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Mt. Lebanon parents lobby for standards to ensure safety

Saturday, March 15, 2003

By Jonathan D. Silver, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

To Sol and Lin Toder of Mt. Lebanon, every hotel is a potential deathtrap.

	Sol and Lin Toder, posing in their Mt. Lebanon home, are lobbying for greater security at the nation's hotels. Their daughter Nan, shown in a photo being held by a reporter, was murdered in a Chicago hotel in December 1996. (John Beale, Post-Gazette)

That might sound extreme, if it wasn't for the fact that a deathtrap is exactly what a Hampton Inn in Illinois became for their daughter in December 1996.

Nan Toder was 33 when a handyman at the hotel in Crestwood, Ill., bludgeoned her to death with a machete inside her room while she was on a business trip. Christopher Richee gained access through an adjoining room and, prosecutors said, exploited lapses in hotel security to carry out the crime. In January, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

With the criminal trial behind them -- there is a civil suit pending against the Hampton Inn's owner and management company -- the Toders are now embarking on a grass-roots campaign to improve hotel security in the U.S.

They can't stand the thought of anyone going through the suffering they've endured.

They want hotels to address flaws in security.

They want, in short, a "Nan Law."

Sitting in a cushioned wicker chair at his home last week, Sol Toder, 71, recounted how the couple traveled to Florida recently for a wedding.

They stayed at a major hotel chain. In order to enter their room, they were given the electronic key card that is becoming standard issue in the U.S. hospitality industry. That same card was necessary to run the elevator.

However, the Toders said they discovered another elevator that could be accessed from the parking lot. It didn't require any key to reach certain floors. From there, a criminal could simply enter the stairwell and have the run of the place.

"We told the security guy that and he acted as though he was kind of surprised," Sol Toder said. "They should have a sign for thieves: 'Attention all thieves: You should not use the elevator. Use the stairs.' "

It was partly a joke. But only partly. There are too many photographs of Nan in the Toders' house, too many sympathy cards and letters carefully placed in a box, too many memories of their daughter to make light of the issue.

Where many travelers probably breeze in and out of hotels without a moment's thought to safety, the Toders can't go anywhere without noticing all the little chinks in the armor.

Where are the surveillance cameras? Are there guards? Is access to room keys controlled? Do windows and doors have proper locks? Are outside doors alarmed and checked to ensure they're activated? Have employers run adequate background checks on their staff?

"Nan's Law would mean that hotels are required to meet certain standards for guest protection," Sol Toder explained. "The biggest single thing is a simple background check of an employee with a key."

The Toders contend that had an adequate background check been done on Richee, it would have illuminated his brushes with the law on burglary charges and stalking allegations, raising a red flag to anyone thinking of entrusting him with access to room keys.

Using nothing but circumstantial evidence, prosecutors proved that Richee entered a room at the Hampton Inn, rigged the door to the adjoining room in which Nan Toder stayed, and then slipped in when she was there.

"We no longer stay in rooms with an adjoining room," Sol Toder said.

Lack of legislation

Depending on who you ask, there are between 43,000 and 60,000 hotels and motels in the United States. Some states have laws on the books setting certain safety standards, but not all. Pennsylvania's two laws date from 1855 and 1913. There is no federal law, other than a national fire code, that governs security at these properties.

In Wilmington, Del., a company called SafePlace Corp. independently monitors hotels upon the facilities' request for fire, security and health safety, but it relies on existing laws and standards and has accredited only two hotels so far.

The American Automobile Association has safety guidelines properties must meet to qualify for even its one-diamond rating, but there are only four, including one requiring a key lock and a deadbolt. No industrywide safety standard exists.

"We don't have any regulating powers. Therefore, each hotel company, hotel property, regulates and places their own policies on security and safety for their guests. We hope they're looking out, and we're pretty sure they're looking out for their guests' best interests," said Tia Gordon, spokeswoman for the American Hotel & Lodging Association. "Are [travelers] safe? We believe they're safe. ... As long as I have that bolt-lock on the door, I'm fine."

Not only are there no uniform standards governing security at hotels, no one tracks statistics on crimes except, perhaps, the inns themselves. And they're not telling.

Hotels fairly safe

Right now, the Toders have little more than anger, information from prosecutors and their attorney and the gruesome facts of Nan's death to fuel their quest to upgrade hotel security. They're both senior citizens unschooled in public relations and lobbying. They don't have scads of research at their fingertips. They acknowledge they don't really know what they're doing in mounting a campaign for change. But they're determined to succeed, having already enlisted the help of one friend who is a writer and another who is an attorney.

In a two-page document laying out the rationale for a "Nan Law," the Toders and their two other daughters begin with some provocative questions.

"Might it save someone you love? Who cares about the safety of women travelers? The logical answer would be the hotel industry. But does it?"

"Might this young woman be alive today if there had been a 'Nan Law' ?"

Experts agree that hotels are relatively safe but could be safer. Violent crime against hotel guests by strangers is relatively rare, said Los Angeles-based security expert Chris McGoey, who calls himself the "Crime Doctor" and has been hired as an expert witness to testify for the defendants in the Toders' civil suit. He agreed to speak generally about hotel safety.

"It's not something a hotel can guard against when you have someone who's very angry or very determined," McGoey said. "Ordinary hotel security measures aren't designed to protect against that level of violence."

Problems still many

During more than 30 years in the security management business, McGoey said he has never found a hotel with perfect security. Instead, he has turned up numerous problems.

Employees disable exterior door alarms if they are accidentally triggered during the day, McGoey said. Security guards do a poor job of checking to make sure no one, such as a smoker, has taped the latch open on a side door. Background checks -- although improved since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to some experts -- remain erratic.

And guests themselves don't always take responsibility for their own safety, treating hallways like safe public places instead of like dark alleys populated by strangers.

"You let your guard down. You just assume that people belong there," McGoey said.

To build a fortress for guests would require too many inconveniences, and to mandate stricter measures would demand expenditures that not everyone wants to make.

If the chance of a crime like Nan Toder's murder is low, should states enact laws to make all hotels bring up their standards to a high level?

"That's the hard part that everybody's always fumbling with, and because of that nothing ever happens, and the standards are kind of low," McGoey said.

And if groups such as AAA included a measure of safety as part of a separate rating, as the Toders suggest, would people actually stay away from cheap motels?

Maybe not. But the Toders believe that even if hotels can't prepare for all eventualities, they should at least prepare for some.

"So let's at least have something," Sol Toder said. "If we don't at least have some safeguards, if we don't check on somebody, let's not give them a key, let's not let them in the hotel at all."