DAYTONA BEACH – Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood swore on Tuesday that the owner of two vicious dogs that killed an 8-year-old boy near DeLand Monday would be held accountable and the dogs would be put down.
“We are going to do everything legally possible to hold the owner of these dogs responsible and we are going to do everything possible to make sure that these animals are destroyed,” Chitwood said at a press briefing.
The dog attack occurred around 4:55 p.m. Monday at Arabesque Drive and Airport Road in the Berry’s Ridge subdivision north of DeLand.
The victim was riding his bicycle with a friend when they saw the two pit bull-mix dogs at the entrance of the subdivision. He went to pet the dogs that were friendly at first but then the animals attacked, the sheriff said.
“What a horrific, horrific incident this was,” Chitwood said at the press briefing Tuesday afternoon. “Michael is maliciously mauled, brutally mauled, and killed at the scene.”
An autopsy performed Tuesday showed the boy suffered 12 severe bites and his injuries included a broken foot and neck, the sheriff said.
Sheriff’s deputies responding to the call chased after the dogs to an Airport Road home where animal control officers seized them. Officials are now waiting to see if the owner, identified as Amanda Franco, 31, of an Airport Road address, will surrender the animals. She was not being cooperative, the sheriff said.
Sheriff’s investigators are working with Volusia County Animal Control Services and the State Attorney’s Office to confiscate the dogs and charge Franco, Chitwood said.
Chitwood said he believes the boy did not suffer long because “some of his wounds were devastating.”
“I will tell you that the injuries that (he) sustained, they were just horrific. I don’t know what to tell the family other than the fact that we are going to seek justice,” Chitwood said.
‘They pinned him down to the ground and they are like biting him’
Chitwood said a chilling 911 call depicted the horrific last moments of the boy.
“There is a little boy being attacked by two dogs,” a caller to 911 said. “Oh my God, please hurry.”
The caller said the attack occurred by the mailboxes at the entrance of the Berry Ridge development.
As she continued to update the 911 dispatcher, the woman then tells her that the child was unresponsive.
“He is not moving, the boy that is being attacked. He was screaming for help and they pinned him down to the ground and they are like biting him and he is not moving, he is not responding,” the frantic 911 caller said.
The caller then informed dispatchers that the child’s mother had come to the scene. The woman is heard in the background letting out an agonizing scream.
“Oh my God she is on top of him. Mom is on top of him,” the caller said.
The child’s mother is then heard shouting “He is not breathing.”
The situation was so desperate that the 911 caller asks that her firearm be brought to her.
“If I shoot them am I going to get in trouble,” the 911 caller asked the dispatcher saying the dogs were standing in the road where the mother and child were.
Deputies then arrived on the scene.
Chitwood said that as deputies went door to door Monday evening in their preliminary investigation they learned of horrific stories about these dogs running wild and killing chickens. Investigators are also looking into reports that the dogs were also involved in some incident in another county.
“I don’t need people to be afraid. Right now we need people to come forward and tell us because there are no 911 calls to animal services or the sheriff’s office about this address and about these animals,” the sheriff said. “Clearly this did not happen in a vacuum. These dogs have been terrorizing the neighborhood.”
The owner of the dogs, which appeared to not have been properly secured, is no stranger to the law. She has multiple arrests that include drug offenses, Chitwood said.
A quick search of the Volusia County Branch Jail arrest records showed Franco has been arrested 12 times since 2015 for drug offenses, aggravated battery, battery, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, and a probation violation.
Chitwood said Franco is currently on supervised weekly drug testing.
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