COLUMBUS — The family of a 72-year-old Bellefontaine woman beaten to death by a teenage boy who escaped from a group home for troubled teens filed a lawsuit against government officials, claiming they failed to protect the woman and the community.

The family of Joan Green seeks $5 million in damages. She was beaten on Christmas Eve 2005 by Christopher Tindall, now 18, who was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty to murder last year. He is serving a life sentence.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court alleges that Judge Michael Brady of Logan County Juvenile Court, a probation officer and the three county commissioners failed to properly run the group home two doors from the victim's home.

The lawsuit said officials knew an alarm system was broken and that they operated the home in a dangerous manner by allowing someone with a record like Tindall's to stay there.

He was sent there after two years in juvenile detention for raping a 14-year-old girl.