A bloodthirsty man invaded a small-town Minnesota home
in 2006 and took the lives of his former girlfriend and her companion. The
murderer was able to accomplish the break-in and move through the house
undetected. Fearing for her life for some time, the victim had recently purchased a customized
security system worth several thousand dollars in hopes of gaining early
detection of her stalker’s presence should he attempt a home invasion. The
system included an inside siren, an outside siren, motion detection, panic
alarm, two keypad sounders, an outside strobe light, perimeter system and more,
all of which would activate at the same time, once the system detected an
intruder.
Sadly, when the attacker did come for her, the system
failed catastrophically. The nationally-based
alarm company that set up her system was found to have recklessly
breached its responsibilities by failing to design, install and test a system
that was supposed to be customized for early detection of an intruder.
The investigation was led by forensic alarm
industry expert and president of Teaneck, N.J.-based IDS Research and
Development Inc., Jeffrey
Zwirn. Zwirn determined
the company recklessly breached its duties to its customer. While the alarm company did ultimately come to an out of
court settlement years later for an undisclosed sum, thought to be many
millions of dollars, those lives are lost due to some as simple as a faulty
system.
The carelessness of an alarm
company cost this woman her life. Read more here to avoid a tragedy like this
in your life.
