DETROIT — A police report FOIAd by 7 Action News shows that Rashad Trice's alleged violence against 2-year-old Wynter Cole-Smith's family did not begin this past week, it began when Wynter was just 3-months-old.
"If you look at this Monroe case it screams off the page that it's almost identical to the current case," said longtime prosecutor and defense attorney Todd Flood.
The report is from May of 2021.
Flood said that because of the similarities between it and Trice's current case, the prosecution will be able to cite the police report in court.
"They'll bring that case in and show that this man acts with a common scheme and plan and there's no mistake, he knew what he was doing," said Flood.
According to the report, in May of 2021 Wynter Cole-Smith's mom, Symari Cole had been dating Rashad Maleek Trice for about a month when she called police for help.
The report says the two were fighting about Wynter's father and Trice was "jealous for some reason and was upset with the father to the point where he threatened to kill" him.
It says that Cole was holding then 3-month-old Wynter when Trice "got in her face" and started filming Cole.
He threw Cole's phone across the room and pushed her when she tried to retrieve it, forcing her to fall into a lamp.
In an interview this past week, Sharen Eddings, Wynter's grandmother noted that Trice's violence was a "pattern."
She said, "You saw that grin on his face in his mugshot, he wasn't scared."
Trice is currently being charged with kidnapping and kidnapping resulting in death for Wynter Cole-Smith's dissapearance.
The 2021 report shows that during that incident Trice ran from the police and Cole told police she was "afraid Trice was going to come back for her."
Also that she was afraid Trice would go to Wynter's dad's house to "create more problems."
Two years later it seems Trice's violence has continued, now Eddings and the family are asking for the maximum sentence.
"It''s different when it's a child, how can you attack a 2-year-old?" questioned Eddings.
Flood weighed in saying, "This hits all the criteria for a death penalty case."
Flood said that if there was a checklist for what a death penalty requires, Trice's case would hit every check mark.
The last death penalty execution in Michigan was in 1938.
"If you see like a little sparkle or something, or just something beautiful, just know that that is Wynter," said Eddings. "Because that's who she was."
