To co-workers at the State Fund, the charges against Thomas seemed unfathomable. Earl Ofari Hutchinson, who retired from State Fund in December 2009, was quoted in the LA Times as saying, "This is certainly not the man that we knew. The man that we engaged with was always very pleasant, very personable. We never ever saw him lose his temper. Never. He always had a pleasant smile, always had a kind word." Hutchinson explained that Thomas was married with children and that she used to ask him what was the secret to his youthful appearance. In reply he would laugh with a smile and essentially say, “Just good living.”

Unbeknownst to his co-workers, Thomas, 72 at the time of his arrest, had an extensive criminal history that predated his employment at the State Fund. He was arrested a number of times between 1955 and 1978. His previous criminal convictions consisted of multiple burglaries, many of which involved the sexual assault of his victims. He was sentenced to six years in state prison in 1957 for an attempted rape in Los Angeles. Two parole violations sent him back to prison until 1966. In 1978, a witness took down Thomas' license plate after he raped a woman in Pasadena, and he served time for that crime until 1983. He also received a dishonorable discharge from the United States Air Force in 1956 for being persistently late and slovenly. Yet according to Jennifer Vargen, a spokeswoman for State Fund, they were unaware of his criminal history. Back in 1989 when Thomas was hired, mandatory criminal-background checks weren't in effect (they were instituted for new employees in the mid-1990s).
 
While it’s never alright, we can somehow accept that nice people can lose it sometimes and go crazy when they are either in a state of love, hate, rage, betrayal, anger, or whichever emotion, and those emotions take over allowing them to kill someone or start shooting others. However, it’s disconcerting to learn that one of the nicest persons one meets (i.e. Earl Ofari Hutchinson's description of John Floyd Thomas) can lead to a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde life; a caring and attentive workers’ compensation claims adjuster by day and a deranged recreational serial killer of elderly women by night. 
 
Perhaps Mr. Thomas even worked on your workers’ compensation claim. Or God forbid, perhaps even obtained the residential addresses of his victims through the State Fund computerized claims system or their claim files. Who knows?  Considering that all workers’ compensation files contain important identifying personal information such as age, address, telephone, and social security numbers of the injured parties it’s troubling to learn that any employer, let alone a quasi state governmental agency, would waive a background check simply to save on the expense, of $250 to $500, to run it.  A background screening positively would have turned up a police record on Mr. Thomas. And it’s this kind of information that employers need to know, especially if they are giving him the keys to access peoples addresses, applications, and financial transactions. After all, adjusters handle financial transactions daily, (i.e., they settle cases and issue benefit checks to the claimants, vendors and providers), and even if it's for a self interest, like its money, that a company is trying to protect, from a potential embezzlement threat, a background check is worth the time and expense and it includes a credit check.

In the case against Thomas, the State Fund’s human resources department is reevaluating whether to conduct criminal-background checks for employees hired before the mandatory practice went into effect in the mid 1990’s. In a 2006 study, Dawn Cappelli, a senior member of Carnegie Mellon University's Community Emergency Response Team, advises companies that are just starting to do checks on job candidates that they should do checks on current employees, as well. The key is to be open about it, and make sure people understand why it's necessary, she says. 

HR managers also need to discuss beforehand what's acceptable past behavior and what isn't. If someone had a DUI 20 years ago, or they were arrested for marijuana in the '60s, you check the circumstances. In the case of a DUI , was it a drinking problem, or was it one night out celebrating a birthday? It's the repeating events that are of concern.

A few years ago, when I was a claims supervisor at Intercare Insurance, Intercare promoted a claims representative to a key leadership position despite the fact that he had several DUI arrests, convictions, a suspended driver’s license, and was habitually late in paying child support (for multiple kids from several ex-girlfriends). To this day I still don’t understand how someone of this caliber could be looked at as a leader but the fact is that as long as his employer did not require him to drive, say to the WCAB for an occasional hearing, his past did not affect the job Intercare hired him to do.  If he was ordered to drive, say to the WCAB, and then crashed and injured someone else, then conceivably the injured third party could have a civil claim for negligent hiring.

When ordering a background check it is advisable to use a reputable vendor and once the report is obtained, before it is used against someone, under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you have to give that person a copy of the report and a summary of their rights which are prescribed by the Federal Trade Commission. Then, give them a reasonable amount of time to review the report because with identity theft out there and people who have the same last name, mistakes can happen.

But would a background check alone prevent an employer from hiring a serial killer with no known criminal record, or a mass murderer in the making? Probably not. That is why, several employers, like Sedgwick Claims Management, also conduct a pre-employment personality test of their claims personnel. The principle behind this testing is that the employer has identified the qualities (often called "competencies") it takes to do well at the job and wants to see to what extent you possess those qualities. While these tests are designed to be used by psychologists they can, and quite often are, interpreted by non-psychologists like the HR manager or the claims supervisor. Such tests, like the MMPI, are designed to uncover bio-socio-psychological scales of depression, hypochondriasis, hysteria, paranoia, and mania. Typical questions on this test ask the job applicant whether he sees animals or people that others do not and whether he has a habit of counting things that are not important, like bulbs on electric signs.

Elevated scores on these questions are a tip off of certain psychiatric disorders. Of course, you could refuse to take a test, just as you can also refuse to participate in any part of the interview. This will probably result in being rejected for the job. However, if you believe that the testing was illegal in any respect you can pursue legal remedies just as you can for any unfair and illegal employment practice. 

But just as you have rights, so do the employers who are fighting, more often these days, insider threats. They have to protect their employees and their money and there is simply no better way to do it than to run a background check, even for the guy who runs your favorite espresso machine at Starbucks.

As for serial rapist and murderer, John Floyd Thomas Jr., there will no longer be a need to run a background check on him, and he won’t be working the espresso machine anywhere but prison, as Los Angeles Superior Court Judge George Lomeli gave him a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole with six additional life terms.