An Anoka County jury convicted Jordan Collins Sr. of second-degree murder in the death of his 16-year-old son, Manny.

Collins chose to be his own lawyer in a three-week murder trial. FOX 9 reported his defense took about 30 minutes and focused on his constitutional rights rather than the facts, and CBS Minnesota reported he told jurors in closing that police did not collect all the evidence and that experts could not prove who caused his son's death. The jury took about three and a half hours. The right to represent yourself is real. So is the risk.

FOX 9 reported that an Anoka County jury returned a verdict of guilty of second-degree intentional murder on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, after about three and a half hours of deliberation that followed closing arguments the same morning. KSTP reported that Jordan Collins Sr., 39, was charged in the death of his son, Jordan "Manny" Collins Jr., 16, and that the trial lasted three weeks. CBS Minnesota reported the verdict was met with tears and applause in the courtroom and that Collins is being held without bail. KSTP described Manny's family filling the room while Collins sat alone at the defense table, with no visible reaction when the verdict was read. MPR News reported he will be sentenced in December.

After the verdict, the judge asked jurors to answer 10 more questions, including whether Collins concealed the body and whether he caused anguish to the family, to help guide sentencing, CBS Minnesota reported. Sentencing is set for 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 2. FOX 9 reported that state statute calls for up to 40 years in prison. Those answers bear on how long a sentence can be. They are separate from the verdict itself.

According to a FOX 9 timeline, Manny was last seen May 8, 2025, in Columbia Heights, where he had been staying temporarily with his father. His mother, Ashley Berry, filed the missing-person report. FOX 9 reported prosecutors used surveillance video of a dumpster behind Collins' apartment, then a specific garbage truck and a weigh station, to trace what investigators believed were Manny's remains to the Elk River landfill, which crews searched for weeks in the summer of 2025. MPR News reported authorities used GPS data kept by Waste Management to pinpoint the search, seized several knives from the apartment, and that court filings said bloodstains in the apartment matched Manny's DNA. CBS Minnesota reported expert testimony described a stabbing death and dismemberment. Collins was arrested July 7, 2025, and formally charged two days later, FOX 9 reported. That is the evidence the state put before the jury.

FOX 9 reported Collins delayed his opening statement until after the prosecution rested, called four witnesses, two others he planned to call never appeared, and he did not testify. MPR News reported court documents have not outlined a motive. "I still want to know why. But we probably never will," Berry told CBS Minnesota. "None of us should outlive our children. But to have a child, a child in our community, taken from us in this way is simply unconscionable," Anoka County Attorney Brad Johnson said in a statement reported by KSTP and MPR News. Collins can pursue an appeal after sentencing. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and on Wednesday a jury found the state had met that burden on the murder count.