HE KILLED KID
Beat 6-year-old Zymere to death, sez jury
A Harlem man was convicted Wednesday of murder in the beating death of his girlfriend’s 6-year-old son, Zymere Perkins.
The Manhattan jury found that Rysheim Smith, 49, beat the boy with a broomstick, put him under a cold shower and hanged him from a hook after the child defecated in the filthy living room of the family’s Harlem apartment on Sept. 26, 2016.
The jury of seven men and five women convicted Smith of second-degree murder and manslaughter.
Smith looked down as the verdict was read. He then shook his head in seeming disbelief as his lawyer, Arnold Levine of the Legal Aid Society, patted him on the back to console him.
Zymere’s death brought to light the breakdown of the city’s child welfare system. Before Zymere died, the city’s Administration for Children’s Services had investigated the boy’s mom five times but cleared her of any wrongdoing.
The jury reached its decision during its second day of deliberations. Earlier in the day, jurors had asked to take another look at autopsy photos, in particular those of the boy’s fractured ribs.
A medical expert had told jurors that little Zymere suffered at least 30 rib fractures. The boy’s injuries were consistent with “significant blows to the chest” and “forceful squeezing,” the doctor testified.
Zymere’s mom, Geraldine Perkins, testified that the hulking Smith cursed the child and poked him in the stomach with the sharp end of the broken broomstick.
The mother said Zymere probably didn’t use the bathroom because the apartment had no electricity, and he was afraid to use the bathroom in the dark.
The beating intensified when Smith snatched a screaming Zymere from the floor and brought him into the bathroom, where he waterboarded him before pulling down the shower rod and unleashing another beating, she said.
Then Smith went out and got breakfast.
Perkins confessed that she did nothing while her son endured the heartless beating that killed him. She cleaned her child’s limp and unresponsive body, read the Bible, did her makeup and put on a wig before carrying the battered little boy to the hospital.
The mother agreed to testify against Smith in deal in which she pleaded guilty to manslaughter and agreed to a prison sentence of two to six years.
“The death of Zymere Perkins was an unthinkable tragedy that sent shockwaves through the city,” Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said in a statement.
“Zymere was an innocent and helpless 6-year-old boy who suffered unconscionable, ongoing violence at the hands of Rysheim Smith. Now, a Manhattan jury has rightly held the defendant accountable for this horrific murder.”
Mayor de Blasio and his Administration for Children’s Services commissioner, Gladys Carrion, came under fire for the agency’s failure to prevent the boy’s death. Carrion resigned weeks later.
Smith faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced March 27.