After a 70-year-old woman was killed by her family’s pit bull, her husband returned home to find the animal “still eating on the body,” say police.
It’s not known exactly when the dog attacked Long Island resident Marina Verriest, but when her 66-year-old husband returned to their home in Nassau County, New York, at around 1pm on Wednesday, July 27, the animal was still chewing on her horribly-mutilated corpse.
The horrified man called the police, and when the first officer on the scene entered the family home the seven-year-old dog charged at him - forcing the officer to draw their weapon and fire, killing the dog.
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“The scene was pretty horrific. We don’t know what time the attack took place but there was obviously a lot of mutilation on the body and the arm, the face, the legs,” Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said at a press conference.
He added that the police officer who shot the dog was now being offered counselling to help cope with the psychological effects of what they had seen: "The officer saw something that was very traumatic,” Commissioner Ryder said. “We take care of our officers and make sure they’re OK.”
“We don’t know what turned the dog or why the dog turned on the woman,” he said. “There had been no previous domestic calls to the home or calls regarding the dog.”
It later emerged that while the dog had lived in the couple’s home for many years, it was owned by their stepson who had died in a motorcycle accident a few weeks before.
One neighbour told CBS News that the dog was unusually strong, and recalled seeing the dog's owner taking it for walks: "When he was alive, he used to walk [the dog] with both hands holding the leash. That dog was leading him," he said.
According to US Attorney Kenneth M. Phillips, who specialises in representing victims of dog attacks, 51 Americans were killed by dogs in 2021, 37 by pit bulls or similar breeds.
From those cases, 21 fatal pit bull attack victims were either the owner of the dog or a member of the owner’s immediate family.
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