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Joy Frances Collins tried leading her daughter, Joyanna Harris, 8, under a freight train, only for the girl to get caught until it, authorities said. (Screenshot: KFSN)
A California mother who led her 8-year-old daughter under a freight train in order to catch a bus — with fatal and tragic consequences — tearfully told a judge she wished she could take the moment back, but the skeptical judge sent her to prison anyway.
Fresno County Superior Court Judge Heather Mardel Jones construed Joy Frances Collins, 49, as downplaying responsibility for her daughter’s death. The judge sentenced Jones to six years behind bars for child abuse and endangerment.
Jones had requested a sentence of probation.
“I do believe she feels sadness and remorse but I also believe she has convinced herself that this was an accident or that she could not have foreseen this happening or was responsible,” Jones said, according to The Fresno Bee.
Collins had admitted leading her then-9-year-old son, and her 8-year-old daughter, Joyanna Harris, under freight trains seven times before the fateful day of Dec. 17, 2018.
As police in Fresno have said, this time involved her first leading her son across the tracks under a mile-long, momentarily stationary freight train. She had wanted to catch a city bus, and called on her daughter to follow. Young Joyanna was reluctant, but eventually tried, only to get lodged into the bottom of the train, police said. The vehicle started to move, dragging her, partially dismembering her, for about 500 feet before it stopped and Collins managed to pull her out.
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Joyanna was dead by the time authorities arrived.
All Categories“I heard the little girl say, ‘Mom mom,’ then I heard the train start up and I told my boyfriend to go help because there was a kid under the train,” said local resident Crista Miller at the time, according to Your Central Valley, a joint website for Fresno NBC affiliate KSEE and CBS affiliate KGPE.
In court, Collins noted years of dealing with anxiety, her PTSD, and dissociation as contributing to her judgement that day.
“If I could take back my actions I would,” she said, crying. “Not a day goes by that I don’t regret that.”
Jones, however, used those prior seven train-crossing instances against Collins, delivering a sentence closer to the prosecution’s request for nine years in prison.
“That is akin to someone playing with fire and being shocked at being burned,” the judge said.
