CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A jury has ruled that the city of Charlotte is liable in the murder of a woman who lived in public housing when she was killed.
The jury said Tuesday afternoon that the city failed Eva Dunlap Green by letting her killer, Kenneth Cyrus, live in their public housing complex.
Cyrus pleaded guilty to strangling 63-year-old Green in 2007.
Both of them lived in the Charlottetown Terrace Apartments near uptown Charlotte.
Cyrus was a convicted felon. The Green family's lawyers said Cyrus murdered his father and tried to murder both his stepdaughter and his ex-wife.
According to those lawyers, there is no record that the city of Charlotte ever performed a background check, which would have flagged Cyrus and kept him from living just down the hall from Green.
"The whole purpose of this case was to make the Housing Authority accountable for its failure to protect the residents of the Charlottetown Terrace Apartments," said attorney Harvey Kennedy.
The jury awarded the family a $132,000 settlement. That was far below the multimillion dollar figure that the family had hoped for.
The Housing Authority is expected to release a statement on the verdict Wednesday.
