Episode Details

As always, thank you for hanging out and remembering Cherish Lily Perrywinkle with me today. In June 2013, 8-year-old Cherish Perrywinkle was shopping with her mother and sisters at a Walmart when they were approached by a stranger, Donald James Smith, who pretended to be a good Samaritan offering help to the struggling family. After hours of gaining their trust inside the store, Smith convinced Cherish’s mother to let him take the little girl to get food, but instead he abducted her. Surveillance cameras captured them leaving Walmart together, and the following day Cherish Perrywinkle’s body was discovered in a wooded area in Jacksonville, Florida. Smith was quickly identified through surveillance footage, arrested, and later convicted of kidnapping, sexual assault, and first-degree murder, ultimately receiving the death penalty. The tragic Cherish Perrywinkle murder case shocked the nation and remains one of the most heartbreaking child abduction and child murder cases in Florida, raising awareness about child predators, stranger danger, and true crime cases involving missing and murdered children.