Alarm Company’s Carelessness Costs Customer Her Life
The customer of a prominent security company was murdered along with her boyfriend by a stalker while they slept in an upstairs bedroom. An investigation found the provider recklessly breached its responsibilities by failing to design, install and test a system that was supposed to be customized for early detection of an intruder. Details of what went awry are examined.
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Jane’s daughter, after not being able to locate her two brothers, ages 8 and 10, would escape with her 6-year-old sister and run next door for help. The boys had hid in a closet and were discovered hours later by police unharmed. Police who entered the house shot and arrested the perpetrator. He was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder in 2007 and sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility for parole.
The four children, whose father died in a 2001 car crash, are now living with an aunt, Jane’s sister.
As Zwirn detailed in his forensic investigation, the alarm company failed Jane even before myriad design and installation issues amounted to a defective alarm system. Among the most egregious inadequacies were failing to successfully complete a security survey, as well as conduct a thorough needs analysis.
“The security survey is an exhaustive search of all risk and vulnerabilities and the needs analysis is the motivation for the customer getting the alarm system to begin with,” Zwirn says. “Her motivation was that she was being stalked by [a former boyfriend] who had tried to kill her with a butcher knife. This woman was the poster child of domestic violence. When you design an alarm system, if the motivation for setting the system is that the customer is being stalked and somebody has already tried to kill them, your design has to meet the threat.”
An alarm company has a professional duty to carefully discuss with its client their unique security concerns and the level of protection they both need and desire for their home, Zwirn says. This would include discussing any prior incidents or threats that caused the client to consult with the alarm company for the provision of a security system. Jane’s alarm company knew of the serious danger and threat that her killer posed to both her and her family at the time the contract was executed, according to Zwirn’s investigation.
The salesman was well aware that Jane’s current boyfriend had a permit to carry a handgun. The salesman and the installing technician both knew the home was criminally targeted by the perpetrator. The “security needs” o
f Jane and her family were so profound that it should have created an immediate heightened sense of awareness to the alarm company as to the level of electronic security she needed in order to reasonably accomplish early detection of an intruder, Zwirn explains.
There is no evidence, for instance, the alarm company ever offered outside infrared beams, motion detectors or video surveillance cameras to Jane, all of which could have detected the killer outside the home before he reached the house or cut the outside telephone wires, according to Zwirn’s investigation.
“They had a fatally false sense of security. There were layers of protection that were designed to detect this person in the insipient stages of his attack,” he says. “Each layer failed. Not for what he did or didn’t do, but because the system was never properly configured. It was never properly tested. It was never properly designed. Jane never received proper training and the system was left incomplete.”
Rodney Bosch is Managing Editor for SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION. He can be reached at (310) 533-2426 or [email protected].
Service Technician Fails to Test Defective System
Less than three weeks before the murder of Jane and her boyfriend, an alarm technician on a routine service call had the opportunity to discover and fix multiple faulty issues with Jane’s home security system. In failing to carry out proper maintenance and testing protocols, the system remained defective and unable to detect the murderer as he invaded Jane’s house in the early morning hours of Sept. 22, 2006.
“This guy didn’t beat the alarm system. The alarm system beat itself based on the improper, flawed design, recommendations and system’s purported installation,” says Jeff Zwirn, who conducted a forensic analysis of the security system.
According to court documents, on Sept. 5, 2006, Jane’s boyfriend placed two separate telephone calls to the alarm company requesting service as soon as possible. During each of the phone calls, the boyfriend advised representatives of the urgent need the alarm system required repair so it would be fully functional. Jane’s ex-boyfriend had already tried to murder her once; he was out on bail and stalking her again.
The following day a technician arrived at Jane’s home but failed to complete his responsibilities, Zwirn says. The tech repaired a front door contact, replaced the two motion detectors and tested the panic button on a key fob. However, the tech failed to test the panic button on the bedroom keypad, did not test the radio backup, nor did he do a walk-through of the premises.
This was in direct contradiction to the alarm company’s stated procedures, which required the technician to conduct a site walk-through during every service call to “inspect the premise’s environment for abnormal conditions that may affect devices from functioning properly,” to “inspect all areas of protection,” and to “test communications on all systems.”
Had the technician conducted a site walk-through as required, inspected all areas of protection, and tested communications, including the cellular radio backup, he could have identified the multitude of serious defects, irregularities, and impairments that had been incorporated into the system by the company’s installer, Zwirn’s investigation found. Thus, the company had an opportunity to detect and correct these deficiencies prior to the murders, but once again failed to do so.
“The crime triangle dictates motive, intent and opportunity,” Zwirn says, “Our job in the alarm industry is to try to help break the crime triangle by taking the opportunity away.”
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About the Author
Rodney Bosch, Senior Editor
Although Bosch’s name is quite familiar to those in the security industry, his previous experience has been in daily newspaper journalism. Prior to joining SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION in 2006, he spent 15 years with the Los Angeles Times, where he performed a wide assortment of editorial responsibilities, including feature and metro department assignments as well as content producing for latimes.com. Bosch is a graduate of California State University, Fresno with a degree in Mass Communication & Journalism. In 2007, he successfully completed the National Burglar and Fire Alarm Association’s National Training School coursework to become a Certified Level I Alarm Technician.
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