Jurors in Superior Court on Monday convicted two men in the 2020 stabbing death of Mary Collins, a 20-year-old woman with developmental disabilities whose body was found stuffed inside a mattress in a NoDa apartment.
Judge Karen Eady-Williams sentenced Lavi Pham, 27, and James Salerno, 26, to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murder, along with additional prison time for kidnapping and concealment of death.
Witnesses during the monthlong trial testified that Salerno and Pham, Collins' ex-boyfriend, invited her to Pham's apartment to try to persuade her to have sex.
Early the next morning, after Collins refused, Salerno, Pham and Pham's girlfriend stabbed Collins more than 130 times, wrapped her body in garbage bags and duct tape, and placed it inside the mattress.
Investigators found Collins' body in the apartment's primary bedroom about a week later.
