Charter Communications faces lawsuit after cable man killed 83-year-old North Texas woman
One day in December 2019, Spectrum/Charter Communications cable installer Roy Holden Jr. made a service call at the Irving home of 83-year-old Betty Thomas.
He returned the next day, in his Spectrum uniform and driving his Spectrum van, to rob Thomas.
“So I had stopped there because I was broke,” Holden told Irving detectives. “I was hungry.”
During the holdup, Holden stabbed Thomas multiple times on her neck and forearm, leaving her body on the living room floor in front of a television.
Holden later told Irving detectives that he had used his Spectrum work gloves and Charter Communications knife to kill the woman.
Last year, Holden pleaded guilty to murder and he was sentenced to life in prison.
On Monday, officials with Spectrum/Charter Communications will face a civil lawsuit in a Dallas court. Thomas’ family alleges that the company was negligent by failing to do pre-employment screening, failing to monitor Holden and allowing him to use the company vehicle during off hours.
Holden also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, according to court documents.
Thomas’ family is not asking for a specific dollar amount going into the trial on Monday, but the lawsuit states that damages are more than $1 million.
“Mrs. Thomas was the victim of a tragic crime, and we are grateful that justice has been served, with the perpetrator in jail for life,” Charter Communications said in a statement released Thursday. “Charter is committed to customer safety. The pre-employment criminal background check of the perpetrator showed no arrests, convictions or other crimes, nor did anything in his work performance suggest he was capable of the crime he committed.”
Holden told Irving detectives he had stopped at Thomas’ Irving home in the Las Colinas neighborhood because he was broke.
“She said something, and I couldn’t understand what it was that she said,” Holden told detectives, according to lawsuit documents. “And it made me mad. So that’s when I walk out the door. Then I come back in the house again. And she said something again, and I got irritated. And then that’s when I did it.”
Holden later told Irving police, “I did it,” meaning he stabbed Thomas. He had grabbed a knife out of his tool belt, a knife he had used on Spectrum service calls.
Documents in the lawsuit also alleged that Spectrum/Charter misled and obstructed Irving investigators and destroyed evidence in the case.
Other lawsuit documents alleged Spectrum/Charter officials acknowledged that they did not do a pre-employment background check on Holden.
