Prosecutors said the 8-year-old child reportedly went missing from a local Walmart. The victim’s mother, Raine, and her three daughters were shopping when the then-56-year-old man, Donald, changed their lives. During an interview with investigators, the mother reportedly said that she thought Donald ‘was the blessing she needed’ when he approached her and offered to help her out. Unfortunately, the woman didn’t knew that his “kind gesture” was all a front to get what he really wanted. After seeing the mother struggle to pay for her children’s outfits at a discount store, Donald successfully lured the family to Walmart, gaining their trust with promises of new clothes and a McDonald’s meal at the store.
Unfortunately, the mother allowed her 8-year-old daughter, Cherish, to go with Donald to get the food after he had helped the mother and her girls shop for the clothes, but her daughter would never return from the McDonald’s restaurant at the front of the store. When the mother realized Cherish had vanished along with the stranger, she frantically called 911, but it was too late. Her daughter’s body was found the following day in front of a church. Not only had the young, innocent girl been kidnapped and murdered, she was ra-ed as well — the details of which a courtroom had to hear when Donald was captured and brought to trial for kidnapping, se-ual battery, and first-degree murder.
“I was yelling, ‘Call 911!” Raine said, speaking of the moment she realized Cherish was missing. “My daughter’s been taken,’ and no one would help me right away,” she added. Little did she know the hell that Cherish was facing during those moments, a hell the medical examiner was able to describe to the court when asked to give her testimony at the trial of then-61-year-old Donald. In great detail, she described the torture Cherish faced in her final moments. The court grew emotional as the medical examiner recalled the graphic autopsy of the ra-ed and murdered 8-year-old girl.
The medical examiner recalled finding severe injuries all over the child’s body from being strangled with a piece of clothing and ra-ed and added that the girl’s body was “totally distorted” from the trauma as the jurors cried and covered their eyes. She estimated that it took the child, who also had blunt force trauma injuries to the head, 3 to 5 minutes to die. Upon hearing her testimony, jurors were also left in tears. Donald was found guilty and was sentenced to death. Dear readers, we are republishing this story amid recent reports that child se-ual abuse has surged in America during the pandemic. Statistics indicate 1 in 9 girls and 1 in 53 boys under the age of 18 experience se-ual abuse or assault from an adult.
