DALLAS – A Texas cable company has been ordered to pay the family of a woman who was murdered by an employee in her home, according to a report by Fox 10 Phoenix.
A Dallas County jury ordered Spectrum Cable or Charter Communications to pay $7 billion to the family after they found the company liable in the stabbing death of 83-year-old Betty Thomas, according to the report.
Recommended Videos
In December 2019, Roy Holden Jr. worked for the cable company as an installer and did some work at Thomas’ home in Irving. Prosecutors said Holden then returned to the home the next day to kill her while off duty. Holden also stole the deceased woman’s credit card and went on a shopping spree, prosecutors said.
Holden was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to the murder.
According to the report, attorneys representing Thomas’ family claimed that the cable company failed to properly screen Holden and had been warned about his troubling behavior before the murder.
Jurors awarded the family $375 million in compensatory damages, which are damages awarded to plaintiffs as justice for wrongdoing. The cable company is responsible for 90% of that amount. Jurors also found the cable company grossly negligent and ordered it to pay $7 billion as punishment for that negligence, according to the report.