«I saw the dogs bite my nephew: one held him by the shoulder, the other by the feet. They were pulling him… I was sleeping when I heard the screams and then my sister calling me, I woke up and went down into the garden but… we couldn’t save him.”
Joseph he is one of the uncles of Francesco Pio, the thirteen-month-old baby bitten and killed by two pit bulls under the eyes of his mother who intervened in vain to save him. Like his brother Simon in whose arms the child was when the attack began. The two animals tore him with their teeth. When the 118 rescuers arrived Francesco Pio he was wrapped in a blanket on the kitchen table already lifeless: the paramedics tore off his t-shirt and saw his torn flesh. Any attempt at resuscitation was useless.
The fact
The tragedy occurred at 8 in the morning in the garden of a semi-detached house in Campolongo, a hamlet of Eboli. Francesco Pio was in the arms of uncle Simone, who was also injured in the leg: they had left the house to accompany their little sister who their mother had to take to school. Suddenly the dogs pounced on the little one: Simone’s attempts to save him were useless in the scuffle with the two pit bulls Francesco Pio he fell and became easier prey for the two dogs.
The mother Paola and the other uncle, Joseph, they ran to snatch the little one from the grip of the two animals but they too failed to do so. The woman was also bitten and, after being treated on the spot, she had to go to hospital in the afternoon. There are still many obscure points in the story.
The child’s aunt, Milena, to reporters outside the gates of the house, told that the little boy was there by chance, because his sister had gone to sleep with her friend the night before but the truth, little by little, turned out to be something else. For a few months the child had been living with his mother and two brothers in that house where there were also his uncles, one of whom was entrusted to the owner of the dogs.
Indeed, to the owner of one of the dogs because, upon checking the microchips, one of the two pit bulls was registered to the ex-husband from whom the woman had separated a few months ago. The man, heard by the police at the station Saint Cecilia of Eboli with his trusted lawyer, the lawyer Genserico Miniaci, said he left the dogs with his wife to keep them free. In the beginning there were five: a couple and their three puppies, now three years old, two males and a female. Then the larger dog was attacked and killed by his children.
At the moment he and his ex-wife are not under investigation, but the hypothesis of a crime that the Salerno prosecutor’s office, directed by the prosecutor boss Giuseppe Borrelli, is being considered for manslaughter due to failure to provide custody. It remains to be seen whether, from the investigations and from listening to witnesses, responsibilities emerge for the two spouses.
History
Francesco Pio (whose little body will be subjected to an autopsy on Wednesday) had been living with those dogs for some time. According to an initial reconstruction by investigators, the pit bulls were locked inside a room when he was around. But not yesterday morning when, perhaps due to a simple distraction, they were free.
Tension and pain in front of the yellow building that was the scene of the tragedy. The uncle Simoneafter having taken out one of the two female pit bulls, he clung with his hands to the funeral service van inside which there was the child’s coffin and followed its path to the provincial road: terrible for him was the separation from his grandson who, until a few hours before, she had been playing and joking in his arms.
The relatives are desperate. However, for them what happened remains incomprehensible. It is inexplicable, they say, the behavior of those two dogs who had never been aggressive towards any human being. «The family, explains the mayor of Eboli Mario Conte, was already receiving attention from the social services of the Common for other private matters”. The dogs are now seized by the judicial authorities, hosted in a facility in Pignataro Maggiore where they will be subjected to a rabies test: if they test positive, the ASL will take care of killing them.
Meanwhile theItalian Association for the Protection of Animals and the Environment (Aidaa) intervenes by specifying that «before throwing the cross on the two dogs it is essential to understand the dynamics of the facts which must be reconstructed step by step and the positions of the owners must be verified».
