It happened in Hopkinton at around 5 p.m. Saturday. The girl was taken to an Anamosa hospital and pronounced dead on arrival.
The sheriff's department says the girl's 18-year-old half brother was watching her at the time of the attack. We're told the toddler somehow got out of the house and into the backyard with the dogs.
This afternoon, we learned a neighbor witnessed the attack and called 911.
Another article says that the dogs had been kept in a locked kennel. The mother speculates that the little girl somehow opened the lock or that the dogs dug under the kennel fencing. She also says that her 3 year-old regularly opened the back door and went into the backyard alone.
Some neighbors tell us the family breeds Rottweilers. Others say they rarely saw the two dogs.
"If it wasn't for going by one day putting up the kennel, I never would have known they had them," neighbor Craig Wilson said. "You didn't hear nothing from them."
[NOTE: Another article says "...the dogs, which were identified by Sheriff John LeClere as belonging to the girl's grandfather and uncle, had been kept at the home for approximately three months at the time of the attack..." ]
The sheriff's department still has not released the name of the little girl and the investigation is ongoing.
We're told the family is making arrangements tonight with a local funeral home. Neighbors say they're trying to rally around the family and give them support.
(KCRG - March 6, 2011)
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The house in Hopkinton where a child was attacked by two Rottweilers in the backyard on March 4, 2011. Photo taken March 5, 2011. (Jeremiah Scavo/The Gazette) |
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