Daughter crushed by train in Fresno after mom said to climb under. Mom sentenced to 6 years
Joy Collins, the Fresno mother whose 8-year-old daughter was crushed by a freight train in 2018, was sentenced to six years in prison after recently being found guilty of child endangerment.
The 49-year-old Collins was convicted on Oct. 9 by a Fresno County jury. She was accused of encouraging her 8-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son to crawl under an idling freight train to make a city bus. The daughter was caught underneath and crushed after the train lurched forward and started to move.
On Tuesday, Collins appeared in Judge Heather Mardel Jones’s courtroom wearing a green jail jumpsuit and using a walker. Her parent’s sat nearby in the audience.
Prosecutor David Devencenzi urged the judge to sentence Collins to nine years in prison, saying the defendant has not taken full responsibility for her daughter’s death.
Her defense attorney Mark Broughton, pleaded with the judge for leniency. He suggested Collins, who has struggled with trauma in her life, receive probation. He said she has suffered enough.
“How much does the prosecution want her to fall on the sword for this,” Broughton said. “I just have a hard time accepting the prosecutions argument that she should get the max.”
The tragic accident happened on Dec. 17 in southeast Fresno, just before 6 p.m. Collins was urging her children, a 9-year-old boy and his 8-year-old sister, to crawl under the steel wheels of an idling Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train so they wouldn’t miss a city bus taking them home.
But the train lunged forward, trapping the girl and dragging her about 500 feet. She died at the scene.
Police learned this wasn’t the first time, the Collins children had been told to sneak through the train. They had done it at least seven times before.
During her sentencing hearing Collins apologized to the court.
“If I could take back my actions I would,” said a crying Collins. “Not a day goes by that I don’t regret that.”
Devencenzi, a deputy district attorney, told the judge that Collins has never completely accepted responsibility for the death of her daughter. During her trial and in a letter to the judge, Collins described her many years of battling anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder and disassociation as factors affecting her judgment.
“She is still hanging on to her story that her PTSD was triggered and that was an excuse for her decisions,” Devencenzi said.
The judge, who said she reviewed the case thoroughly, was troubled by Collins’s attempt to shift blame on what caused the tragedy.
“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.
The judge added that this wasn’t a one-off event. Collins admitted to police she and her children had cut through the idled trains before without a problem.
“That is akin to someone playing with fire and being shocked at being burned,” the judge said.
Devencenzi said after the hearing he was pleased with the sentence.
“After the tragic evidence heard at trial, I was looking for a prison commitment on this case and justice has now been served,” he said. “I am especially pleased with the court’s ruling to impose a prison term on the enhancement causing death because with that, the sentence reflects the seriousness of this offense.”
Broughton was frustrated at the judge’s decision to send Collins to prison.
“We are disappointed, terribly disappointed,” he said. “This has been a very tragic case.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2023 at 4:12 PM.
