Mary Collins

Mary Santina Collins was a 20 year old woman from Charlotte, North Carolina, whose murder in the spring of 2020 and the six year wait for a verdict became one of the city's most closely watched criminal cases. Collins lived with a cognitive disability and a severe speech impediment that made it hard for her to speak or call for help, details her family later said in court had been used against her by the people who killed her. She did not drive and relied on others, including rideshare services, to get around the city.

In late March 2020, according to prosecutors and police, Collins was sent an Uber by a man she had previously dated, Lavi Pham, and his girlfriend at the time, Kelly Lavery, and was lured to their apartment in the NoDa neighborhood of Charlotte believing she was going to see friends. Prosecutors said she was attacked inside the apartment by Pham, Lavery and their friend James Salerno. She was stabbed roughly 130 times and beaten, and her body was wrapped in plastic and duct tape and hidden inside a mattress for days. Her family reported her missing, and her body was found inside the apartment on April 4, 2020.

Four people were eventually arrested in connection with her killing: Lavery, Pham, Salerno and a fourth person, America Diehl, who was charged with concealing a death. In June 2022, Lavery pleaded guilty to second degree murder, first degree kidnapping and concealment of a body, and was sentenced to 25 to 32 years in prison. Pham and Salerno maintained their innocence in the killing itself, though Pham admitted in testimony to helping conceal Collins' body and lying to her family and police, and the two men did not go to trial until September 2026, more than six years after Collins died.

That trial lasted roughly three weeks and included graphic autopsy evidence and testimony describing the chaotic, drug involved scene inside the apartment on the night Collins died. On October 12, 2026, a jury found both Pham and Salerno guilty of first degree murder, first degree kidnapping and concealing a death. Diehl has not yet gone to trial.

Collins never sought public attention in her lifetime. She became known nationally only because of the brutality of her killing and the length of time it took to bring those responsible to account, a case her family and advocates for people with disabilities have pointed to as an example of how long survivors can wait for justice. Her grandmother, Mia Alderman, has spoken in court on her behalf, describing her as a young woman who could not scream or call out when she needed help.

Mary Collins is remembered by her family as sweet, kind and innocent, a young woman whose life was cut short by people she trusted.