TOPEKA, Kan. — A man who lived in a makeshift camp with a homeless 5-year-old Kansas girl and her father pleaded guilty Friday to first-degree murder and rape in connection with the death of the child.
Prosecutors said 26-year-old Mickel Cherry admitted under questioning to suffocating Zoey Felix with a pillow in a tent at the camp in Topeka in October 2023 when he was alone with the girl. Doctors examining her at a hospital saw injuries consistent with a sexual assault, and DNA evidence pointed to Cherry, the prosecutor said.
Cherry’s plea in Shawnee County District Court in Topeka means he will not face charges the death penalty. He was charged with murder and rape, but District Attorney Mike Kagay said there is evidence Cherry has an intellectual disability, something that would prevent his execution under state and federal court decisions.
In court, Cherry told District Judge Jessica Heinen: “I’m mentally slow. I have trouble learning.”
If convicted of murder, it was not clear how quickly a lethal injection sentence would have been carried out because Kansas has not executed anyone since 1965.
With Cherry’s guilty plea, state law requires Heinen to sentence Cherry to life in prison without the possibility of parole for at least 25 years. However, the judge has the authority to impose 50 years in prison without parole, and Kagay asks for that.
The ruling will take place from June 2 to 4. Cherry’s attorney, Peter Conley, did not want the date to come sooner and sought up to three days for a hearing, telling Heinen that he and other attorneys need time to investigate Cherry’s interactions with the Texas foster care system as a minor.
Conley did not immediately respond Friday to an email seeking additional details about what attorneys are investigating.
Kagay said Cherry made conflicting false statements to authorities about another man who committed the crimes before admitting to raping and choking her. Kagay said Cherry was alone with the girl for nearly five hours while her father worked at a gas station across the street from the makeshift camp.
In the courtroom Friday, Cherry looked down with his eyes closed as he answered Heinen’s final questions about his plea deal with prosecutors. He was wearing yellow prison jumpsuits and remained handcuffed throughout the hearing.
Aimee Slusser, a friend of Felix’s father who described herself as a mentor to the girl, left the courtroom in tears as Kagay discussed medical evidence that the girl had been raped. She said afterwards that whatever punishment Cherry received, she did not feel justice would be served.
“A little girl’s life was taken,” she told reporters. “No matter what he gets, it won’t bring her back.”
The girl’s father was present for the entire 30-minute hearing but declined to comment afterward.
Felix’s death left child welfare advocates wondering why the state did not remove it the girl from a dangerous environment, and Slusser told reporters Friday that if the state had done that, “Zoey would still be here.”
This was reported by the Kansas Child Welfare Department examined the family five times in the last 13 months of Felix’s life, but could not corroborate her mother’s allegations of neglect or drug use, even after she was arrested for driving drunk with the girl in the car. The agency also said the family repeatedly refused help.
Court and police records show Topeka police were called to the mother’s home dozens of times. Neighbors said they saw the girl wandering the street dirty and hungry, and both parents alleged abuse. Felix’s mother was jailed in late 2022 for drunken driving, which involved an accident with the girl in the front seat.
A neighbor said the mother threw Felix and her father out of the house two weeks before the girl died. They lived among the trees on a vacant lot about three-quarters of a mile to the south.
Cherry was involved with Felix’s family before living with them in the makeshift homeless camp. But authorities have not said why he was involved with Felix’s family, when he met the girl and her parents or how much contact he had with them. According to one police file, he lived in the mother’s home just weeks before Felix’s death.
Police records show that before Cherry came to Topeka, he lived in Amarillo, Texas, 375 miles southwest of Topeka, as of at least October 2021. Records show his life in Texas was marked by periods of homelessness. .
On Friday, Heinen asked Cherry in court if he had any mental health problems, and he told her he takes medication for anxiety, depression and ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
In May 2018, Cherry, then 20, was in Nacogdoches, Texas, about 500 miles (805 kilometers) southeast of Amarillo. A police report stated that Cherry walked into police headquarters and reported that he was homeless, taking medication daily for “mental issues” and that there were “voices in his head.” The report did not say what happened next.
By August 2019, Cherry was back in Amarillo, municipal court records show. He was briefly jailed there that year for abusing an animal and again in June 2021 for trespassing.
____
Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas.