ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2004

More death-by-dog cases are charged

DENVER--The Elbert County (Colorado) Sheriff’s Department on January 14, 2004 recommended charges of criminally negligent homicide and unlawful ownership of dangerous dogs against Jacqueline McCuen, 32, and William Gladney, 46. Their three pit bull terriers on November 30, 2003 killed horse trainer Jennifer Brooke, 40, as she walked to her barn at about 7:00 a.m. Her partner, Bjorn Osmunsen, 24, noticed at about 10:00 a.m. that she had not returned. He and another person, not named by media, went to look for her. Osmunsen and the unidentified person were chased back indoors. Seeing that the dogs were covered with blood, Osmunsen called 911, then tried again to find Brooke, and was also mauled. Soon afterward neighbor Lynn Baker stepped outside.

“The next thing I know,” Baker told Denver Post staff writers George Merritt and Jim Kirksey, “I’m being attacked by three pit bulls. One was leaping for my throat as one was dragging me down by my hand.”

Kicking the dogs back, Baker climbed into the back of his pickup truck and yelled for help. While another family member placed the second of many calls to 911, Baker’s son Cody, 16, attempted a rescue with a 12-gauge shotgun. He wounded two of the dogs with bird shot, enabling Baker to get into the cab of the pickup truck, drive to Cody, and take the shotgun. Baker then shot the third dog, who continued to attack.

An Elbert County sheriff’s deputy arrived and finished all three dogs with his pistol about 70 minutes after Osmunsen made the first 911 call.

“The people in the area had their own sort of emergency phone network to warn each other if the dogs were loose,” Rattlesnake Fire District Chief Dale Goetz told Associated Press writer Robert Weller.
On April 12, 2003 two of the McCuen dogs mauled neighbor Diana Nichols during her morning walk. McCuen was cited for having a “vicious animal.” The charge was dropped in June 2003 because of a lack of a locally applicable ordinance, but was later reinstated. McCuen appeared in court on January 7, 2004 to contest the reinstatement.

“McCuen said she lost her home because her bank account was garnisheed to pay penalties from a civil case Nichols brought and won,” reported Denver Post staff writer George Merritt on January 14.
On October 4, 2003, the pit bulls reportedly chased neighbor Linda Henderson in a menacing manner.
Michael Andre, lawyer for McCuen, told Associated Press writer Cindy Brovsky that as many as seven pit bulls had lived at one time with McCuen and her five daughters, ages two to 17.
“ She had two dogs and they had two litters. She kept some of the dogs and was able to sell some. You can get a hefty price for a purebred dog,” Andre said, denyng that the dogs were bred to fight.
Pit bulls are not considered “purebred” dogs under American Kennel Club breed standards, but pit bull pedigrees are kept by several smaller registries.

George Merritt of the Denver Post reported on December 9, 2003 that the Elbert County sheriff’s department found “carcasses of dead animals” in a search of the McCuen property, but no further details were available.

Brooke “was probably the best horse trainer in Parker,” Glenn Miller, 44, of Colorado Springs, told Tillie Fong and Charlie Brennan of the Rocky Mountain News.

Formerly an animal control officer in Missouri, and more recently employed at the Arapahoe Park Race Track in Wembley, Colorado, Brooke kept a variety of horses, dogs, cattle, and reportedly two ostriches.

Brooke was cited by Elbert County for three counts of misdemeanor neglect in early 2003, after a state veterinary inspector “found a pregnant mare in difficulty and unattended, as well as caged and dehydrated puppies, on her property,” Fong and Brennan wrote. “She was granted deferred prosecution on October 8 and was scheduled for a review” in October 2004. Had she passed the review, the charges would have been dropped.

“ We talked to her vet and she turned out to be a good horse owner. She seemed to be a very caring person. She brought several strays to us, as well,” Denver Dumb Friends League spokesperson Kristina Vourax said.

The Brooke killing has prompted former pit bull guardian Larry Oliver, 57, of Clifton, Colorado, to start petitioning to place a pit bull breeding ban on the November 2004 state ballot. Oliver, who says his pit bull of four years severely injured him without provocation three years ago, will need 67,829 signatures to put the initiative before the voters.

Other dog attack cases:

• Colorado news media have often compared the Brooke killing to the January 2001 killing of San Francisco lacrosse coachÄÄ Diane Whipple, 33, by two Presa Canarios kept by Marjorie Knoller, 48, and Robert Noel, 62. A jury convicted both Knoller and Noel of involuntary manslaughter, and convicted Knoller of second degree murder too. The murder conviction was dismissed by trial Judge James Warren. The California Office of the Attorney General has appealed Warren’s ruling. Knoller and Noel have appealed the involuntary manslaughter conviction.

With the appeals pending, Noel was paroled in September 2003, after serving half of a four-year prison sentence. Knoller was paroled on January 2, 2004. As conditions of parole they are barred from having contact with known felons, including each other, and Knoller may not keep animals.

When Knoller and Noel were charged, the most recent previous U.S. murder-by-dog conviction was of Jeffrey David Mann, of Cleveland, Ohio. Mann in Nov-ember 1993 was sentenced to serve 15 years to life in prison for ordering his pit bull to attack Angela “Dolly” Dennise Kaplan on September 2, 1992. Kaplan, the mother of two girls who were then ages 8 and 4, had lived with Mann since 1987. Mann will become eligible for parole in March 2004. Kaplan’s mother Joyce Ragels on January 5 asked the Ohio Parole Board to deny parole.
The Kaplan case was recalled on October 29, 2003, when Adam Cooper, 39, was sentenced to four years in prison and was ordered to pay $12,000 restitution for setting his pit bull on his wife Charlotte in August after she asked for a divorce. The attack occurred outside a motel in Hudson, Ohio. Charlotte Cooper survived but will require extensive plastic surgery.

• Robert Freeman, 67, of Citra, Florida, was on December 29, 2003 charged with manslaughter for the December 12 fatal mauling of Alice Broom, 81. Broom was attacked in her front yard by six free-roaming pit bulls. Her daughters told Lashonda Stinson of the Ocala Star-Banner that the dogs bit a man two weeks before killing Broom, and attacked Broom’s dachshund in October. After Broom’s death, Freeman was fined $108 for allowing another dog to run at large.

• Jackie Batey, 30, of Good Hope, California, on December 5, 2003 was sentenced to serve a year in jail by Riverside County Superior court Judge Albert J. Wojcik. Batey, a mother of four and part-time baby-sitter, pleased guilty in October to involuntary manslaughter for leaving a child she was hired to watch, Somer Clugston, 2, unattended in her house on June 20 while running errands. Clugston slipped outside and was killed by Batey’s pit bull. Her remains were found two hours later by Batey’s 12-year-old son.

The Batey sentence was markedly stiffer than the 180 days in jail and order to pay $24,613 given to former Red Bluff police officer Charles Dean Schneider, 54, in August 2003, in the most recent comparable California case. Schneider’s two Rottweiler/ pug mixes escaped from his yard to kill Genoe Alonzo Novach, age 6, on February 7, 2002.

• Columbus city court records now list as “closed” an involuntary manslaughter charge filed on September 4, 2003 against Dr. Matthew Crawley, 40, of Columbus, Ohio, for the death of Vivian Anthony, 54, on March 26. Anthony died from complications of wounds suffered in a February 1 attack by a Rottweiler. She lost most of one leg and suffered lung, kidney, and heart infections.

“A second dog attack in the same neighborhood led police to Crawley,” said Associated Press. “Rose Vaugn, 45, was attacked by a Rottweiler on February 25. Two men beat the dog away and she survived. Police tracked paw prints in the snow to Crawley’s back door. Crawley owned three Rottweilers,” one of which was reportedly linked by DNA testing to both attacks.

A grand jury apparently declined to issue an indictment.