TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — In connection with the death of a five-year-old homeless girl from Kansas and her father, a man who shared a temporary camp with the girl entered a guilty plea on Friday to first-degree murder and rape.
Mickel Cherry will not be executed as a result of his plea in the Shawnee County District Court in Topeka.Cherry, 26, was accused with rape and capital murder in connection with Zoey Felix’s death in October 2023.
The judge has the power to sentence Cherry to 50 years in jail without the possibility of parole, but the district attorney is requesting that she be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 25 years. Since Kansas hasn’t carried out an execution since 1965, it was unclear how quickly the lethal injection punishment would have been carried out in the event of a capital murder conviction.
District Attorney Mike Kagay informed the judge that Zoey Felix had been raped and then strangled. According to Kagay, Cherry admitted to choking her with a pillow in the tent at the homeless encampment after lying to authorities and making contradictory statements about another man doing the murder. Kagay claimed that while her father was working at a gas station across the street from the temporary camp, Cherry spent over five hours alone herself with her.
Noting that previous state and federal court rulings have prohibited the execution of prisoners with intellectual disabilities, Kagay stated that there was evidence that Cherry might have had an intellectual handicap.
Cherry said, “I’m mentally slow,” to District Judge Jessica Heinen in court. Learning is difficult for me.
The dates of the sentencing are June 2-4. Peter Conley, Cherry’s lawyer, told Heinen that he and other defense lawyers needed time to look into Cherry’s contacts with the Texas foster care system as a youngster, thus he did not want the date to be set earlier.
Child welfare groups questioned why the authorities failed to remove the girl from a hazardous situation after Felix’s death. According to the Kansas child welfare department, it conducted five investigations into the family over the final 13 months of Felix’s life but was unable to verify claims of drug abuse or neglect by her mother, even after she was arrested for driving while intoxicated with the girl in the car. The family frequently refused assistance, according to the agency.
Although he attended the full 30-minute session, the girl’s father chose not to remark afterwards.
Felix’s father’s friend Amie Slusser, who called herself the girl’s mentor, sobbed as she fled the courtroom after Kagay presented the medical proof that the girl had been raped. She later stated that she didn’t think justice would be served regardless of Cherry’s sentence.
She informed reporters that a young girl’s life had been stolen. No matter what he receives, she won’t return.
Topeka police were summoned to the mother’s house dozens of times, according to court and police records. Both parents claimed maltreatment, and neighbors reported seeing the girl walking the street outside, hungry and filthy. Due to her intoxicated driving, which resulted in a collision with the girl in the front seat, Felix’s mother was imprisoned at the end of 2022.
According to a neighbor, two weeks prior to the girl’s death, the mother pushed Felix and her father out of the house. About three-quarters of a mile to the south, on an empty lot, they resided amid the trees.
Prior to Felix staying with them in the temporary homeless camp, Cherry had a relationship with Felix’s family. However, officials had not disclosed his involvement with Felix’s family, when he had met the girl and her parents, or the extent of his communication with them prior to Friday’s court hearing.
Less than a month before the child’s death, when the girl and her father were also residing there, Topeka police reports stated that he was living at Felix’s mother’s house.
A altercation in the Taco Bell restaurant parking lot weeks prior to Felix’s death also led to Cherry’s inclusion in police records. Police stated that he was transferred to a nearby hospital, but they provided no further information. He was identified as the victim.
According to police records, Cherry had been residing in Amarillo, Texas, 400 miles (605 kilometers) southwest of Topeka, at least as of October 2021, before to moving to Topeka. According to documents, he had a history of mental illness and experienced spells of homelessness during his time in Texas.
Cherry, then 20 years old, was in Nacogdoches, Texas, approximately 500 miles (805 kilometers) southeast of Amarillo, in May 2018. According to a police report, Cherry entered the police department’s headquarters and disclosed that she was homeless and taking daily medicine for mental health issues.
According to the report, Cherry stated that he is seeking assistance to visit the hospital because he is experiencing voices in his brain at the moment.
What transpired when he requested to visit a hospital was not mentioned in the report.
Cherry returned to Amarillo by August 2019, according to municipal court documents. Due to his inability to pay $870 in fines for mistreating and incorrectly tying an animal, he was briefly sent in jail. After being arrested for misdemeanor trespassing in June 2021, he was imprisoned for 30 days.
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Reporting from Mission, Kansas, was Hollingsworth.
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