A new lawsuit alleges that a hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, allowed a patient to roam freely before he fatally shot a nurse leaving her shift. Ada Chapman Doss, 27, was killed on May 12 while on the phone with her husband.
The complaint, filed by Doss' husband and estate, names 41-year-old Matthew Taylor and the DCH Health Care Authority as defendants. It states that Taylor had been brought to the emergency room earlier that day after someone reported a manic episode.
According to the lawsuit, hospital staff were warned about Taylor's erratic behavior but failed to monitor him. He allegedly left the emergency room area and moved unmonitored across the campus for hours while shirtless, shoeless and armed.
Doss was walking to the south parking lot when Taylor approached her with a gun. The suit describes her final words as "please don't, I have babies" before she was shot. It seeks compensatory and punitive damages, alleging negligence and wrongful death.
Taylor was later arrested and indicted on charges of capital murder, first-degree robbery and illegal possession of a firearm.