(GRAND RAPIDS) - A Michigan man pleaded guilty Friday to kidnapping and killing a 2 year old girl.

27 year old Rashad Trice admitted that he took 2 year old Wynter Cole Smith from her home in Lansing as part of a dispute with a former girlfriend who as the girl’s mother. Wynter was strangled with a phone cord and left in a Detroit alley last July, according to investigators. Her disappearance led to a 100 mile search that stretched from the state capital to the Detroit area.

Trice was charged in federal court. While the kidnapping did not cross state lines, there was federal jurisdiction because the car and other tools used to carry out the crime, including a phone, were made outside Michigan, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Until the girl's remains were found, searchers had fanned out to look for her along a highway between Lansing and Detroit, an effort that involved divers, dogs, drones and helicopters.

Trice faces a sentence of life in prison. There are separate charges pending against him in state court.