The Family of Deputy Derrick Bonham Deserves the Full Truth About What Happened in Martin
Nicole, on the morning of January 30, 2026, your husband Derrick answered a call for help. He did what deputies do. He drove to the Days Inn on University Street in Martin, Tennessee, because someone reported shots fired there. Within minutes of arriving, while he and other officers were working the scene, a man in a vehicle at a nearby gas station opened fire. Derrick was struck. He was taken to Volunteer Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He was 36 years old. You have been married for nine years. You have three young children who will grow up without their father. The man accused of killing him is in custody on a charge of first-degree murder.
We are sorry. Nothing a law firm writes on a page can change what you are living through right now. But we can tell you the truth about what Tennessee law allows you to do next — because the criminal case against the shooter is only part of what a family in your position can pursue.
The criminal system will handle Khristi Dawn Cunningham, 44, of Ohio, on the first-degree murder charge. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has been requested to investigate the shooting, as the Martin Police Department announced. That process has its own timeline, its own rules, and its own outcome. It will not pay your mortgage. It will not fund your children’s college. It will not replace the man who helped you raise them.
What it will not do is also what the civil justice system exists to do: hold accountable every party whose conduct created the conditions that put Derrick in that parking lot at 2:51 a.m. with a gunman nearby — and whose failures turned a survivable situation into a fatal one. In Tennessee, you have one year from the date of Derrick’s death to file a wrongful death lawsuit. We use every day of that year to find the truth and build the case that makes the truth pay.
This page walks you through what Tennessee law gives you, who can be held responsible, what evidence exists and how fast it can disappear, and what the first 72 hours after you call us look like. If at any point you want to talk to a person, call 1-888-ATTY-911. That line is answered 24 hours a day by a live person on our staff, not an answering service. The consultation is free. You pay nothing unless we win your case.
The One-Year Deadline Tennessee Law Imposes
This is the single most urgent fact on this page.
Under Tennessee Code Annotated § 28-3-104(a)(2), a wrongful death action must be filed within one (1) year of the date of death. Derrick died on January 30, 2026. That means the statute of limitations expires — absent specific tolling facts — on January 30, 2027.
One year is one of the shortest wrongful death limitations periods in the country. In many other states the family has two or three years. In Tennessee, the clock is already running.
The investigation into the shooter’s conduct is being run by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, with the Martin Police Department having responded first and taken the suspect into custody at the scene. That investigation, and any related federal review, will not toll the civil statute of limitations. The civil case must be filed inside the one-year window regardless of where the criminal case stands.
If the family waits to see how the criminal case resolves, the civil case may die on the courthouse steps. We do not let that happen. The preservation letters, the evidence demands, the witness statements, the expert engagement — all of it begins now, in the first weeks, so the complaint is ready to file when the investigation has given us what we need. Do not wait on the criminal case. It will not wait for you.
If you are reading this and the one-year mark has already passed, do not assume the door is closed. Tennessee law recognizes limited tolling doctrines — minority, insanity, and certain discovery-rule exceptions. Call us anyway. We will review the dates with you and tell you honestly where you stand.
The Days Inn Franchise and the Wyndham Shell Game
This is where the defendant structure gets complicated — and where most families give up because the names do not seem to connect. We connect them.
Days Inn Worldwide, Inc. is the franchisor entity that licenses the Days Inn brand. Days Inn Worldwide is a subsidiary of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Inc., a publicly traded hospitality company (NYSE: WH) spun off from Wyndham Worldwide in 2018. Wyndham operates essentially as a pure-play franchisor — the company owns virtually none of the underlying real estate, but it controls brand standards, reservation systems, and franchisee compliance.
At a Days Inn location, the actual property is typically owned by an independent owner LLC and operated under a franchise agreement. That local LLC may be a single-asset entity with limited assets — but it is not the only defendant. The franchisor (Days Inn Worldwide) and the parent (Wyndham) sit above it. Each can be reached under Tennessee law when the franchisor exercises operational control beyond mere branding — for example, by dictating security protocols, signage, staffing standards, or approved vendor lists, or by retaining the right to inspect and terminate for noncompliance.
This is the shell game. The local operator may be thinly capitalized. The franchisor’s insurance tower may be far larger. The strategy is to name every entity in the chain — the local franchisee LLC, Days Inn Worldwide, and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts — and let the discovery process reveal which one carried the real control over security on January 30, 2026.
The same analysis applies to the gas station. National fuel brands — Pilot Flying J, TA, BP, Shell, Marathon, Murphy USA, and others — operate through franchise and supply agreements that distribute liability across multiple entities. The local operator, the regional franchisee, and the parent corporation all potentially sit in the case. We pull the corporate registrations, the franchise filings, and the insurance certificates to find who is actually responsible.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Insurance-Adjuster Playbook in a Line-of-Tuty Wrongful Death Case
When the family brings a civil claim against the Days Inn, the gas station, or any other third party, the defense will come from commercial general liability insurers. The criminal case against the shooter is separate. The insurance company for the property will be defending the property — and its adjuster will run a recognizable playbook. Here is what to expect and how we counter each move.
Play 1: “The Shooter Was a Criminal Act — Not Our Risk”
The adjuster will argue that the shooter was a third-party criminal whose conduct the property could not have foreseen or prevented, and that insurance excludes intentional acts. The counter: Tennessee negligent security law does not require the property to have caused the criminal act — it requires the property to have failed to take reasonable steps in the face of foreseeable criminal risk. If prior incidents, calls for service, lighting failures, or staffing gaps made the property a foreseeable target, the criminal act is precisely what the security measures were supposed to address. The intentional-acts exclusion in a CGL policy typically applies to the insured’s conduct, not to third-party criminal acts against which the property failed to protect.
Play 2: “You Can’t Sue Until the Criminal Case Is Over”
The adjuster will push for delay — argue that the civil case should wait until the criminal case resolves, that depositions are premature, that the family should not “rush to judgment.” The counter: Tennessee’s one-year wrongful death statute of limitations does not pause for criminal proceedings. The civil case has its own clock and its own discovery rights. We file the complaint to preserve the statute and pursue civil discovery (civil subpoena power, depositions, document production) in parallel with — not after — the criminal case.
Play 3: “We’ll Make a Quick, Confidential Offer”
Within weeks of the incident, an adjuster may reach out with an early settlement offer — a low number, with a confidentiality clause and a release of all future claims. The counter: Early offers are calibrated to catch families before they know the full value of the case, before the evidence has been preserved, before expert analysis has been completed. Do not sign anything without our review. Any release signed today may extinguish claims against Days Inn Worldwide, Wyndham, the gas station, or any affiliated entity whose identity you do not yet know. Once signed, it cannot be undone. We will tell you honestly whether an early offer is fair or whether it is an attempt to close the file cheaply.
Play 4: “The Deputy Was Doing His Job — His Employer Should Compensate”
The adjuster will point at workers’ compensation benefits, pension benefits, and line-of-duty death benefits as the family’s remedy. The counter: Those are real benefits, and we want the family to receive every dollar of them. But workers’ compensation and line-of-duty death benefits do not preclude a third-party civil claim against a non-employer. The adjuster’s suggestion that workers’ comp is the family’s “exclusive remedy” is a misstatement of Tennessee law. The sheriff’s office and Weakley County government are not the defendants here — the Days Inn and the gas station are.
Play 5: “Comparative Fault — Maybe the Deputy Should Have Done Something Differently”
The adjuster will suggest that Derrick, as a trained deputy, could have positioned himself differently, drawn his weapon sooner, taken cover differently. The counter: Tennessee’s modified comparative fault system with a 50% bar still applies, but the fault analysis in a third-party negligent security claim runs between the defendant and the wrongdoer, not the deputy. Derrick was responding to a call for shots fired at the Days Inn. He was performing his duties. The question is what the Days Inn and the gas station knew and did not do — not what the deputy should have done differently in the seconds before being shot.
What Line-of-Duty Benefits the Family Receives — and What They Don’t Cover
Tennessee law provides significant line-of-duty benefits to the families of fallen law enforcement officers. These are separate from, and do not preclude, a third-party civil claim.
State line-of-duty death benefits. Under Tennessee law, the surviving spouse and dependent children of a law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty are entitled to a state death benefit, in addition to TCRS pension death benefits and continued health coverage under certain conditions.
TCRS line-of-duty death benefit. The Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System provides a line-of-duty death benefit for public safety officers killed in the line of duty, payable to the surviving spouse and dependent children.
Federal PSOB (Public Safety Officers’ Benefits) Act. The U.S. Department of Justice Public Safety Officers’ Benefits program provides a federal death benefit to the surviving spouse and dependent children of a law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty. As of the current program parameters, the death benefit is a lump-sum payment. [VERIFY-AT-BUILD] the exact current PSOB amount at the time of filing — these figures adjust periodically.
Workers’ compensation death benefits. The family is entitled to workers’ compensation death benefits under Tennessee law, which include burial expenses and a percentage of the deputy’s average weekly wage for the surviving spouse and dependent children.
Workers’ comp is not the exclusive remedy. This is the key point. The third-party civil claim against the Days Inn, the gas station, and any other liable party is independent of every line-of-duty benefit the family receives. The line-of-duty benefits do not reduce or offset a third-party recovery.
How We Build These Cases
Here is how a line-of-duty negligent security case actually moves from the day the family calls us to a verdict or settlement.
Week one. Preservation letters go out to the Days Inn (corporate and franchisee), the gas station, the Martin Police Department, the Weakley County Sheriff’s Office, TBI, and any other agency or entity that holds evidence. We demand preservation of surveillance video, point-of-sale records, incident logs, maintenance records, lighting inspection records, CAD logs, body-worn and dash-camera footage, and the shooter’s prior criminal history. We notify every insurer.
Weeks two through four. We retain the experts — a premises-security expert to evaluate the Days Inn and gas station against industry standards, a forensic economist to project lost earning capacity, a life-care planner if survival damages are at issue, and a private investigator to pull prior-incident records and 911 history at both properties.
Months one through six. Discovery. We serve document requests, interrogatories, and deposition notices. We depose the property managers, the security staff, the corporate franchisor representatives, and the law enforcement personnel with knowledge of the scene. We retain and review the TBI investigative file when it becomes available.
Months six through twelve. Expert reports are exchanged. Mediation may be ordered by the court or initiated by the defense. We prepare for trial.
Filing. The complaint is filed in advance of the one-year statute of limitations. If the case resolves through settlement, the family approves the terms. If it does not, we try it.
Every step is built around one principle: the proof is the proof, and the proof comes from documents, not arguments. The evidence the Days Inn and the gas station hold is the case. We get it before it disappears, and we put it in front of a Weakley County jury.
Why Our Firm Handles This Work
This firm — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC, operating as Attorney911 — has spent more than two decades standing between families who have been failed once and the parties responsible for failing them. We were founded July 18, 2001. We have recovered over $50 million for our clients across hundreds of cases.
Ralph Manginello is our managing partner. He has been licensed in Texas since November 6, 1998 — more than 27 years — and is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He earned his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston in 1998 and his B.A. in Journalism and Public Relations from UT Austin. Before law school he was a journalist — he knows how to find the record and tell the story. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Houston Bar Association, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Pro Bono College of the State Bar of Texas. He has been inducted into the Trial Lawyers Achievement Association — Million Dollar Member. He is also a member of the National Association of Italian Lawyers.
Lupe Peña is our associate attorney. He is a former insurance-defense attorney — he worked inside the rooms where adjusters, claim software, and defense lawyers priced cases like yours before you ever heard of them. He knows Colossus, IME selection, surveillance tactics, and reserve-setting because he used them. Now he uses that knowledge for injured clients. He was admitted to the Texas Bar in December 2012 and is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He earned his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston in 2012 and his B.B.A. in International Business from Saint Mary’s University in San Antonio. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. This firm serves Spanish-speaking families fully and in their own language.
Hablamos Español.
We do contingency fee representation in catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases. You pay no fee unless we win your case. The consultation is free. The case evaluation is free. The preservation letters, the expert retainers, the discovery costs — those are ours to advance until your case resolves. If we do not win, you owe us nothing for our time or our out-of-pocket costs.
We are a trial firm. We have tried cases to verdict. We have taken on defendants with national counsel. We have built the kind of record that tells the other side we are not going away. That is who you want across the table from the Days Inn’s insurer and the gas station’s defense counsel when your family’s future is the thing being negotiated.
You can reach Ralph directly at his attorney page, Lupe directly at his attorney page, or our intake team at the firm contact page. The hotline — 1-888-ATTY-911 — is staffed 24/7 by live staff, not an answering service.
We also handle the full range of catastrophic injury and wrongful death work — from 18-wheeler and commercial truck collisions to car accidents, motorcycle crashes, brain injuries, workplace and industrial incidents, construction accidents, refinery and petrochemical injuries, offshore and maritime injuries, toxic exposure, and wrongful death claims. When a family’s life has been torn apart by someone else’s conduct, we are the firm that steps in.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Call We Hope You Make
If you are Nicole, or if you are a member of Deputy Bonham’s family reading this page, the single most important thing you can do this week is call 1-888-ATTY-911. That call is free. It is answered by a live person on our staff, twenty-four hours a day. We will not pressure you. We will not sell you. We will tell you honestly what Tennessee law gives you, who can be held responsible, what evidence exists and how fast it is disappearing, and what the first 72 hours after you call will look like.
The man who killed Derrick is in custody. The criminal case will run its course. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is investigating what happened in those last moments on University Street. None of that undoes what has been done to your family. None of it funds the next eighteen years of raising three children without their father. That part — the part that pays for the home, the college, the future Derrick would have built for you — is the civil case. And the civil case has a one-year clock that started on January 30, 2026.
Do not let that clock run out. Do not sign anything an insurance adjuster sends. Do not give a recorded statement before we are on the line. Call us first. 1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win.
We are sorry about Derrick. We are ready to fight for Nicole and the children.