Melinda Raye Kimball was a 29-year-old woman living in Palm Springs, California, when escalating violence and repeated warnings culminated in her murder on July 16, 1978. Kimball, sometimes called Linda in contemporary accounts, lived with Phillip Carl Jablonski and had an infant daughter with him. Their relationship had become increasingly dangerous, and Kimball's mother, Isobel Pahls, also feared Jablonski after receiving obscene telephone calls and experiencing other malicious acts that police believed he had committed.
The danger became unmistakable in early July. On July 7, Jablonski threatened Pahls with a sharp object and apparently attempted to rape her. Although she did not immediately pursue formal criminal charges, she spoke with police about obtaining psychiatric treatment for him. An officer contacted the Veterans Administration hospital in Loma Linda and warned psychiatric personnel about Jablonski's criminal record, recent conduct and apparent need for inpatient treatment. That information, however, was not properly passed to the doctor responsible for evaluating him.
Kimball drove Jablonski to the hospital on July 10. During the examination, medical personnel learned that he had previously served a prison term for raping his former wife and that he had recently attacked Kimball's mother. A psychiatrist described him as antisocial and potentially dangerous and recommended voluntary hospitalization, but Jablonski refused. Doctors concluded that they lacked sufficient grounds to hold him involuntarily. Kimball privately told one physician that she felt unsafe around Jablonski and was disturbed by his behavior. She was advised to leave him while the evaluation continued, but the warning did not fully communicate the seriousness of the risk.
Two days later, after receiving additional warnings from her priest, Kimball took her baby and moved out of Jablonski's apartment and into her mother's home. She nevertheless continued trying to obtain help for him. On July 14, she brought him back to the hospital for another appointment. Jablonski admitted that he had experienced violent reactions throughout his life, yet again refused inpatient treatment. One doctor considered the situation an emergency, and Kimball separately expressed fear for her own safety, but the hospital staff still determined that Jablonski could not be detained. He was prescribed Valium and scheduled to return on July 17.
On Sunday, July 16, Kimball returned to the Palm Springs apartment she had shared with Jablonski, apparently to collect diapers or other belongings for their daughter. Jablonski was either already inside or arrived shortly afterward. He attacked and murdered her in the apartment. Available court records identify Jablonski as the killer but do not provide a consistently documented public account of the precise injuries or weapon used in Kimball's death.
Jablonski was arrested and prosecuted for the killing. In 1979, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and also faced assault and attempted-rape offenses connected with his violent conduct. He received a prison sentence and ultimately served approximately 12 years before being paroled for good behavior in 1990. His release came despite continued violence while incarcerated, including an incident in 1985 in which he attempted to strangle his mother with a shoelace during a prison visit.
Kimball's infant daughter, Meghan, later became the plaintiff in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed through her guardian against the United States. The case alleged that psychiatrists at the Loma Linda Veterans Administration hospital had negligently failed to communicate the police warning, obtain Jablonski's earlier psychiatric records and give Kimball an adequate warning. Those earlier records documented homicidal thoughts toward a former wife, repeated attempts to kill her and a medical conclusion that future violence was a distinct possibility.
A federal court found that the hospital's failures contributed to Kimball's death and awarded her daughter damages. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the judgment in 1983, concluding that Kimball had been a foreseeable target of Jablonski's violence and that the vague advice to stay away from him was inadequate under the circumstances. The decision became an important legal precedent concerning the responsibilities of mental-health professionals when a dangerous patient poses a foreseeable threat.
After his 1990 parole, Jablonski resumed killing. In 1991, he murdered his wife Carol Spadoni and her mother, Eva Petersen, and was linked to the killings of Fathyma Vann in California and Margie Rogers in Utah. He was convicted of the Spadoni and Petersen murders and sentenced to death in 1994. He remained on California's death row until he died in prison in December 2019.
