Mom sentenced for telling 8-year-old daughter to crawl under idling train that killed her

A California mother who instructed her children to crawl under an idling train to catch a bus, resulting in the grisly death of her 8-year-old daughter, has been sentenced to six years in prison.

Joy Collins, 49, on Tuesday tearfully pleaded with a judge to spare her freedom, saying she wished she had acted differently in Dec. 17, 2018, reported the station ABC30.

On that night, the mom was walking with her two children, the 8-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old son, in Fresno. The family were in a hurry to get to a bus stop, and Collins told her kids to crawl under a train that had stopped on the tracks.

Collins’ son made it across safely, but her daughter, Joyanna Harris, was struck by the train, which started moving. The child was dragged 500 feet and partially dismembered.

Photos taken by the police at the scene were so gruesome that when they were shown in court during Collins’ trial this fall, the mother asked to step out of the room.

Collins was convicted in October of two counts of child abuse and endangerment, after a former police detective testified that she was overheard telling her kids to “hurry,” or they would miss the bus, reported the channel WPDE.

Tragically, the freight train idled only 12 seconds, not giving Collins’ daughter enough time to walk over the tracks.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret any of that, and I do,” Collins said during her sentencing Tuesday. “And I beg for your mercy so I won’t have to go into a prison.”

“I very much apologize, like I said, to the public and everything for all that happened during that time,” she added.

The mom’s defense attorney, Mark Broughton, asked that his client be given probation.  

But the judge put aside the woman’s pleas and her lawyer’s request, and handed her a six-year sentence to be served in state prison. She must also pay a $1,200 fine.

Collins’ son is now being raised by his grandparents.