A woman whose husband was killed in Tennessee is filing a suit against D.C.’s Department of Corrections, claiming it could have prevented his death.
In June 2018, investigators in Nashville, Tennessee, found 46-year-old Joel Paavola’s body in the gym where he worked, saying he had been attacked with a hatchet and tomahawk.
Police charged his former employee, Dominic Micheli, with murder. Micheli was arrested in Kentucky days later and pleaded not guilty to the charges. The criminal case is ongoing.
But NBC Washington reports Paavola’s widow, Lana Paavola, has filed a civil suit against D.C.’s Department of Corrections and a Southeast D.C. halfway house.
Weeks before her husband was killed, Micheli was ordered held by a federal judge in D.C. for trespassing at the White House. But Micheli escaped from the Hope Village halfway house.
Lana Paavola claims Micheli could have easily been tracked down through his Facebook posts, which may have saved her husband.
