From the beginning her name was spelled wrong–Charish, Peri- and Perri all were thrown into the horrifying chronology of a little girl taken and murdered.

I first saw “Charish Periwinkle” and have not changed it on my original post. I have not edited that post for several reasons–it reflects the tumult of hours in which there was a report, an Amber alert, a traffic stop, an arrest, a missing child, and then a confirmed tragedy.

If you go back a bit you might say the tragedy started May 31, the day Donald Smith was released from jail–seemingly without restrictions. Or more than a year before, when a court of law sentenced him very lightly for yet another egregious felony after over 30 years of dangerous aggressions toward young children.

The story says nothing about how the state or the country expected this predatory man to avoid his dark actions.

No one but his neighbors and his victims really cared about that.

And yet now we know what should have been addressed before–he was always capable of monstrous harm.

And now we have just a name–Cherish means to greatly love, prize, or esteem and yet she was not cherished by the man who treated her like a cast-off rag doll.

And I still maintain–if we cherish our children we will do something to ensure that every child is safe–at a dollar store, a Walmart, a McDonalds–each symbols of our drive-by, fast-food culture.

Now symbols of everything that can go wrong in the life of a dear little girl named after love and flowers.