s section, he had initiated small talk with Rayne, joking that she appeared to have her hands full. Making himself right at home in her presence, he had smiled and told her that his name was Don. Within minutes, they were commiserating like old friends.
Working under the assumption that Rayne was in need of some financial help, he generously offered to let her have a $150 Walmart gift card that he claimed was sitting at home going to waste. Rather than allowing it to gather dust, he volunteered to phone his wife and have her bring it over so that Cherish could get the clothes she needed.
Although the overly friendly stranger had made her feel uneasy, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, Rayne had accepted his kind offer. Once they were on the same page, they had gone out to the parking lot to meet Don’s wife.
After several minutes of standing around waiting, the children began to get restless. When it started to look like his missus had gotten lost, Don suggested that they meet her inside Walmart instead. Since it was beginning to rain and he had plenty of room in his van, he offered to taxi the family to the superstore.
At this point, Rayne didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, she didn’t really know this man, who she felt was a bit too good to be true. On the other, she wasn’t looking forward to walking twenty minutes in the rain while pushing a stroller as night was quickly falling. Not to mention the fact that going home would mean robbing Cherish of a slew of brand-new summer clothes.
Sensing that Don was growing impatient, she pushed her growing apprehension aside and accepted the ride. When she opened the door of the van and saw that all the windows were covered and the back seats laid down, she hesitated. After a brief internal debate, she threw caution to the wind and loaded the carriages into the cargo area. She then buckled her children in their seats and hoped against hope that her instincts were wrong.
When they arrived at Walmart, she and the kids went inside while Don waited in the parking lot for his wife. Unaccustomed to having a windfall, it wasn’t long before their cart was filled with clothes, not only for Cherish, but also for her younger siblings.
While they were busy looking through the enticing array of vacation wear, Don joined them. Although he made no mention of the gift card, she assumed that he was hanging onto it until the time came to checkout. Unconcerned, the family continued shopping.
At one point, Rayne noticed that Don was urging Cherish to try on a pair of women’s high heel shoes. When he then insisted that she put them in the buggy, her mother had vetoed the idea, saying that they were way too big and not meant for children.
She was also a bit put off when she saw him disappear into the fitting room with her little girl on at least two occasions. Even though every fiber of her being told her that something was wrong, she had kept quiet for fear of making Don angry. The thought of having to tell Cherish that she would have to put the clothes she so desperately wanted back on the racks twice in one night was more than she could bear.
In yet another show of generosity, after learning that the family hadn’t eaten, Don offered to buy them cheeseburgers at the in-store McDonalds located near the front exits. Humbled by his selflessness, Rayne had gratefully accepted. As he walked away, she hadn’t realized that Cherish was following close behind.
A half hour later, a voice burst forth over the loudspeaker informing customers that the store would be closing soon and that all purchases should be taken to the nearest register. With a cartload of merchandise and no means of payment, Rayne started to panic.
Racing up and down the aisles, her toddlers in tow, she looked high and low for Don and Cherish, but they were nowhere to be found. When she saw that the McDonalds had already closed down for the night, her sense of dread deepened. Upon checking the parking lot and finding no sign of the van, her world began to crumble before her eyes.
At 11:20, she placed a frantic call to 911, telling them that she feared her daughter had been kidnapped. Though the dispatcher seemed sympathetic, the same couldn’t be said for the responding officers, who were skeptical of Rayne’s story.
Acting on the mistaken assumption that she wasn’t being truthful, they decided to treat the eight-year-old as a missing person rather than the victim of a stranger abduction. Owing to this blunder, six hours would pass before an Amber Alert was issued. What’s more, no information had been circulated to the media or the public.
A Race Against Time
Once investigators viewed the security footage taken inside Walmart, everything changed. The grainy film had not only captured the family shopping as Don looked on but had also shown him exiting the store with Cherish by his side. Cameras in the parking lot then showed them getting into the van and driving away.
This gamechanger had sent authorities scrambling to find Don and, more importantly, Cherish. Soon, images of the van and its driver were being released to neighboring law enforcement agencies as well as the general public.
At nine o’clock the next morning, a highway patrol officer performing a routine stop, spotted a van that perfectly matched the description of the suspect’s vehicle. After giving chase, he forced the driver over and ordered him to get out with his hands up.
Noticing that the man, fifty-six-year-old Donald Smith, was soaking wet, the officer asked what he had been up to that morning. After offering the bizarre explanation that he was drenched in sweat from a night of smoking crack and cavorting with prostitutes, he was placed under arrest. Though there was no sign of Cherish in the van, it was clear that Smith was up to no good.
Not long afterwards, a tip was called in from a concerned citizen stating that they had witnessed a white van parked in the lot of a Baptist church. She had also seen a man, whom she assumed to be the driver, poking around in a nearby creek. She didn’t know for sure, but she thought that he might have dumped something in the water.
Eleven hours after she was reported missing, a recovery team descended on the area the caller had described. Not long after the search got underway, cadaver dogs discovered Cherish’s brutalized body hidden beneath a log in the creek.
Voicing the Unspeakable
An autopsy would reveal that the little girl had been raped and sodomized so violently that her female organs were no longer recognizable. She had also suffered multiple bruises and abrasions, including hickeys on her upper body. Seminal fluid was retrieved from her mouth, vagina and rectum that would later be found to match that of the suspected perpetrator, Donald Smith.
It was also determined that a gag had been tied around Cherish’s mouth so tightly that her gums had bled. There were signs of blunt force trauma to the head, as well as defensive wounds to her hands and arms. When the examination of her remains was complete, the cause of death was found to have been ligature strangulation.
When Smith was examined on the day of his arrest, the prison physician found that he had sustained injuries to his penis during the course of his vicious attack on Cherish. Traces of her DNA were also found to still be present on his person.
With irrefutable proof of his guilt staring them in the face, authorities charged Smith with the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of Cherish Perrywinkle. While sitting in lockup, he was caught on audio tape making vile comments about young girls to his fellow inmates. It was evident that, even when it would have been in his best interest to pretend to be human, he wasn’t able to fake normality.
Missed Opportunities
A look into Donald Smith’s past appalled investigators. With a criminal history dating back to the 1970s, his arrest record was ninety-five pages long and counting. Among other things, his list of offenses included multiple attempted abductions of young girls, lewd and lascivious acts performed in the presence of minors, obscene calls to a child, impersonation of a CPS worker, and robbery.
While he received sentences ranging from a few months to several years, he was always released back into society where he invariably took up where he left off. In a maddening twist of fate, his latest prison stint had ended less than three weeks before Cherish’s abduction.
As for the wife who played a key role in his ruse, she turned out to be a figment of his imagination. The only woman in Smith’s life was his mother, with whom he shared a home. As he awaited trial, he would often speak with her on the phone. Whether he knew that the calls were being taped or not is unknown, but given his familiarity with the system, it can be assumed that he did.
During their conversations, Smith had stressed that he didn’t find young girls particularly appealing. While he admitted to raping Cherish, he told his mother that he had merely used the eight-year-old’s body as an outlet for his all-consuming rage and hostility. According to him, he had gotten no sexual gratification from the assault.
As the lies continued, he laid the blame for what transpired that night on the victim. In his version of events, Cherish had followed him out of the store of her own accord. He had been so dismissive of the girl he was portraying as a pest, that he made the off-handed remark that he didn’t even remember her name.
Once they were outside, he was shocked to see that she had climbed into the van, completely uninvited. As a registered sex offender who was prohibited from being around children, he knew then that he had no choice other than to kill her. While his mother may have believed the yarns he was spinning, police and prosecutors who eavesdropped on the calls did not.
Smith was apparently unaware that his movements had been tracked that night from the time he first encountered Rayne and her children in the Dollar General until he drove away from the Walmart with Cherish. Investigators could tell by viewing the footage that he had stalked the little girl like a predator zeroing in on its prey.
Though not overly bright, Smith was cunning enough to know that he would have to tread lightly if there was to be any chance of separating Cherish from her mother. With that in mind, he used Rayne’s financial situation to his advantage. Using the promise of new wardrobes for her children as bait, he had manipulated her from the very start. Once she was on board, he knew that he could lure the object of his desire into his trap.
Since he had gone out of his way to shower her with attention, Cherish had no reason to think that he meant her any harm. This was probably why she had happily walked with him to McDonalds. In her innocence, she wasn’t afraid until he had given her reason to be.
Though we’ll never know why she left the store with him without a fuss, it can be presumed that he told her they would drive to another location to pick up the burgers, since the food court was closed.
At the same time that their movements were being caught on tape, they were also being observed by other customers, none of whom had sensed that anything was wrong. By all appearances, the pair looked like any other grandfather out shopping with his granddaughter. As such, no alarm bells were raised. The witnesses had no way of knowing that once he had the little girl all to himself, this doting ‘grandfather’ would turn into a monster.
Better Late than Never
Smith’s trial got underway on February 5, 2018, four years after Cherish was murdered. Her grief and overwhelming feelings of guilt still raw, Rayne had taken the stand to recount the hours leading up to her daughter’s abduction. She reiterated that she had a bad feeling about the defendant from the moment she laid eyes on him but had convinced herself that she was being paranoid.
The defense’s initial plan had been to put the blame for Cherish’s death squarely on her mother’s shoulders for allowing Smith to gain access to her in the first place. After realizing that, by doing so they would be more or less throwing their own client under the bus, they abandoned the notion.
The emotionally charged proceedings had taken an unexpected turn when the medical examiner, Dr. Valerie Rao, broke down while sharing the autopsy findings with the court. After asking for a brief recess, she had resumed her description of the horrific tortures that had been inflicted upon the youngster as jurors wiped away tears.
When the time came for the defense to present their side, Smith had wisely chosen not to take the stand. Likewise, no character witnesses were called to speak on his behalf.
In the end, his attorneys contended that their client had suffered a traumatic brain injury at the age of nine that had altered his perceptions of right and wrong. Unable to control his impulses thereafter, he had acted out inappropriately through no fault of his own.
After deliberating for just under twenty minutes, the jury delivered a verdict of guilty on charges of first-degree murder, rape and kidnapping. In May of 2018, the presiding judge set Smith’s punishment as death by lethal injection.
As was to be expected, his lawyers immediately appealed the verdict on the grounds that the trial should have been moved to an area that was less biased against their client. Since a request for a change of venue had already been addressed and was found to be a non-issue, the complaint was deemed invalid. They also argued that the coroner’s tearful testimony had hopelessly swayed the jury in the state’s favor. This too was dismissed, allowing the verdict to stand.
Today, Donald Smith sits on death row at Union Correctional Institution in Union County, Florida. Despite the fact that he had proven time and again that he wasn’t fit to walk among humanity, it had taken the senseless slaying of an innocent child to finally get him locked away for good.
Though his execution date has not yet been set, it can’t come soon enough for the family of the little girl whose last moments on Earth were spent at his mercy.
Resources:
·actionnewsjax.com
·aetv.com
·firstcoastnews.com
·chillingcrimes.com
·news4jax.com
·efactssc-public.flcoourts.org
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