Local News
Officers' families suits pending
A representative for the children of slain Athens police Sgt. Larry Russell said attorneys for the children would consider in coming weeks whether the children deserve a part of a settlement awarded to the killer’s mother.
Ronald Ultz, a retired Athens police officer who is executor for the Russell children, said if attorneys feel it is in the children’s best interests he will pursue a lawsuit.
“We’re going to get the attorneys feelings on whether this a situation where somebody has benefited from a situation where two officers were killed,” Ultz said. “I’m not sure that’s the case because is differs from if a book was written about the case or something like that. Whether it is considered something the children can go after legally, I’ll leave that to the attorneys. If they tell us there is something, I’ll pursue it.”
Ultz said he understands Farron’s parents also have suffered since the shooting and their son’s subsequent death while serving a life sentence.
“A lot of people lose sight of the fact that not only were two police officers’ families uprooted and tormented, this involved the Barksdale family, too,” he said. “But my responsibility is to those children.”
Russell had two sons, Luke and Jacob, and two stepdaughters, Shanikia and Lacey McCray.
No one was available for comment from the family of Officer Tony Mims, who also died Jan. 2, 2004, after being ambushed by Farron Barksdale at the home of Farron’s mother, where he was staying during Christmas on a break from the halfway house he lived in Decatur. Farron Barksdale previously had been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic but was able to purchase a gun in Huntsville on Christmas Eve, a few days before the shooting.
He was found competent to stand trial in 2007.
He entered a guilty plea after families of the slain officers agreed he should receive a life sentence rather than asking Limestone County District Attorney Kristi Valls to seek the death penalty. Farron Barksdale was transported to Kilby Correctional Facility near Montgomery in August 2007 and was found comatose in an isolation cell three days later. He died 10 days later at a Montgomery hospital.
His mother, Mary, was awarded $750,000 from the state Department of Corrections in January, a settlement that was only made public Wednesday, in a wrongful death suit she filed following her son’s death.
Ultz said a suit filed on behalf of the Russell children in January 2006 has been settled for an undisclosed sum. He said the wrongful death suit was filed as a claim against the homeowner and was settled by Mary Barksdale’s insurance company.
However, Circuit Court Clerk Charles Page said two lawsuits against the Barksdale family remain on file in his office — a second filed by Ultz for the Russell family and one filed in 2005 by Jeffrey Wayne Mims, brother of Tony Mims.
The Mims suit, filed prior to Farron’s death, names as defendants Farron Barksdale, Mary Barksdale and William Barksdale, claiming negligence on their parts contributed to the death of Tony Mims, Page said.
Page said the suits are listed on “administrative docket,” which he said is a holding docket used “when the parties are not ready to proceed.”
Joe King Jr., a Huntsville attorney, said he could not comment on the status of Jeffrey Mims’ suit.
In a separate ruling, the Alabama Supreme Court ordered the DOC to make records pertaining to Barksdale’s death public, but to date the DOC continues to refuse to do so.
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