👉 WARNING: He pretended to help then kidnapped her | True Crime Documentary

“She was supposed to be on a plane the next morning to see her father. Instead, she disappeared inside a Walmart. Just hours earlier, a stranger had approached her family offering to help them. They trusted him, and that decision would change everything.”

Jacksonville, Florida, 2013. Home to 8-year-old Cherish Lily Periwinkle. Cherish was born in Orlando on Christmas Eve to Billy and Rain. Rain called her the best Christmas gift she could have hoped for. Billy and Rain would soon split and move on with new partners, and custody battles would ensue over the years. Cherish was the younger sister of Lindsay, who no longer lived with them, and the older sister of Destiny and Naa, whom Rain had with Cherish’s stepdad, Erin.

Everyone said Cherish was a real sweetheart. She was caring, well-mannered, always cracking silly jokes, and was a real joy to be around. Her dad, Billy, said she had so much potential and was just the definition of pure love. Cherish loved drawing animals, playing teacher games with her sisters, and now the 8-year-old had just learned how to ride her bike. You couldn’t stop her whizzing around on it, and being outside with her friends and siblings was her favorite place to be.

June 21st, 2013. Rain, Cherish, Destiny, and Naa all headed to a Dollar General store in Jacksonville to look for some new clothes. Things had definitely been tough lately for the family, and Rain said she was worrying about how she was going to pay. She wanted to get Cherish a new dress, as the next morning Cherish was set to get on a plane to go to her dad in California. Rain spoke to an employee about her stresses before she and her daughters walked back out of the store. Little did anyone know someone had been listening to all of her concerns and watching them go round.

As soon as the four of them got outside, a man approached them, introducing himself as Don. He offered to drive them to a Walmart and buy the clothes for the family, saying his wife had a gift card for $150 and they would happily use it on them. Rain said she was hesitant, but when Don said he knew how tough it was having had young kids and that his wife was going to meet them at Walmart too, she felt a bit more trusting.

“You look like you have your hands full. I have a couple of little ones myself, he said. He told me I was safe. He looked into my face and told me I was safe,” Rain said.

Rain and her three daughters got into his van, and he drove them to a Walmart. They browsed for a few hours, picking up some pieces of clothing. Rain recalled the only thing he put in his shopping cart was some rope. After an hour and a half, it was now close to 10 p.m. The children were restless and tired, and no one had had dinner. Don’s wife had also not materialized, so Rain said she wanted to pay and leave, but Don insisted on buying them all some food from McDonald’s located inside the Walmart at the front. Rain said Don mouthed:

“I’m going to McDonald’s. What do you want to eat?”

Before Cherish came bounding over to Rain, asking if they could get the food. Rain said it was still busy around; there were cameras everywhere and the McDonald’s was inside the store.

“Cheeseburgers,” Rain said to Cherish, and she watched as her daughter skipped off, following Don as he strolled away. Rain, Destiny, and Naa carried on wandering around the store for a bit before Rain started looking around her for Cherish. Don and her daughter seemed to have vanished.

Suddenly, an announcement over the tannoy system: Walmart was closing. Rain realized that the McDonald’s had actually been closed for ages, and went into a panic. She pulled out her phone to call the police, but it wasn’t working. So she just started running around and screaming for help:

“Call 911! My daughter’s been taken!” she shouted.

But for whatever reason, Rain said no one was paying attention. About 40 minutes later, an employee gave her a phone, and she called 911.

“911. Hi, that one was a winter. I think my daughter’s been taken.”

“What do you mean, taken?”

“By a stranger. I can’t find her. I met a man today at Dollar General. He saw that I was struggling to buy them some clothes. He drove us here to buy us some clothes. And the only reason I went with him because she said his wife was gonna be here.”

“Okay. And she was laughing with this man; is he…”

“He went to… he said he was going to McDonald’s and he… he hasn’t been there because the store is closed right now. I had a bad feeling about him.”

“Okay. How long have you been looking for? When was the last time you saw your daughter? How long ago?”

“About half an hour ago.”

“Okay, ma’am. What’s your daughter’s name?”

“Her name is Cherish and her… her last name, Perrywinkle with the P. I had a strange feeling about him when I first met him, and he took her to the… he took her to the… to the dressing room twice, and I was hoping that she would be okay, and I was looking at the shoes and I didn’t want him to think that I was overly protected. I had a bad feeling. And I thought, well, I feel like pinching myself because this is too good to be true. He was giving my 8-year-old too much attention. He wanted her to buy these really tall shoes that were women’s shoes, and I told him no. I don’t want him to kill her. I should have told him no.”

Rain said she couldn’t remember what Don was wearing or what the license plate was, but he was an older man with gray hair. His van was big with white curtains covering the windows. Because they had all arrived together and Cherish hadn’t seemed afraid of him as she walked out of the store, it was possible that many thought he was a relation or someone she knew, possibly her granddad. So no alarm bells really rang with anyone. Just 10 minutes after the call ended, the first officers got there. But things did get off to a slow start as it would be more than 6 hours before an Amber Alert was issued. Despite everything Rain had said, for the first several hours, police considered it a missing person’s case, not an abduction.

Walmart stores are always well-covered by cameras, as was the Dollar General store they were in before, so they were able to build a very clear picture of what had happened. Once at Walmart, the five of them could be seen browsing. Don was definitely more on the outside, observing them, following them around, and paying particular attention to Cherish. Wherever she went, he would follow. Cameras then showed Don and Cherish leaving the store, getting into his van, and driving out past security. At 11:36 p.m., the police broadcasted be on the lookout for Cherish and the van, a 1998 white Dodge. And by midnight, the be on the lookout had spread throughout Nassau County. An air unit was called out too, and police units were all over the Dollar General store and Walmart. Motels and hotels were being searched, and authorities were sent to addresses of known sex offenders in the area. At 3:30 a.m., they named their suspect, 56-year-old Donald J. Smith, a registered sex offender. Statistically, authorities knew that time was really not on their side, and they brought homicide detectives onto the case. At 4:00 a.m., the Florida Department of Law Enforcement finally sent out an Amber Alert. And just before…

“After Donald’s new lawyers claimed that his original trial attorneys were ineffective, they said that his lawyers didn’t remove a juror who may have been biased and didn’t follow proper procedures to select the jury.”

Rain Periwinkle watched as her daughter’s killer, Donald Smith, entered the courtroom. One of Smith’s original lawyers, Julie Schlatt, spent the most time on the stand, taking questions on jury selection and why she did not advise Smith to take a plea deal instead of going to trial.

“We certainly knew as Mr. Smith did that we were not going to be successful in being in jail.”

“Correct.”

“But… but it was rather than expressing remorse and trying to take responsibility, his decision is go to trial.”

“Yes.”

Smith’s defense argued that the original jury members were not thoroughly vetted. This because during jury selection, one candidate in a questionnaire had answered yes to if she formed her own opinion about Smith’s guilt, but she later crossed out the answer and put no.

“It just looked like a simple mistake, and she came across as a decent juror, and we went with it.”

“So you never asked?”

“I don’t believe we did ask.”

During the initial trial, Schlattz and Fletcher did not cross-examine Cherish Periwinkle’s mother. Today, they defended that decision saying it was Smith who made that request.

“This was definitely a case if we were going to be successful we were going to have to get, hopefully, one or more jurors to believe in Mr. Smith. Me fighting with Miss Periwinkle was not going to move that in our direction at all.”

It was also revealed in court today Smith wanted the court process to last as long as possible. The prosecution said regardless of the potential jury member, he was convicted on a substantial amount of evidence: DNA, witness statements, CCTV, and phone data. It was such a clear-cut case. The fact that anyone was even challenging it was insulting and ridiculous. The state also reminded the court that Donald had never had an issue with his attorneys previously, even complimenting them many times after the trial.

In May 2024, thankfully, a judge denied him a new trial. He remains on death row.

Cases like this are often remembered for the horror, the headlines, and the name of the man who did it. But this story didn’t begin with violence. It began with something ordinary: a mother trying to make things work, kids tired and restless, just wanting a normal day, and a stranger offering help. And that’s what makes it so unsettling, because nothing about that moment looked dangerous. Not the store, not the people, not even him. He didn’t force his way in. He didn’t create fear; he created trust. He watched, he waited, and when the moment was right, he stepped in as kindness.

And somewhere along the way, every layer of protection that should have stopped him didn’t. Because he wasn’t invisible; he had a past, warnings, patterns, and still he was free. Free long enough to find the one family that needed help the most and turn that into opportunity. In the end, a verdict was reached. A sentence was given. But none of that changes what came next. Because the following morning, there was a father standing in an airport waiting to hug his daughter. And instead, he got a phone call. And for everyone who loved her, that moment never really ended. No sentence can return a future that was taken. No justice can replace a child. And no matter how this case is remembered, it will always come back to one simple truth: an 8-year-old girl trusted the wrong person because the people around her believed she was safe. And that’s what makes this story impossible to forget.