Tributes Pour in for Rape, Murder Victim Zoey Felix, 5: ‘She Needed Love’

A Kansas community is reeling over the heartbreaking death of a 5-year-old girl who was raped and murdered, allegedly by a family acquaintance at a homeless camp weeks after her mom reportedly kicked them out of their home.

Zoey Felix was pronounced dead at a Topeka, Kansas, hospital on Monday.

Mickel Cherry, 25, identified as a homeless man has been arrested in Zoey's rape and murder, and is being held on $2 million bond, according to police officials.

“It’s absolutely devastating,” neighbor Aimee Slusser, who often spent time with Zoey, told KSNT-TV.

“She just wanted love, she just wanted to feel loved, she wanted to feel accepted. She was the sweetest, bubbliest child that I ever came across, and she just loved everyone," said Slusser.

The little girl — who was reportedly not enrolled in school — was often seen roaming the area on her own, and was dubbed the “neighborhood daughter,” according to resident Sharon Williams, whose granddaughter was best friends with Zoey.

“She needed love and so we gave it to her,” Williams told KSNT. “Everybody out here cared for her, so we called her our neighborhood daughter.”

Williams’ granddaughter and Zoey “played together every day, so this is taking an effect on her as well,” she said.

Other neighbors said they often took turns feeding and bathing Zoey since she would reportedly go for extended periods of time without electricity or running water at the home she shared with her mother, father, half sister — and her alleged murderer.

"Everybody on the block took care of Zoey," Sheryl Tyree told The Topeka  Capital-Journal. "Everybody loved Zoey, except her parents."

Neighbors said they noticed Zoey was gone about two or three weeks ago when they no longer saw her out on the streets, unsupervised.

They said they later learned her mother, Holly Jo Felix, 36, reportedly threw her family members and Cherry out of the home.

"Everybody in the neighborhood has been saying, 'Where's Zoey?'" Tyree told the paper. "They're sad to hear what happened."

Zoey, her father, Ezequiel Felix-Guerrero, her half sister, and Cherry, spent the past few weeks living at a homeless camp, where she was later killed.

Had they known where Zoey went, neighbors said they would have rescued the girl.

“She had so much personality and sass,” Slusser wrote in an online tribute. “She will forever be missed and most certainly never forgotten.”

A GoFundMe campaign launched to cover Zoey’s funeral expenses was taken down Thursday, after raising over $5000.

Justin Leuty — the fundraiser organizer and Zoey’s uncle — said donors should be expecting a refund after a local funeral home offered to cover funeral expenses.

According to Facebook, a “March 4 Zoey” protest is planned in downtown Topeka Saturday.