How a failed 911 call changed Texas law

Update May 21, 2015: Last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that requires hotel and business phones to connect directly to 911 without having to dial an extra number to get an outside line. Last January, America Tonight spoke with the family whose tragedy turned this issue into a movement.

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Last month, Kari Hunt Dunn agreed to meet her estranged husband, Brad Allen Dunn, at the Baymont Inn and Suites in Marshall, Texas. The plan was for a short visit so that he could see their three young children, ages 9, 4 and 3.

But instead of a family meeting, things turned violent. Once at the hotel, police say Dunn allegedly stabbed the 31-year-old mother to death in the bathroom while the children listened one room away.

Kari’s 9-year-old daughter tried to dial 911 from the hotel room, but all four of her attempts were unsuccessful. The reason? She didn’t know she had to dial 9 first before making an outside call. Soon, the 9-year-old escorted her younger siblings to safety, telling people in the nearby rooms what was happening.

Brad Dunn was later found with one of his children in a neighboring county and now faces a murder charge.

“The look in my granddaughter’s eyes – I would never want another 9-year-old to go through that,” Henry Hunt, Kari’s father, told America Tonight. “I don’t know what she heard or what she saw and I haven’t asked her. I’ll let her tell me in her own time.” He added: “But I can imagine. Nobody should have to go through that … especially when it’s happening in front of you.”

America Tonight traveled to the East Texas hotel to see what happens when you dial 911 from a guest room. We were told that the systems here hadn’t been updated since the incident. When we dialed 911 from one of the rooms, we got a busy signal. It’s because of that busy signal that Henry Hunt wanted to make a change.

In the weeks since his daughter’s death, Hunt started an online petition, demanding lawmakers to pass a Kari’s Law, which would require direct access to emergency services such as 911.

“When my 9-year-old granddaughter told me, ‘I tried and it didn’t work,’ I felt guilty and I felt like, as adults, it was our job to make sure it didn’t happen again,” he said.

His efforts caught the attention of the Federal Communications Commission, whose commissioner vowed this week to look into the matter.

“Kari is gone, and there is nothing we can do to bring her back,” FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said in a statement. “But her death will not be in vain if can take action to ensure that whenever someone calls 911, they connect with emergency personnel.”

But the tragedy in Marshall, Texas, and the circumstances around it, is an issue that’s more common than people may think, said Trey Forgety, director of government affairs for the National Emergency Number Association, an organization dedicated to improving 911 services. He said that millions of Americans in hotels, college dormitories and office buildings are put at risk, and that direct access to 911 could potentially save lives.

“So, in this case, a little girl did everything she had been taught to do. She did everything right,” Forgety said. “She had no way of knowing that there was a code she had to dial. And something very tragic happened. That’s the kind of situation that we’re working to prevent.”

After learning about the incident, CJ Clayton took matters into her own hands at the newly opened Staybridge Suites in nearby Longview, Texas.

“The nature of my business is to make people feel safe. And I have children also,” said Clayton, the hotel's general manager. “So, I would not want my child to have to feel like she could have saved my life if she dialed 911 and she was unable to do that because of our system.”

At the Staybridge Suites, configuring the phone systems to directly access 911 just took a few hours, Clayton said.

“Here, we’re lucky because we’re new,” she said. “The older [buildings], they have more of a limited scope of what they can do with their existing phones.”

Clayton’s proactive nature in addressing the issue overwhelmed DaLonna Hunt, Kari’s stepmother.

“There are no words to explain how I felt, it was phenomenal; we didn’t even have to approach her,” she said of Clayton’s efforts. “She just did it. She knew what was right, she hated that something had happened, and did it.”