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 child’s death.
Prosecutors said Mickel Cherry, 26, admitted under questioning to suffocating Zoey Felix in October 2023 with a pillow in a tent at the camp in Topeka when he was alone with the girl. Doctors who examined her at a hospital saw injuries consistent with a sexual assault, and DNA evidence pointed to Cherry, the prosecutor said.
