Prometheus 6

The killer went to Dollar Tree to find a Black person to kill.

Dollar Tree's security is lax.

Firm denies workers' comp in racial killing
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 3, 2008

(12-02) 21:02 PST -- Taneka Talley was stabbed to death in March 2006 while she was working as a clerk at a Dollar Tree store in Fairfield. Her killer's only motive, prosecutors say, is that she was African American.

That's also the reason the store's workers' compensation insurer is denying $250,000 in death benefits to Talley's 11-year-old son.

The boy's grandmother, the child's legal guardian, said Specialty Risk Services is taking the position that a racially motivated killing is personal, not work-related - even though the man charged with killing Talley had never met her before. The insurance company, Dollar Tree and their lawyers aren't talking publicly about the case but are defending their position before a state appeals board that hears workers' compensation disputes.

"I think it's unfair. It's discrimination," said Carol Frazier of Vallejo, who gained custody of her grandson, Larry Olden, after her daughter's death and is challenging the insurer's refusal to pay in a case that eventually could go to court.

"They're saying (the killing) didn't arise out of her employment, except that in this case she wouldn't have been killed if she hadn't been at work," said Frazier's attorney, Moira Stagliano. "This person didn't know her, just walked into the store and picked her out."

The opposition by Dollar Tree and its insurers to paying benefits to Talley's son represents an attempt to set new limits on California's workers' compensation system, under which a company provides benefits to employees or their survivors for work-related deaths or injuries regardless of whether the firm was at fault.

Businesses have long assailed the system as overly generous to employees and as expensive, complaints that led to passage of state laws in 2003 and 2004 tightening limits on what medical treatment is covered by compensation payments.

The man accused of stabbing Talley, Tommy Joe Thompson, 45, of West Sacramento, is tentatively scheduled to go to trial Dec. 10 in Solano County Superior Court on a charge of murder. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.

Talley, of Fairfield, was 26 and working full time at the Dollar Tree on North Texas Street to support herself and her young son. She was stocking shelves just after 9 a.m. on March 29, 2006, when a man walked in and stabbed her, authorities said. The killer fled.