Kathleen Galloway-Menke’s daughters accuse more than a dozen current and former workers of gross negligence before her death.

JOHNSTON, Iowa — The daughters of a youth-home employee who died after a teenage resident shoved her to the ground have filed a lawsuit alleging that current and former workers ignored repeated warnings about violence, poor security and unsafe staffing conditions before the fatal encounter.

Chloe Williamson and Camille Menke brought the civil case over the death of their mother, 50-year-old Kathleen Galloway-Menke, who worked at Ellipsis, a residential program for young people in Johnston. Their petition names more than a dozen people, including former Ellipsis CEO Chris Koepplin, and accuses them of gross negligence. The allegations have not been decided in court. Current Ellipsis CEO Kelly Hannan said the organization could not discuss pending litigation but remained committed to seeking a fair outcome while continuing to serve vulnerable youths and families.

The case asks whether those responsible for operating the facility knew that workers faced an extraordinary danger and still failed to take reasonable protective steps. That question is important under Iowa law because workplace injuries are generally handled through the workers’ compensation system. A separate lawsuit against co-workers or supervisors can require proof of a higher level of wrongdoing than ordinary carelessness. The daughters’ petition therefore presents the conditions at Ellipsis not as isolated mistakes but as known, continuing hazards that administrators allegedly allowed to remain in place.

The fatal confrontation occurred May 8, 2024, after 15-year-old resident Jovahn Karhim Deon Mathis left the Ellipsis campus at 7085 Northwest Beaver Drive. Investigators said Galloway-Menke and another employee followed him into a nearby residential area. Prosecutors later said Galloway-Menke moved in front of Mathis as he approached a busy street. Mathis then pushed past her, causing her to fall and strike her head. She suffered a severe brain injury and died six days later. The lawsuit alleges that the need for employees to pursue residents outside the facility reflected broader security failures.

According to the petition, Ellipsis did not keep residents secured inside the building and expected employees to follow those who left the property. The daughters contend that requiring staff members to pursue residents described as dangerous through nearby streets was itself unsafe. They also allege that administrators knew of chronic understaffing, inadequate security, frequently changing procedures and malfunctioning or unavailable communication equipment. Those claims remain allegations, and the public reports reviewed for this article do not include a filed response addressing each assertion.

The petition focuses heavily on what Ellipsis personnel allegedly knew about Mathis before Galloway-Menke was injured. It says he had assaulted residents and employees on several earlier occasions, sometimes causing injuries that required medical care. The lawsuit further alleges that he had made threats against staff members and was especially aggressive toward women, including Galloway-Menke. It says she told supervisors that she was afraid to report for work because of his conduct. The lawsuit argues that those reports should have prompted different staffing, security or placement decisions.

Williamson had also worked at Ellipsis before her mother’s death. The petition says she left the job several weeks before the confrontation because of threats from Mathis and other residents, and that management knew why she had resigned. In a 2024 interview with The Des Moines Register, Williamson said workers had warned that the placement was not appropriate but felt they did not receive needed support. The lawsuit uses her experience to argue that concerns about the resident and the working environment were shared rather than limited to one employee.

The daughters allege that Koepplin and other workers failed to seek a more secure or suitable placement for Mathis, remove dangerous residents from the campus, protect employees or establish effective safeguards. The legal action does not contend that every employee had the same responsibility or knowledge. Instead, it names multiple people whose positions allegedly gave them authority over placement, supervision, training, security or emergency practices. A court would have to determine what each defendant knew, what power each person had and whether any failure met Iowa’s demanding gross-negligence standard.

A government workplace-safety investigation provides a separate record of conditions after the death. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration opened an inspection May 15, 2024, one week after the incident. Its summary says Galloway-Menke was following someone who had left the campus when she was violently shoved at about 6:45 p.m. The agency recorded a fatal head injury and later listed three violations. Two were classified as serious and one as other-than-serious. The inspection closed in December 2024 with total penalties of $37,500.

Local reporting on the lawsuit says Iowa OSHA cited Ellipsis for shortcomings that included a failure to assess workplace-violence hazards. The federal inspection database confirms the violations and penalties but does not, on its summary page, resolve the civil lawsuit’s broader accusations about what individual defendants knew before the attack. The daughters cite the regulatory findings as support for their position that the risks extended beyond the split-second decision made during the pursuit. Ellipsis reached an informal settlement in the safety case, according to the database.

The criminal proceedings against Mathis followed a different legal path. In May 2025, he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Galloway-Menke’s death, along with three aggravated misdemeanors and four serious misdemeanors stemming from assaults on police officers. Four officers suffered minor injuries during the incident, prosecutors said. In court, Mathis said he had left Ellipsis in a state of extreme anger and became angrier when Galloway-Menke stepped in front of him. His guilty plea resolved the question of criminal responsibility for the shove but did not determine whether Ellipsis personnel bear civil liability.

A judge transferred Mathis to adult court as a youthful offender, a status that allowed him to continue receiving juvenile services before an adult sentencing decision. Prosecutors said the combined charges could expose him to as much as 20 years in prison. He has been held at the Iowa Boys State Training School in Eldora and is scheduled to return to court July 31, shortly before his 18th birthday. The judge will decide the appropriate sentence based on the pleas, the case record and the options available for a youthful offender.

The civil case now moves forward separately from that sentencing. The daughters will have to prove their allegations against the named defendants, who will have opportunities to deny the claims, raise legal defenses and challenge whether the facts support liability outside workers’ compensation. No trial date or final ruling was identified in the available reports. Ellipsis has expressed sympathy for Galloway-Menke’s family while declining to address the substance of the pending case.

Author note: Last updated July 23, 2026.