Michael Collins will not be executed despite being found guilty of the murders of siblings A’Laiyah Fisher and her brother Elijah, as well as their mother Mariah Cunningham

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

A burglar who made a mother watch him saw through her children’s necks before the youngsters drowned in their own blood has escaped execution.

Jurors took just 25 minutes on Thursday to convict Michael Collins, 26, guilty of the December 2017 killings of A’Layaih Fisher, 5, Elijah Fisher, 4, and their mother Mariah Cunningham, 24.

But they were told that despite convicting Collins of capital murder – a charge which carries the death penalty – execution is no longer an available punishment, with Collins now set to be jailed for life instead.


The jury panel convicted Collins of the triple-slaying after a day of photos and evidence so horrific one woman had to be released from duty.



Chief Medical Examiner Charles Kokes told the trial at Pulaski County Court in Little Rock, Arkansas, that A’Layiah and Elijah died gagging in their own blood.

Jurors were told Collins sawed through the siblings’ necks right through to their spine, making both drown in their own blood

He said the youngsters had suffered the agonizing deaths after Collins cut their throats right through to their spines, before turning his blade on their mother.

Kokes also said that A’Layiah had been stabbed around 24 times, Elijah 14 times and Mariah 30 times, but that they’d been knifed so often it was impossible to give an exact number.

After being killed, the youngsters’ bodies were thrown into a room ‘like a sack of trash.’

A’Layaih’s body was so badly broken that she was found with one leg over her brother’s corpse, and the other bent back against a bed.

The horrific triple murder happened during a botched burglary at the family’s home, after Collins and half-brother William Alexander raided their home.

Collins’ alleged accomplice William Alexander will stand trial for the same crimes next month

Collins, who’d previously lodged with Mariah, mistakenly believed her to be wealthy.

He and Alexander, who allegedly held Mariah down during the killings and will stand trial on the same charges next month, ended up making off with a TV, an Xbox and battered Honda that broke down shortly afterwards.

Collins did not offer any attempt at a defense, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

He had faced the death penalty, but the prospect of that sentence was later waived, meaning he will now spend the rest of his life behind bars, without the prospect of parole.

The triple-murderer did not speak throughout his brief trial, but jurors heard a taped interview with police which saw him deny the killings.

Collins fled to Chicago after the murders, but was found by US Marshals sleeping on a couch next to a pair of Adidas sneakers splattered with his victims’ blood.

He was further incriminated after telling jail cellmate Marino Bernard Scott, 47, that he’d been haunted by Mariah’s ghost in his dreams.

Scott told jurors: ‘He said he couldn’t sleep … the female he killed was haunting him.

‘(She) had demons in her.’