Lawrence McCrimon used to stay up all night and keep watch at his daughter's Pittsboro home so she could sleep and not worry about her estranged husband trying to break in and assault her.

But he was unable to protect her everywhere she went.

Now, nearly two years after Shennel McCrimon McKendall was shot to death by her estranged husband outside a UNC Hospitals office building in Chapel Hill, McCrimon is on a mission to change how domestic violence cases are treated in Chatham County.

Late last week, McKendall's father, mother and daughter sued the Chatham County sheriff for not doing enough to protect her.

"No one ever really gets over something like this, but you have to go on with life as much as possible," McCrimon said in a telephone interview from his Winston-Salem home. "We grieve each day because this was something that could have been avoided."

In the lawsuit, the family claims Sheriff Richard Webster shirked his duty when he failed to seize a gun from McKendall's husband.

She was killed Nov. 29, 2004, outside the James T. Hedrick Building in southeastern Chapel Hill near the Friday Center.

Police said Randy Laverne McKendall walked up to his wife about 7:30 a.m. on the chilly Monday and fired a 9 mm pistol at her at close range.

He then shot himself to death.

Chapel Hill lawyer Al McSurely filed the lawsuit for the family.

In the six-page filing, he also alleges that Webster handles domestic violence complaints from African-American women differently from similar complaints made by white women.

McSurely said he had no data to prove that part of his complaint, that he had based it on conversations with law enforcement officials and others.

"We'll be trying to get that in discovery," he said.

"The real screw-up," McSurely added, " was not getting the gun."

Webster could not be reached for comment.

Shennel McKendall, experts said shortly after the murder-suicide, did everything by the book.

The troubles she had with her estranged husband led her to seek an emergency protection order Nov. 9 -- 20 days before the shooting.

A judge had ordered Randy McKendall to stay away from the red brick house that the couple had shared at 612 Mitchell's Chapel Road in Pittsboro. He was not to go near his wife, to call her or to communicate with her family. He was to surrender any firearms.

On Nov. 16, Shennel McKendall told Chatham investigators that her husband had called her from the residence and told her he was going to commit suicide. She heard two shots.

Deputies rushed to the house. Randy McKendall was not there. But in the bedroom of Shennel McKendall's 17-year-old daughter, there was evidence that a TV and nightstand had been shot. Investigators found a 9 mm shell casing. They confiscated a rifle, according to a police report, but did not seize a handgun.

In the lawsuit, McSurely said that the sheriff knew Randy McKendall had violated a protective order and did not take out an arrest warrant or put out a bulletin to surrounding counties.

Randy McKendall was hospitalized in Lee County two days after Chatham deputies found the evidence of shots fired at the television.

Webster, according to the lawsuit, was told that McKendall was at the hospital but did not request that he be arrested or asked to surrender firearms.

Four days after the hospitalization, Randy McKendall turned himself in to Lee County authorities, according to the lawsuit, and the Chatham sheriff was asked to take him back to Pittsboro.

The Chatham sheriff, according to McSurely, did not comply with the request, and McKendall was released after appearing before a Lee County judge who ordered him not to have contact with his wife.

Shortly after that, according to the lawsuit, McKendall again called his wife and told her he was going to kill himself.

Chatham deputies swore out a warrant for his arrest, drove to Lee County and took him back to the Pittsboro jail.

Again, McSurely said in the lawsuit, the Chatham sheriff missed an opportunity to order the confiscation of the handgun.

"North Carolina is about 50 years behind in the laws and with the system," McCrimon said. "We have to get somebody, somewhere to open their eyes about this domestic violence. Just things of that nature, we would like to help."