Prisoner of Love

She captured his heart � but did her family railroad her boyfriend into jail?

A A A Comments By John W. Allman Thursday, Aug 9 2001

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Collins and his mother can't move on. It's likely he will serve the remainder of his sentence and not get back home until he's 31. His chances to change this fate are running out.

For now, he has only the petition before the state Supreme Court, asking that he be granted an appeal due to three errors a lawyer says were committed by Judge Martin during the third trial.

Before the girlfriend, there was the best friend. Tremell Collins, in a white tee shirt and jeans, stands next to Joseph de Sousa, in a dark sweat shirt and pants, as the young men, with two other friends, show off their classic cars.

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They include:

• Not allowing testimony about Collins' relationship with Kristen de Sousa and how that relationship might have affected her brother, Joseph.

• Allowing a sheriff's detective to vouch for the truthfulness of Joseph de Sousa's claim that Collins was involved, even though de Sousa did not immediately name Collins as a suspect.

• Allowing the photograph of de Sousa's wounded pet to be shown to the jury.

Judge Martin did not return three phone calls seeking comment.

"My hope is that something does happen with this appeal, some kind of action, anything," Collins says. "If it doesn't, I'll still manage. I got a strong family. They're supporting me."

But it's not easy, especially on his mother.

"I know it's killing her," says long-time friend Eddie Williams. "She pretends she's okay, but I know she's not. . . . I think she's got her hopes that something's going to happen."

It's just so quiet now, and Hill has too much time to think. She works some days as a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. Most days, though, she sits and waits for her son to call. He does, at least once or twice a week, collect from Yuma for 15 minutes at a time.

She remembers the little boy she brought to Buckeye when he was 3 years old. How he grew up loving the desert, playing and running free across the arid, dusty land.

He raised goats back then, and chickens and pigeons. He rode dirt bikes through the wash basins.

"All his friends were out here," she says. "It didn't matter if they were white, black, Mexican. People were people to him. It didn't matter."

Not until the girl.