911 call: Man helped Donald Smith get rid of van seats

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Newly released evidence from the State Attorney’s Office reveals 911 calls made in the murder investigation of 8-year-old Cherish Perrywinkle.

Perrywinkle was abducted from Walmart in June 2013 after Donald Smith told her mother he would buy the family clothes with a gift card he had.

She was later found strangled to death. Smith is accused with kidnapping, raping and killing Perrywinkle.

Evidence revealed that a man told a 911 operator that he helped Smith remove seats from his van around the time of Perrywinkle's disappearance.

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The man told the operator Smith may have been living in a homeless camp at the time near 61^st Street and Main Street.

“So does he hang out at that camp or what?” the operator asked.

“I don’t know,” the man said. “He mentioned that he was out there a couple nights ago hanging out with some people in the woods.”

The caller said he rented a room from Smith’s mother and saw Smith the day before making the 911 call.

“Have they talked to his mom?” the operator asked.

“Yeah,” the man said. “The police were here this morning. I was thinking I’d help him take a couple seats out of his van yesterday and we were just talking. He was talking about you know where he’s been and it just popped in my head that maybe that’s where he’s hiding out. I don’t know it’s just a thought.”

“Where are the seats at? Did you tell the police that?” the operator asked.

“No I didn’t,” he said. “I just thought of this.”

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Witness spots Smith’s Van

Another 911 call reveals a woman who said she spotted Smith's van near a church the day Cherish was abducted.

“We are calling about a suspicious van over here, a white van,” the woman said. “It was parked behind some bushes really deep. It’s not there anymore but we don’t know if he dumped anything because we heard a girl just got abducted from Walmart.”

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The caller said she was unsure about the driver’s actions but wanted to alert police after hearing the Amber Alert.

“But you think he may have just in case he might have dumped something?” the operator asked.

“Right,” the woman responded. “We don’t know but just in case it looked a bit suspicious because it was all the way to the back.”

Cox Media Group