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Rashad Trice receives second life sentence for death of Lansing toddler

GRAND RAPIDS – Rashad Trice was sentenced to a second life term Friday for kidnapping 2-year-old Wynter Cole-Smith from her Lansing home and strangling her with a telephone cord.

Seven days after an Ingham County District Court judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder, Trice received the same sentence from U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker – this time for his federal conviction of child abduction resulting in death.

Mark Totten, the U.S. district attorney for the Western District of Michigan, described Friday's hearing as “sombre,” as befits a case that carries a mandatory life sentence. He said he felt “some relief” and believed the government had obtained justice for Wynter, to the extent that it was possible.

“There is nothing we can do to bring back Wynter Cole-Smith's precious life,” he said minutes after the verdict was announced in federal court in Grand Rapids.

The federal court ruling ends proceedings related to events that unfolded in local and national media over the July 4 holiday weekend of 2023. The July 2 abduction sparked a nationwide search for him and Wynter. Police later found them dead in an alley near Detroit's Coleman A. Young International Airport on July 5.

Trice, 27, pleaded guilty in federal court in March, admitting to kidnapping Wynter from her mother in Lansing and later strangling her with a telephone cord. Federal authorities decided against seeking the death penalty.

On July 1, one day before the first anniversary of Wynter's abduction, Trice pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and sexual assault. The sexual assault charge related to an attack on Wynter's mother.

Ingham County District Judge Joyce Draganchuk sentenced Trice to 60 to 90 years in prison for first-degree sexual abuse in connection with an attack on Wynter's mother.

Trice was initially charged in federal court and in three Michigan counties, but the state cases were consolidated into a single case in Ingham County District Court, prosecuted by the state Attorney General's Office.

Totten noted that hundreds of people and dozens of law enforcement agencies were involved in the large-scale, nationwide search following Wynter's abduction. Many of those people joined the search uninvited during a holiday weekend, he said.

“The response was overwhelming,” he said.

The Lansing Police Department responded to the initial attack on Wynter's mother and was one of several agencies searching for the little girl and Trice.

“This was a senseless tragedy that has shaken our community to its core,” Lansing Police Chief Robert Backus said in a news release from Totten's office. “While nothing can replace the loss of Wynter Cole-Smith, I hope today's sentencing provides some comfort to Wynter's family, who have endured unimaginable pain.”

Contact Ken Palmer at [email protected]. Follow him on X @KBPalm_lsj.

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