Fatima Johnson’s children spoke in court before the man convicted of killing her was sentenced to life without parole.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Nearly five years after Fatima Johnson was found dead in her South Los Angeles apartment, the man convicted of killing her was sentenced to life without parole, ending a case that her children used in court to speak not only about violence, but about the life their mother had been building.
Johnson was more than the victim named in a homicide file. Prosecutors described her as a mother of six, a grandmother of eight and a nursing home worker who had been sober for eight years and was pursuing a nursing license when she was killed. Those details mattered at sentencing because they shaped how the courtroom understood the crime: not as an isolated act, but as the sudden removal of a woman whose family said she held several generations together.
Authorities said Johnson, 53, was killed July 2, 2021, inside her apartment on South Western Avenue. Her daughters and best friend later found her body after she had been missing for days. Prosecutors said she died from asphyxia caused by neck pressure and possible smothering. They said her wrists and ankles were tied with shoelaces and duct tape, underwear had been used as a gag and more tape had been placed over her mouth and nose. Those details gave the case a harsh physical clarity from the start. Prosecutors later added that Darryl Lamar Collins stole Johnson’s cellphone, jewelry and Lexus after the killing, then pawned two necklaces and sold the car for drugs within hours.
At the sentencing hearing, Johnson’s children turned that evidence into a family account of harm that stretched well beyond the crime scene. According to local reporting, daughter Tanesha Hargrave called Collins “a monster” and said he should never have seen freedom again. Another daughter, Tyesa Harvey, told him her mother had been killed for “a hit of dope.” Kamia Jones said Johnson did not deserve what happened to her. The comments were brief, but they shifted the hearing away from legal language and toward the practical damage left behind: children without their mother, grandchildren without a grandmother and a family still carrying the last days of July 2021. Collins did not address the court. His lawyer said he was remorseful.
The prosecution’s case also carried a deeper criminal history that made the sentence more consequential. Collins, now 55, had already been convicted in two 1995 murders. Prosecutors said he carjacked and killed Derrick Reese, 28, on Sept. 17, 1995, then 11 days later entered an Inglewood diner and shot cashier Thomas Weiss, 44, in the face during a robbery. He was sentenced in January 1998 to 50 years to life. Yet Collins was released in 2020 after changes in California’s youth-offender parole law expanded eligibility to people who were 25 or younger at the time of their offenses. Collins was 24 when he committed those earlier killings.
That release became the frame around Johnson’s death. Prosecutors said the killing happened 364 days after Collins left prison. District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said the case showed what could happen when someone with an extreme history of violence was freed early. The legal path in the Johnson case also changed as prosecutors moved forward. Collins was eventually convicted Feb. 19 of first-degree special-circumstance murder, a finding that allowed the court to impose life without parole. Judge Craig Veals delivered that sentence March 20 at the Foltz Criminal Justice Center. By then, Collins had been jailed since his September 2021 arrest and the case had become a measure of whether the system would treat the third killing differently from the first two.
The courtroom’s final moments reflected both punishment and memory. Relatives and friends filled the room, and local coverage described applause after the judge made clear Collins would never be free again. Even then, the most durable facts may not be the procedural ones. Johnson had been working, staying sober and studying for a license. Her family came to court years later still speaking in present-tense terms about what she meant to them. The sentence closed the criminal case in trial court, but it did not close the family story that drove the hearing.
Where the case stands now is simple in legal terms and far more complicated in human ones. Collins has been sentenced to life without parole, and any next step would most likely come through appeal filings. Johnson’s family, meanwhile, left court with a final judgment and no way to restore what was lost.
Author note: Last updated April 14, 2026.