The Knock Every Family Dreads
If you are reading this, someone you love did not come home on the evening of Thursday, May 14, 2026. Around 6:25 p.m., 30-year-old Joshua Thompson was found shot inside the Budget 8 Inn near 21st Street and Shadeland Avenue on the east side of Indianapolis. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department is investigating. The suspected shooter was detained and questioned but has not been charged, and the homicide remains open.
We are sorry this is what brought you here. We are sorry you had to learn the details of a stranger’s death in order to ask whether someone is going to be held accountable for your loved one’s. What we can tell you, in plain words, is what the law in Indiana says about a fatal shooting on the grounds of a motel that has been the site of seven homicides in six years, what evidence exists that you can still reach for, and what the road ahead looks like in the weeks and months to come. You do not have to walk that road alone.
What Happened at the Budget 8 Inn
Around 6:25 p.m. on the evening of Thursday, May 14, 2026, IMPD officers were called to the Budget 8 Inn near the intersection of 21st Street and Shadeland Avenue, a stretch of Indianapolis’s east side long familiar to patrol officers and prosecutors. They found a man with gunshot wounds. He was transported to a local hospital and was later pronounced dead. The Marion County Coroner’s Office has identified the victim as Joshua Thompson, age 30.
IMPD officer Bryan Reed asked the public for help. “You know this was a tragic incident,” he said. “Someone lost a loved one and family member, and we want the public to help us solve this.” The suspected shooter was taken into custody and questioned, but the IMPD and the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office have not yet filed charges. The case is being investigated by the IMPD Homicide Office, with Detective TyAnn Lambert leading the inquiry. Anyone with information has been asked to call Detective Lambert at 317.327.3475, or Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317.262.8477 (TIPS) to remain anonymous.
A criminal investigation is one thing. A wrongful death and negligent security civil claim is another. The criminal case asks whether a person will be punished. The civil case asks whether the property owner and the property owner’s insurance carrier will pay for the harm done to the family Joshua left behind. You do not have to wait for the criminal case to end, and you do not have to wait for an arrest or a conviction, before your family starts the civil work.
The Seventh Homicide at This Address in Six Years
Here is the part that makes this case what it is. Joshua Thompson was the seventh person killed at the Budget 8 Inn in roughly six years.
The IMPD and the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office have documented a string of homicides at this same address. The first recorded killing at the property took place in November 2020. A second homicide followed in May 2021. A third in December 2021. Two more in January 2023. Another in June 2023. And now Joshua Thompson, in May 2026. All of the previous cases were eventually either cleared by arrest or closed as non-criminal. In September 2025, just months before Joshua’s death, the property was the site of a non-fatal shooting as well.
Six homicides in six years does not happen at a well-run property. It happens at a property where the owner knew, or should have known, that violent crime was a recurring danger to the people inside, and where the owner did not do what was reasonably required to stop it.
The property’s owner, Kartik Patel, has spoken about this himself. In January 2023, after one of the prior killings, Patel told reporters that he could not control what was in people’s minds:
“We can’t control what’s in people’s minds and what they’re going to do.”
That statement, made to the press after a homicide on his own property, is the kind of line that sounds like common sense until you understand what Indiana law says a commercial innkeeper actually owes the people who rent a room. A commercial innkeeper cannot control what is in anyone’s mind. What the law does require is that the innkeeper take reasonable, documented steps to reduce the known risk of foreseeable violent crime on the property, and that is precisely where the legal analysis begins.
The Owner Has Praised Himself as a Partner With Police
Patel has worked to present himself, both to the public and to the IMPD, as a cooperative property owner who goes the extra mile. After the 2023 killings he described installing forty surveillance cameras around the property, some of which feed directly to the IMPD. In a 2023 press report he insisted he worked hard to keep his guests safe. In September 2025, after a non-fatal shooting, IMPD Captain John Arvin publicly praised the owner’s cooperation: “The business owner’s been fantastic. They’ve had some problems in this area. This area has been a challenge in the past, but he’s cleaning things up.”
That cooperation is real, and we are not here to deny it. Forty cameras and a live feed to police are evidence of effort. The legal question, though, is whether the effort was enough, and the law does not let an owner of a property with six prior homicides and a non-fatal shooting just eight months before Joshua Thompson was killed, answer that question with a press statement. A jury in Marion County will weigh what the owner actually did against what a reasonably prudent motel operator, on actual notice of a pattern of deadly violence, should have done.
Who We Hold Accountable in This Kind of Case
In a negligent security and wrongful death case like this one, the people we name in the lawsuit are not the suspected shooter. The suspected shooter is the subject of the criminal case. The civil case reaches the people and entities whose choices made the danger foreseeable, and whose failure to act allowed it to become a death.
The people we reach for in a case like this are:
- The motel operating entity that runs the property day to day. That is the defendant whose premises liability and negligent security obligations are the heart of the case.
- Kartik Patel personally, where the facts support piercing the corporate veil or holding him individually liable for the security decisions made at the property. We do not name a person individually just because he is the owner, but where the owner personally directed security policy, personally approved the camera placements, personally decided not to hire trained security personnel, or personally failed to act on warnings from police, individual liability can attach.
- Any third-party security vendor the motel hired, if the vendor’s negligent performance contributed to the harm.
- Any general liability insurance carrier that covers the property. The insurance carrier is not the defendant, but it is the entity that will, in practical terms, pay any settlement or verdict up to the policy limits, and it is the entity whose playbook we will be working against from day one.
In the criminal case the suspected shooter faces possible murder or manslaughter charges, and the IMPD and the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office will work that case. We work the civil case. The two are not in competition. The criminal case can help the civil case, and the civil case can move even when the criminal case has not yet reached a charging decision or a verdict.
The Indiana Law That Governs This Case
A premises liability case in Indiana is built on the duty of reasonable care that a business owner owes to the people it invites onto the property. The standard is not perfection. The standard is what a reasonably prudent motel operator, with actual knowledge of the same pattern of violent crime, would have done. The Indiana Supreme Court clarified how that foreseeability analysis works in Goodwin v. Yeakle’s Sports Bar and Grill, Inc., and the test is the “totality of the circumstances.” The question is not whether there was a single prior identical crime, the question is whether the totality of what the owner knew, when the owner knew it, and what the owner chose to do about it, made the resulting harm foreseeable.
The Budget 8 Inn has had seven homicides in six years, plus a non-fatal shooting eight months before Joshua Thompson was killed. Under the Goodwin totality of the circumstances test, that is more than enough to put the question of foreseeability in front of a Marion County jury. The owner cannot reasonably argue that a fatal shooting on the property in May 2026 was a surprise, and Indiana law does not require that it be a surprise. Indiana law only requires that the harm be the foreseeable result of a known danger the owner failed to address.
Indiana’s Comparative Fault Act, at Indiana Code § 34-51-2, governs how any fault assigned to the suspected shooter or to any other party is apportioned. The motel cannot shift the entire blame to the shooter and walk away. Comparative fault in Indiana is a percentage-based analysis in which the property owner’s share of responsibility is determined by a jury, and the owner’s own negligent choices about staffing, lighting, surveillance, access control, and warnings are all on the scale.
Indiana’s Wrongful Death Act, at Indiana Code § 34-23-1-1, governs who may bring a wrongful death claim and what damages may be recovered. Indiana law distinguishes between what is sometimes called the “Adult Wrongful Death” framework, in which the deceased left no spouse, children, or other statutory dependents, and the “General Wrongful Death” framework, in which the deceased did leave a spouse or dependents. The Adult framework carries a statutory cap on non-economic damages; the General framework does not. The specific cap, where it applies, is $300,000 on the non-economic component. Funeral and burial expenses, medical bills incurred before death, and lost wages and earning capacity are not subject to the cap, and where dependents exist, the full range of human losses, including loss of love, care, guidance, and companionship, is also fully recoverable.
Why the Surveillance Footage Will Disappear Fast
The single most important piece of evidence in this case, and the piece with the shortest shelf life, is the surveillance video the owner has already told the public he installed. Patel has described forty cameras around the property, with some feeding directly to the IMPD. That footage may show the shooting itself, the suspect’s movements, the timeline of who came and went, whether there was any security personnel on site, and whether the property’s access control worked. The footage may also show nothing at all, in which case the absence of footage is itself a piece of evidence.
The problem is the clock. Digital video recorder systems in commercial hospitality settings commonly overwrite on a rolling seven to thirty day cycle. The forty-camera system the owner has touted, and the live feed the IMPD has said it can see, do not necessarily retain a permanent record. Once the recording loops, the moment is gone.
The first step in our representation, before the funeral flowers have wilted, is a written litigation hold and preservation letter addressed to the property owner, the on-site manager, the security vendor, the DVR vendor, and the IMPD’s records custodian. The letter demands that all relevant footage from the day in question, and from a defined window before and after, be preserved in native format with a documented chain of custody. It also demands that the on-site incident logs, the dispatch records, the maintenance records, and the personnel and training records for any on-site security staff, be preserved. The minute that letter is on file, any later destruction of that material is potential spoliation, and a Marion County judge can sanction the motel for it. The minute that letter is not on file, the recording loop runs and the truth disappears on schedule.
The Records That Prove What the Owner Knew
A negligent security case is won or lost on records. The records that matter most in this case fall into four buckets.
The first bucket is the IMPD’s own Computer Aided Dispatch, or CAD, records. CAD logs document every call to the property, every officer dispatched, every incident report generated, and every criminal case linked to the address. The CAD history for the Budget 8 Inn goes back years, and it is the public record that turns a slogan like “we work with police” into documented proof of what the police were actually telling the property about. CAD records are public records under Indiana law, and the formal request to obtain them takes time, so we request them early. The CAD log for the Budget 8 Inn over the period covering the seven prior homicides and the non-fatal 2025 shooting is the spine of the foreseeability case.
The second bucket is the property’s own internal records. The motel is a commercial operation. It keeps employee files, training records, incident logs, maintenance logs, vendor contracts, and security policies. Whether the motel ever had a written security plan, who drafted it, when it was last updated, whether it was ever revised after a prior homicide on the property, and whether it was ever enforced, are questions only the property’s own files can answer. Those records are the property’s property, and they are produced only in response to a records request or a subpoena. We send the request on day one.
The third bucket is the surveillance system. As described above, the forty cameras and the IMPD feed are both evidence, and both are at risk of being overwritten. We issue the preservation demand for the DVRs and the IMPD’s copy of the feed immediately.
The fourth bucket is the property insurance policy, known in the industry as the dec page. The dec page tells us the policy limits, the named insureds, the exclusions, and whether the policy contains the kind of assault and battery exclusion that is common in commercial general liability policies covering motels. We do not know what the policy says until we get it, but we know that without it, we cannot accurately advise the family on the realistic recovery architecture.
The fastest-dying of these is the surveillance footage. The CAD records are public but slow to produce. The internal motel records are not public at all and have to be subpoenaed. The insurance policy may or may not be produced voluntarily. The order in which we move is the order of perishability, and that order starts with the footage.
What the Evidence Will Show
We do not yet have the full evidence in hand. The litigation hold and the records requests are the first move. But the structure of what a case like this looks like, when the records are in, is well established.
The CAD history will likely show that police were called to this property repeatedly over the period from 2020 forward, that the calls included violent offenses, that homicide detectives worked cases there, and that the property’s address appeared in police blotters as a recurring problem location. In the hospitality industry that pattern shows up in a specific way: a property becomes a “nuisance property” in the language of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the Marion County Public Health Department, and nuisance properties have a documented history that the property owner cannot credibly deny.
The property’s own internal records will likely show whether the security plan the owner claims to have was a real, enforced plan or a piece of paper. Did the motel have a written policy requiring background checks on staff, training on de-escalation, written protocols for trespassing and removal, written incident reports after every call to the room, written coordination with the IMPD? Did the motel ever hire a uniformed or off-duty police officer for overnight coverage, and if so, when and why did that end? Did the motel install the forty cameras before or after a particular homicide, and were the cameras monitored in real time or only after the fact? The answers to those questions come from the records, and the records come from the demand letter.
The surveillance footage, if preserved, will likely show what was happening in the minutes before the shooting, what the suspect was doing, whether any motel staff were in the area, and whether the property’s lighting, sightlines, and access control functioned the way a safe property should. Even a partial preservation is useful. The footage is the case.
The insurance policy will tell us the size of the pocket. A commercial general liability policy for a multi-state or multi-property motel can carry limits in the low seven figures per occurrence. The question is whether this property’s policy is at that level, whether it carries a violent-intent or assault and battery exclusion, and whether the policy was in force on the day of the shooting. Until we see the dec page, we cannot answer those questions, but the dec page is almost always obtainable once a civil case is filed.
The Insurance Adjuster Playbook
In a case like this, the insurance adjuster for the property will move fast and quietly. The playbook is the same playbook we see in every premises liability case against a corporate insured. We want you to know it in advance, because knowing the plays is the only way to defeat them.
The first play is the friendly early call. Within days of the death, an adjuster or a representative working on behalf of the property’s insurance carrier will call a family member, identify themselves carefully, and offer condolences. The conversation will feel supportive. The real purpose of the call is to build a relationship, get the family to say things about Joshua’s habits, his health, his income, his relationships, and the family’s private conversations, before there is a lawyer involved to filter what gets said. The counter is simple: do not give a recorded or unrecorded statement to the property’s insurance carrier, and refer all calls to us.
The second play is the quick check with a release buried in it. The adjuster may arrive at the funeral home, the family’s home, or by mail, with a check for a small amount of money, framed as an emergency hardship payment or a gesture of goodwill. Buried in the paperwork is a release of all claims. Signing that release ends the family’s rights forever in exchange for a fraction of what the case is worth. The counter is the same: do not sign anything from the property’s insurance carrier or from anyone representing the motel, and do not cash any check that comes with a release.
The third play is the recorded statement. The adjuster will eventually ask for a statement from the family member who will be the personal representative of the estate, and will offer to “expedite” the claim if the statement is given soon. The statement is taken under oath, often word for word, and is later used to attack the value of the case by pulling single sentences out of context. The counter is the same: no statement without counsel present, no statement until the litigation hold is in place and the records have been preserved, and no statement that has not been prepared for in advance.
The fourth play, which often comes later, is the comparative fault argument. The carrier will try to argue that Joshua Thompson put himself in danger, that the location was a known bad area, that the family cannot claim ignorance of the property’s reputation, and that some portion of fault should be assigned to him. Indiana’s Comparative Fault Act governs how that argument is applied, and the answer is that a guest at a commercial motel has a right to assume that the operator has done what the law requires to keep the property reasonably safe, and that comparative fault does not excuse a known danger that was never addressed.
The fifth play is the delay and stall. The carrier will ask for more documentation, schedule the statement, then reschedule, then ask for additional records, and stretch the calendar. The purpose is to wear the family down, run up costs, and push the family toward a low settlement out of exhaustion. The counter is to keep the record moving and force the carrier’s hand through the courts when necessary.
The Damages the Family Can Recover
The economic damages in a wrongful death case are the part of the recovery that is not capped. They include the funeral and burial expenses Joshua’s family has already paid or will pay. They include the medical bills that were generated between the shooting and the moment of death. They include the wages and benefits Joshua would have earned over the rest of his working life, discounted to present value, calculated by a forensic economist who builds the number from Joshua’s actual work history, his education, his industry, and the statistical worklife expectancy tables published by the federal government. They include the value of the household services Joshua provided, including the care he gave to family members, the work he did around the home, and the like. All of these are recoverable, none of them is subject to the Adult Wrongful Death cap, and each of them is provable with records and a qualified expert.
The non-economic damages are the human losses. The grief of a family that has lost a son and a brother at thirty. The loss of his love, his companionship, his care, his guidance, his presence at holidays and ordinary days. The loss of the future the family would have had with him in it. Under the General Wrongful Death framework, where Joshua left a spouse, children, or other statutory dependents, these damages are not capped, and a Marion County jury is free to award what the jury believes is fair. Under the Adult Wrongful Death framework, these damages are subject to a statutory cap of $300,000. The specific framework that applies depends on Joshua’s family circumstances, and we will explain which one applies to your family in our first conversation.
Punitive damages, sometimes called exemplary damages, are a separate category that exists in Indiana to punish conduct that is willful and wanton, or that shows a conscious disregard of the safety of others. A motel that knows it has been the site of six prior homicides over six years, that has installed forty cameras but not the staffing or access controls that would actually reduce the danger, and that continues to operate on the same model after a non-fatal shooting eight months before the next fatal one, is the kind of fact pattern Indiana juries have historically treated as supporting a punitive award. Punitive damages are not guaranteed, and no honest lawyer will promise them, but in a case like this, with this history, the question is not whether punitive damages are available, the question is whether the evidence supports them.
What This Case Is Worth
We do not make promises about case value, and we do not give a number without seeing the records. We can, however, give the family a realistic range based on the type of case this is, the venue it is in, and the documented history of violence at the property.
A motel negligent security and wrongful death case in Marion County, Indiana, with no dependents and an Adult Wrongful Death cap on non-economic damages, will typically resolve in a range from a low of approximately $450,000, reflecting the $300,000 non-economic cap plus limited economic loss, to a high of several hundred thousand to seven figures depending on the strength of the foreseeability evidence, the size of the available insurance, and the jury’s view of the property’s conduct. The presence of a documented prior-incident record at the property, the number of cameras installed versus the number of other reasonable security measures, the existence of a non-fatal shooting in the months before the death, and the owner’s own public statements, are all factors that can move a case up the range.
A motel negligent security and wrongful death case in Marion County, Indiana, with a spouse, children, or other statutory dependents, and therefore no cap on non-economic damages, will typically resolve in a range from approximately $1 million to $3.5 million or more, again depending on the strength of the foreseeability evidence, the size of the available insurance, the strength of the punitive case, and the jury’s view of the conduct. With seven homicides in six years and a non-fatal shooting eight months before Joshua’s death, the punitive case here is real, and the question is not whether the conduct crosses the line, the question is how the jury sees it.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The number a family ultimately receives depends on the evidence, the venue, the insurance available, and the work the lawyers put in. We will give you an honest range after we have reviewed the records, and we will explain every number we use.
The First 72 Hours
The days after a death like this are the worst days of a family’s life. The phone calls, the funeral home, the choice of clothing, the visit from police, the decision about organ donation, the empty chair. We do not pretend to have answers to any of that. What we can tell you is what to do, in concrete terms, to protect the legal rights of the family at the same time you are doing the impossible work of grieving.
The first move is to preserve the evidence. If anyone in the family has a photograph of the motel, of the room, of the parking lot, of the lighting, of the security cameras, of the access points, of the sign out front, of the surrounding area, send those to us. If anyone took a video in the hours after the shooting, send it. If anyone spoke to a manager, an employee, or another guest at the property in the hours or days after the shooting, write down what was said while it is fresh.
The second move is to keep a private journal of every contact with the property, the property’s insurance carrier, the IMPD, the Marion County Coroner’s Office, and any reporter. Write down the date, the time, the name, the substance, and any documents that were left. Do not delete the journal entries, do not show them to the insurance carrier, and do not post about the case on social media.
The third move is to identify the personal representative of the estate. Under Indiana’s Wrongful Death Act, the personal representative of the deceased’s estate is the person who has legal authority to bring the wrongful death claim. If Joshua had a will, the personal representative is named in the will. If he did not, the personal representative is appointed by the probate court in the county where he lived. We can help you with the probate step quickly, because every day the case moves is a day closer to the evidence being preserved and the insurance carrier being put on notice.
The fourth move is to call us. The case is moving. The motel knows. The insurance carrier knows. The IMPD knows. The family should not be the last to know what the next steps are. The first consultation is free. There is no fee unless we win.
Who We Are
We are Attorney911, the trial firm of Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña. Ralph has been a courtroom lawyer in Texas for more than twenty-seven years, including federal court, and is a member of the Million Dollar Trial Lawyers Association. Lupe is a former insurance defense lawyer who spent years inside the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue cases exactly like yours, and who now uses that knowledge for injured people. Lupe conducts full consultations in Spanish, and our entire firm, including our intake staff, is bilingual. Hablamos Español.
Our practice is built for the case you are now living. We handle wrongful death and premises liability cases, including negligent security, inadequate security, and wrongful death on commercial and residential property. We work on contingency, which means there is no fee unless we win. The first call is free, it is confidential, and it does not commit you to anything. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right firm for the case, and if we are not, we will help you find the right one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is liable when a guest is shot at a motel in Indianapolis?
The motel operating entity is the primary defendant, because the operator owes a duty of reasonable care to the people it invites onto the property. The owner may be personally liable where the facts support it. A third-party security vendor may be liable for negligent performance. The suspected shooter is the subject of the criminal case and is not a defendant in the civil case, although the shooter’s actions are part of the chain of events that gives rise to the claim. The property’s commercial general liability insurance carrier is the entity that, in practical terms, pays any settlement or verdict.
How long do I have to file a wrongful death lawsuit in Indiana?
Under Indiana’s Wrongful Death Act, Indiana Code § 34-23-1-1, the statute of limitations on a wrongful death action is generally two years from the date of death. The clock begins to run on the date of death, not on the date the family learns of the legal claim. There are narrow exceptions, and the discovery rule may apply in limited circumstances, but the safest course is to act well before the two-year mark. We do not let the statute of limitations surprise a family.
What is the difference between Indiana’s “Adult” and “General” wrongful death framework?
Indiana’s Wrongful Death Act distinguishes between cases where the deceased left no spouse, children, or other statutory dependents, and cases where the deceased did. In the Adult framework, the family left behind has no statutory right to recover the non-economic, human losses, and the only recovery available is the capped economic loss. In the General framework, where a spouse, child, or other statutory dependent exists, the family has the right to recover the full range of economic and non-economic losses, including the loss of love, care, guidance, and companionship. The specific cap in the Adult framework is $300,000 on the non-economic component.
What evidence disappears fastest after a motel shooting?
The surveillance video. Digital video recorder systems in commercial hospitality settings commonly overwrite on a rolling seven to thirty day cycle. The footage is the most important single piece of evidence, and it is the piece most likely to be lost. The next most perishable records are the property’s own internal incident logs, the dispatch logs at the IMPD for the property, and any on-site security personnel rosters. The first move in our representation is a written litigation hold and preservation letter to the motel, the on-site manager, the security vendor, the DVR vendor, and the IMPD’s records custodian.
How much is a negligent security case worth?
That depends on whether the Adult or General framework applies, the size of the available insurance, the strength of the foreseeability evidence, and the jury’s view of the property’s conduct. With the Adult cap in place, the realistic range for a motel negligent security case in Marion County is approximately $450,000 on the low end, with significant upside depending on the facts. Without the cap, in a case with dependents, the realistic range runs from approximately $1 million to $3.5 million or more, again with the upside driven by the strength of the foreseeability and punitive cases. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We will give you an honest range after we have reviewed the records.
Can I sue the motel owner personally, not just the business?
It depends. A motel that operates through a corporate entity creates a presumption of limited liability, and that presumption is meaningful. The presumption can be overcome, however, where the owner personally directed security decisions, personally approved the layout of cameras and access controls, personally decided not to hire security staff, or personally failed to act on warnings from police. Each of those scenarios can support personal liability, and the facts here, including the owner’s own public statements about his role in the property’s security, may support piercing the corporate veil. We examine the question case by case, and we do not name an individual defendant just to make a point.
What is the “totality of the circumstances” test in Indiana?
The Indiana Supreme Court, in Goodwin v. Yeakle’s Sports Bar and Grill, Inc., clarified that foreseeability in a premises liability case is not determined by any single factor, including whether there was a prior identical crime on the property. The test is the totality of the circumstances, which means the jury weighs everything the owner knew, when the owner knew it, and what the owner chose to do about it. With seven homicides in six years and a non-fatal shooting eight months before Joshua Thompson was killed, the totality here is more than enough to put the question of foreseeability in front of a Marion County jury.
What should I do if the property’s insurance company contacts me?
Refer the call to us. Do not give a recorded or unrecorded statement. Do not sign anything. Do not cash any check that comes with a release. Do not let the adjuster into your home or your family’s home. The adjuster is not your friend, and the adjuster is not on your side. The adjuster works for an insurance carrier whose job is to settle your family’s claim for as little as possible. The counter is simple: a single sentence, “I am not able to speak with you. Please contact my attorney,” and then our number. We take it from there.
Does Indiana’s comparative fault law reduce my family’s recovery?
Indiana’s Comparative Fault Act, at Indiana Code § 34-51-2, allows a jury to assign a percentage of fault to each party, including the deceased, the property owner, the suspected shooter, and any third parties. The recovery is reduced by the percentage of fault assigned to the deceased. Comparative fault in a case like this, however, is usually modest. A guest at a commercial motel has a right to assume that the operator has done what the law requires, and the operator cannot shift the entire blame to the suspected shooter and walk away. The owner made the choices about staffing, cameras, access control, and warnings, and those choices are on the scale.
Is a motel with seven homicides in six years a “nuisance property”?
In the language of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the Marion County Public Health Department, yes, a property with a documented pattern of violent crime can be designated as a nuisance, and nuisance properties carry consequences for the owner. The pattern here is documented, and we will obtain the records that prove it. Whether the property has been formally designated as a nuisance is a question the public records will answer, and either way, the pattern is what the jury sees.
Do I have to wait for the criminal case to finish before filing a civil case?
No. The civil case can be filed and can proceed independently of the criminal case. The civil case is not waiting for an arrest, an indictment, or a conviction to move forward. In fact, the civil case can move faster than the criminal case, because the civil case has a lower burden of proof and a different procedural calendar. We are not the criminal defense lawyer and we are not the prosecutor, and the civil case does not depend on the criminal case.
What if Joshua had no spouse and no children?
If Joshua left no spouse, children, or other statutory dependents, the case proceeds under the Adult Wrongful Death framework, and the non-economic recovery is subject to the $300,000 cap. The economic recovery, including funeral and burial expenses, medical bills, lost wages, and lost earning capacity, is not subject to the cap, and the punitive case remains available. We will explain which framework applies to your family in our first conversation, and we will be honest about what each framework means in dollars.
How quickly do surveillance videos get erased?
Digital video recorders in commercial hospitality settings commonly overwrite on a rolling seven to thirty day cycle, and the actual window depends on the system, the storage capacity, and the property’s own policy. The forty cameras the owner has touted, and the live feed the IMPD has said it can see, do not necessarily retain a permanent record. The minute the loop runs, the moment is gone. That is why our first move on day one is a written preservation letter, and that is why the family should call us within the first week, not within the first month.
What to Do Now
If you have read this far, you have done the hardest part. You have decided that someone ought to be held accountable for what happened to Joshua, and you are right. Seven homicides in six years is not a streak of bad luck, it is a record. Forty cameras without the staffing, access control, and warnings a Marion County jury would expect is not a security program, it is a performance. The owner said he could not control what was in people’s minds. He is right, and that is exactly why the law does not ask him to. The law asks him to do what a reasonably prudent motel operator would have done, and a jury will decide whether he did it.
The next step is yours. The first call is free. There is no fee unless we win. You can reach us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-888-ATTY-911. You can also reach us through our contact page or read more about how we handle these cases on our wrongful death practice page. Hablamos Español. We will listen, we will tell you honestly what we think the case is worth, and we will move.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
