Left inset: America Diehl (Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office). Right inset: Mary Collins (Mary’s Voice Organization/Instagram). Background: The apartment building that Mary Collins was allegedly lured to in Charlotte, N.C., before being killed (WSOC).
A woman who was allegedly involved in the brutal murder of a young, intellectually disabled woman in North Carolina — with prosecutors saying she killed the victim with three others and “stuffed” her inside a mattress — is allowed to remain out on bond despite repeatedly violating the conditions of her release, a judge says.
America Diehl, who currently lives in South Carolina, has failed to charge her electric ankle monitor on multiple occasions and has also missed curfew several times over the past two years while awaiting trial for the 2020 murder of Mary Collins, according to prosecutors with the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office, per local CBS affiliate WBTV.
A local judge reportedly refused to revoke Diehl’s bond on Friday and chose to remove the ankle monitor altogether after her attorney argued that she is not a threat to the community, is currently employed, and wants to cooperate with the DA’s office. Prosecutors insisted that Diehl be returned to jail on a $500,000 bond for her repeated violations, which include a failure to charge her ankle monitoring device as recently as Oct. 9, just one day before she appeared in court, according to The Charlotte Observer.
“She was 18 years old when this happened and was forced into a terrible situation,” Diehl’s lawyer, Lambert Guinn, told the judge. “She goes to work. She has stayed out of trouble as much as possible. Her willingness to help, to participate (in the cases against the other defendants) has not changed.”
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Guinn pointed to the unreliability of electronic ankle monitoring, with the judge reportedly agreeing that it could not be depended on. Diehl pleaded not guilty to charges of accessory after the fact and concealing a death. Prosecutors say she used Cascade dish detergent and pumpkin spice shower gel to mask the smell of Collins’ body.
“The pain just keeps going,” said Collins’ mother, Kasei Canfora, in an interview with WBTV.
“I feel like I’ve been violated over and over again,” she told the outlet. “Not just with what happened with my daughter but every time I come to this courthouse. There’s a place reserved in hell for them. Each one of them. There is a place reserved in hell.”
This is not the first time that Collins’ family has voiced outrage over decisions made by the court, with the release of one of her accused killers, James Salerno, in 2023 leaving relatives incensed as well.
“It happens over and over again, and it’s unacceptable,” Canfora told the Observer.
Collins was 21 years old when she was stabbed 133 times at an apartment in the NoDa neighborhood — known for being an arts and entertainment hub — of Charlotte. Her body was found hidden and covered in plastic wrap on April 4, 2020.
“[Diehl] stuffed Mary in a mattress,” prosecutor Bill Bunting alleged in court Friday.
Four people were accused and connected to Collins’ murder, with Salerno facing charges of murder, kidnapping, and failure to report a death or concealing a death. The others, Lavi Pham and Kelly Lavery, were charged with the same three crimes; Lavery pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, while Pham and Salerno have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.
Left: James Salerno. Center: Kelly Lavery. Left: Lavi Pham (Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office).
Collins’ family says she had the mental capacity of a 15-year-old due to her diagnosis of 22q deletion syndrome, also known as DiGeorge Syndrome, which is said to be the second-most common genetic disorder behind Down syndrome. “They bled her out in a bathtub like an animal in a slaughter house,” Collins’ grandmother, Mia Alderman, told the court during a bond hearing in January 2023 for Salerno, according to the Observer.
“They said Mary had a leash around her neck in the bathtub, bloodied, stabbed, dog leash around her neck,” Alderman recounted to local NBC affiliate WCNC after Lavery’s plea hearing in 2022. “I remember putting my hands over my ears, trying not to hear.”
Collins’ family has reportedly said that they believe Lavery and Pham allegedly got Collins sushi hours before killing her and posted a video with her to make it seem like Collins was not in danger. Prosecutors allege that Pham and Lavery, who the woman knew to be her friends, lured her to their apartment and planned to kill her in retribution for refusing to have sex with them both simultaneously.
Salerno spent over three years in jail and was initially denied bond before he was released in 2023. Lavery is serving a minimum 25-to-32-year sentence in state prison. Pham is still behind bars.
Asked about the decision to let Diehl ditch the ankle monitor and stay out of jail, Alderman told WBTV, “It’s been outrageous this whole time but never in a million years did I think that could happen.”
Collins’ mom told the Observer, “The mother, the person who carried her for nine months and gave birth to her, gets no say at all, other than to express my heartfelt pain and plead with the judge to give me some kind of justice, which I did not get at all.”
The trial for Collins’ murder is expected to happen in 2026.
Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.Â
