Back in 2013, three people staying at a Best Western Plus Hotel in Boone, North Carolina died in the space of two months while staying in the same room. It turned out that a malfunctioning pool heater bombarded that room with lethal amounts of carbon monoxide. That heater was not only severely out of maintenance, but had been illegally and improperly installed. On Monday, the hotel’s former corporate owner admitted that its malfeasance, nonfeasance, and misfeasance caused those people to die.
In a deal announced in Watauga County Superior Court, Appalachian Property Management pleaded guilty to three counts of manslaughter for causing the deaths of Daryl and Shirley Jenkins in April and the death of Jeffrey Williams in June. As part of the agreement, prosecutors dropped all charges against company president Damon Mallatere. However, both Mallatere and his company still face a civil suit brought by the Jenkins and Williams families; this plea will significantly strengthen their hand in court.
For those who don’t remember, the Jenkinses went to sleep on the night of April 15 and never woke up. Just six weeks later, while staying in the same room at that hotel, Jeffrey died from a massive dose of CO while staying in the very same room. His mother, Jeannie, was staying with him that night. While she survived, she suffered permanent heart, brain, and lung damage after being without oxygen for close to 14 hours.
The local medical examiner, Brent Hall, didn’t put a rush on the Jenkinses’ autopsies even though the sudden deaths of two perfectly healthy people should have raised red flags. When the results came back showing that they had both died of CO poisoning, he didn’t alert local authorities about it. As a result, no one knew the extent of the problem until June 10–two days after Jeffrey’s death.
It later emerged that in 2011, a pool heater was moved from one of Appalachian’s other properties. Not only did Appalachian not get a permit for the move, but the workers who did the job weren’t licensed. They also did such a poor job that health officials found serious ventilation problems that needed to be fixed at once; they never were.
In 2012, the heater was converted from propane to natural gas. Even though the manufacturer’s installation instructions stated that it was not designed for natural gas, it was converted anyway–with the approval of town inspectors. A post-mortem inspection found that the pool heater’s exhaust pipe was improperly installed and badly corroded, allowing gas that should have flowed out of the vent to drift up the vent instead. These discoveries formed the basis for Mallatere being indicted in 2014 on charges of manslaughter and assault inflicting serious bodily injury; the last charge related to Jeannie Williams’ injuries.
However, Mallatere hung his hat on the findings of the board that licenses heating contractors in North Carolina. It placed partial blame on the heating contractor who inspected the fireplace and pool heater at Mallatere’s request after the Jenkinses’ deaths, saying that any competent contractor would have detected the improperly converted heater and the improperly installed exhaust pipe. It also faulted the workers who installed the heater for ignoring the manufacturer’s specific instructions not to convert it.
Mallatere’s lawyer, David Freedman, persuaded Watauga County district attorney Seth Banks that since his client asked for the inspection, he had taken specific steps to prevent another death at the hotel and thus could not be held criminally responsible for Jeffrey’s death or Jeannie’s injuries. Mallatere also had the charges against him related to the Jenkinses’ deaths dropped as well. Apparently Freedman persuaded Banks that their deaths were the result of a systemic failure more than any specific wrongdoing by Mallatere, because Banks said that there was no way to hold one single person legally responsible for this tragedy.
You could make the argument that Mallatere didn’t do enough to ensure the conversion followed the law, and was thus at least responsible for the Jenkinses’ deaths. Apparently Banks felt he couldn’t. However, Appalachian admitted what Banks described as “poor business practices” and corner-cutting caused these deaths. As an example of this corner-cutting, the Jenkinses’ daughter, Kris Jenkins Hauschildt, said that it would have cost a little more than $4,300 to fix the heater and ventilation system. Mallatere pleaded guilty on behalf of his company, which was ordered liquidated by Superior Court Judge Alan Thornburg.
The Jenkinses and Williamses issued a joint statement vowing to ensure that “all parties are held accountable” for this tragedy. They also vowed to work to ensure that all hotels around the country are required to install carbon monoxide detectors.
