Families sue retirement for deaths of two residents

The descendants of two elderly women who were beaten to death by their housekeeper are suing a retirement community in Chatham County for failing to prevent it.

The complaint in the wrongful death lawsuit states that the retirement community should have run a background check to discover that the housekeeper, Barbara Clark, had a history of forging checks and was ordered by a court to stay away from the elderly.

Representatives for the retirement community did not respond to calls for comment.

Margaret Murta, 92, and Mary Corcoran, 82, were beaten to death by a cane at the Galloway Ridge retirement community in Pittsboro in December 2007 after they learned Clark was forging their checks for money.

Clark, who had been cleaning their apartment on Saturdays since 2006, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 2008 and is serving life without parole at Raleigh’s North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women.

The estates of the elderly women who were beaten are asking for $10,000 from the retirement community in damages to help pay medical and funeral expenses, according to the complaint.

The lawyers for the elderly wrote in the complaint that because the retirement community advertises that they ensure the well-being of residents and secure residents from harm, they should have run a background check.

The complaint also states that the first 911 call reporting the beating came five minutes after the first pages were received from Murta and Corcoran’s alarm pendant.

The community also should have been on the lookout for people taking advantage of the elderly, the complaint states.

If they had done those things, they would have discovered that Clark had a history, the complaint states. As part of a 2001 plea deal after she was found guilty of forging two checks out of the bank account of an elderly resident, Clark was ordered not to work in a position where she had access to the elderly’s property and possessions, the complaint states.

Also, starting in 2004, she began to forge checks for herself from a family of four who lived in Chapel Hill, the complaint states.

Marissa Zang, spokeswoman for the law firm representing the women, said this kind of wrongful death case is not out of the ordinary. But Clark’s trial caught the attention of the public, she said.

Because the lawsuit was just filed, there is no set date for the first hearing, Zang said.



Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.