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A 22-year-old mother of two, Janice Collins kept a loaded .40-caliber Glock handgun in her bed overnight.
And on May 11, her 2-year-old son found it and shot his year-old brother in the face.
Charged with two counts of neglect of a dependent, Collins was sentenced Friday by Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull to two years in prison and two years on probation.
During an emotional hearing Friday, Collins pleaded with Gull to allow her to serve her sentence in a fashion that would allow her to remain in contact with her children in some way.
“I apologize,” Collins said, sobbing. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
Collins said she had done everything asked of her by the Department of Child Services since her arrest and was learning how to be a better parent.
While she had fallen in with the wrong crowd at one point, Collins said she had been doing better and had been given the gun by her boyfriend for protection in a neighborhood with a crack house across the street.
Her attorney, Robert Love, spoke of how he himself owns firearms and taught his wife to handle them.
Love said that if his own daughter’s neighborhood does not meet his standards, he would provide her with a gun as well.
“That’s the life we have to live,” he said.
Prosecutors said Collins showed a great deal of remorse but argued that the gun was never kept in a locked cabinet.
Rather, it was tucked between the bed and the wall during the day.
Marijuana was also found in the drawer of the bedside stand, according to court documents and statements by prosecutors.
Gull said she had no doubt Collins regretted what happened to her son – who has recovered.
“But I don’t know what you thought was going to happen,” Gull said, adding that the fact the baby survived was “astonishing.”
She sentenced Collins to four years in prison on the more serious Class C felony neglect charge and two years on the Class D felony, ordering the sentences to be served at the same time and suspending two years.
As part of her probation, Collins must comply with Department of Child Services proceedings and continue to take parenting classes, according to the sentencing order.
