The family of a slain 72-year-old woman on Thursday filed a $14 million lawsuit against her Baltimore apartment complex, alleging her murderer was allowed to kill because of lax security.
On June 2, Leo Cooper entered his mother Shirley Cooper?s home, located in the Temple Gardens apartments located at 2601 Madison Avenue, to find her dead as a result of multiple stab wounds. Police have made no arrests, but have closed the case after their main suspect was found dead.
“The person who savagely murdered the late Shirely Cooper entered the premises through an unsecured and unmonitored entryway,” attorney David Ellin wrote in the family?s wrongful death suit against ETG Associates and Roizman Development, the owner and operator of the apartment complex.
Ellin alleges that security cameras were not properly installed or operating at the time of Cooper?s murder.
He said the $14 million is a “symbolic amount” representing the number of times Cooper was stabbed.
“It?s an overall failure of their security system,” Ellin said of the suit, which was filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court by Cooper?s mother and five children. “There have been problems with people just walking in the front door and a side door left open.”
Representatives of the apartment complex were not immediately available for comment.
