A federal inspection, criminal prosecution and new lawsuit describe overlapping concerns about workplace violence at Ellipsis.
JOHNSTON, Iowa — A workplace-safety inspection opened after an Ellipsis employee was fatally injured during an encounter with a teenage resident ended with three violations and $37,500 in penalties, records show, as the worker’s family now seeks to hold individual facility personnel responsible in a civil lawsuit.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s public inspection record offers a concise official account of the May 8, 2024, incident. It says a 50-year-old female employee was following a person who had left the residential-care campus and entered a nearby neighborhood. During an assault at about 6:45 p.m., the employee was shoved, fell and suffered a fatal head injury. The employee was Kathleen Galloway-Menke, an Ellipsis worker who died six days later. The agency opened its inspection one week after the confrontation and closed the case in December 2024.
The federal database lists two serious violations and one other-than-serious violation after the investigation. Initial and final penalties totaled $37,500, although the classifications were adjusted through an informal settlement. The publicly available summary does not contain a full narrative for every corrective measure, but local reporting says the investigation found that employees were exposed to violent incidents and that Ellipsis had failed to complete an adequate assessment of workplace-violence hazards. Those findings have become a central piece of a lawsuit filed by Galloway-Menke’s daughters.
The safety case places the death within a larger question confronting residential programs: how an employer protects staff members whose jobs involve young people experiencing serious behavioral crises. Employees may be expected to prevent residents from harming themselves, leaving supervision or entering dangerous areas. Those responsibilities can change quickly into physical confrontations. The lawsuit argues that Ellipsis did not merely encounter an unpredictable emergency but operated amid repeated warning signs without sufficient staffing, communication systems, security controls or stable procedures.
Chloe Williamson and Camille Menke allege that more than a dozen current and former Ellipsis workers were grossly negligent before their mother’s death. Former CEO Chris Koepplin is among those named. The petition says facility leadership knew that resident Jovahn Karhim Deon Mathis had displayed violent behavior and made threats before the fatal incident. It also alleges that Mathis had assaulted workers and other residents, sometimes causing injuries that required medical care. The defendants will have the opportunity to answer those allegations as the case proceeds.
The claims reach beyond Mathis’ behavior. The daughters describe a workplace where staffing was chronically inadequate, safety rules changed often and communication devices were unavailable or failed to work. They say doors were not secured in a way that prevented residents from leaving and that employees were expected to follow those who walked away. The petition characterizes that practice as dangerous when the resident being followed was known to be aggressive. It alleges that a more secure placement should have been pursued for Mathis before Galloway-Menke was injured.
Williamson’s own employment history forms part of the lawsuit’s account of advance notice. She previously worked at the facility and said she left several weeks before her mother was hurt because Mathis and other residents had threatened her. The lawsuit says management understood the reason for her departure. It also says Galloway-Menke had told supervisors she was afraid to work around Mathis. Those assertions are important because a gross-negligence claim generally depends not only on whether a workplace was dangerous but on whether specific defendants knew of the danger and disregarded it.
The events that led to the death began when Mathis, then 15, left the Ellipsis property at 7085 Northwest Beaver Drive. Galloway-Menke and another worker followed him into the surrounding area. Polk County prosecutors said Galloway-Menke stepped in front of Mathis to keep him from entering a busy street. Mathis later told the court that he had left the home in extreme anger and became more upset when she blocked his path. He pushed her as he moved past. The fall caused the brain injury from which she died.
The safety investigation and the criminal case examined different duties. OSHA reviewed whether the employer met workplace requirements, while prosecutors examined Mathis’ conduct and state of mind. Mathis ultimately pleaded guilty in May 2025 to voluntary manslaughter. He also pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanor counts connected to assaults on police officers during the same episode. Prosecutors said four officers suffered minor injuries. His pleas establish his criminal responsibility but do not answer whether safer institutional practices could have prevented the encounter.
A judge designated Mathis a youthful offender and moved his case to adult court. That arrangement kept him in juvenile services while preserving adult sentencing options. He has remained at the Iowa Boys State Training School in Eldora and is due in court July 31, shortly before he turns 18. Prosecutors have said he could receive as much as 20 years in prison across the charges, although the judge will determine the sentence. The youthful-offender structure was intended to provide a longer period of accountability than the juvenile system alone could offer.
For the civil plaintiffs, the regulatory record is evidence rather than a final answer. The OSHA inspection confirms that a fatal workplace event occurred, that three violations were issued and that financial penalties followed. It does not automatically establish that each person named in the daughters’ lawsuit committed gross negligence. The family must still connect particular defendants to the alleged hazards and show that their conduct met the legal standard required for claims outside the ordinary workers’ compensation process.
Current Ellipsis CEO Kelly Hannan said the organization’s thoughts remained with Galloway-Menke’s family and everyone affected by the loss. She said Ellipsis could not comment on pending litigation but was committed to seeking a fair and just outcome while focusing on the youths and families it serves. The statement does not address the petition’s allegations individually. Available reports also did not identify responses from each former or current employee named in the case.
The litigation may ultimately provide a more detailed record of staffing levels, incident reports, placement discussions, employee warnings and the safety changes made after the death. Those materials could clarify who received complaints, how Ellipsis assessed Mathis’ placement and what options administrators considered. Until evidence is presented and tested in court, the daughters’ descriptions of those internal decisions remain allegations, even where they overlap with general safety concerns documented by regulators.
The OSHA matter is closed, but the two legal proceedings tied to Galloway-Menke’s death remain active. Mathis awaits sentencing in adult court, while the family’s gross-negligence lawsuit is at an earlier stage. No civil trial date or ruling on the merits was listed in the reports reviewed for this article.
Author note: Last updated July 23, 2026.