An Iowa family is suing a youth group home after a 50-year-old worker was killed by a teen resident who had allegedly shown repeated violent behavior before the fatal attack.
Kathleen Galloway-Menke died in May 2024 after prosecutors said a 15-year-old resident at Ellipsis, a youth group home in Johnston, Iowa, violently shoved her while she was trying to stop him from running into a busy street.
The shove caused Galloway-Menke to fall and hit her head on the ground. She later died from a fatal blunt head injury.
Now, her daughters, Chloe Williamson and Camille Menke, have filed a lawsuit against Ellipsis, claiming the facility ignored warnings that the teen, Jovahn Mathis, was dangerous and that staff were not being properly protected.
“Everyone in my building and my cottage knew,” Williamson told The Des Moines Register a month after her mother’s death. “We tried telling Ellipsis this was a problem and it wasn’t the right fit, but we didn’t have the support.”
According to court records cited by Law&Crime and The Des Moines Register, the lawsuit alleges that Ellipsis knew Mathis had displayed “extremely violent” behavior toward Galloway-Menke and other female employees before the deadly incident.
The legal petition claims the facility failed to remove Mathis and other dangerous residents from the campus, failed to place them in a more secure or appropriate setting, failed to protect staff and failed to put proper safeguards and procedures in place.
The lawsuit also points to alleged problems at the facility, including inadequate security, chronic understaffing and malfunctioning or unavailable communication devices.
Those failures, the family claims, allowed Mathis to leave the youth facility before the fatal confrontation.
Mathis had walked away from the home and tried to run into traffic, according to reports. Galloway-Menke followed him and was able to stop him, but he attacked her shortly afterward.
“The employee was violently shoved, causing them to fall and strike their head on the ground,” an Occupational Safety and Health Administration fatality report states. “The impact resulted in a fatal blunt head injury.”
The OSHA report said Galloway-Menke had been following Mathis after he “eloped from the facility campus into a nearby residential area.”
She died after suffering an acute subdural hematoma and subarachnoid hemorrhage, according to the report.
Mathis, now 17, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in May 2025. He was sent to adult court as a youthful offender and is scheduled to be sentenced on July 31.
He is currently being held at the Iowa Boys State Training School in Eldora.
Ellipsis CEO Kelly Hannan told The Des Moines Register that the organization could not comment on the pending lawsuit but said the loss remains deeply felt.
“Our hearts remain with Kathleen’s family and all those affected by this loss,” Hannan said. “While we cannot comment on the pending litigation, we can state that we are committed to seeking a fair and just outcome in this matter while keeping our focus on the vulnerable youth and families we serve.”
White women need to learn President Trump’s story of The Snake.
She should have let him run into traffic, he wasn’t worth saving. He is a menace to society and we would have been better off with him gone.
Life without parole . Hope he finds Christ while incarcerated