CALIFORNIA -- A second woman who was attacked by three large dogs took the witness stand Wednesday in the second week of a jury trial for a Green Valley father and son.
Edward Biggs Jr. and his adult son Casey are on trial for a pair of felony charges of negligently owning dangerous animals.
The woman, who had been out on a predawn run, was attacked by the Biggses’ bull mastiff, a pit bull- mastiff mix and an American bulldog mix. Her bite wounds resulted in hundreds of stitches and several days in the hospital.
The woman testified she was about a quarter of a mile away from being done with her routine run when she saw the dogs lying in the middle of Pavilion Drive on the morning of Sept. 10, 2010. She stopped jogging and started walking past the dogs when one of them made a yelping noise before all three dogs jumped up and ran at her.
“After the initial wave of pain it felt like I was floating in a different world,” she told jurors as she described the dogs pulling her to the ground, tearing into arms, shoulders, legs and head for several minutes as she tried screaming for help.
She managed to escape from the dogs by crawling under a truck parked nearby, but one of the dogs clamped down on one of her running shoes and dragged her across the asphalt and concrete and the animals resumed their mauling.
The woman, now 55, described seeing a tendon dangling from one of her legs and being able to see the bones in an arm in one of the many wounds.
The attack ended when the other mauling victim, another woman out for a morning run, interrupted the dogs, who turned on her. A pair of neighbors who heard the dogs and the women also intervened.
The neighbors, both of them armed, shot and wounded the dogs, who were later euthanized.
The 55-year-old mauling victim recounted spending more than three hours on a hospital operating table while a trio of surgeons sewed her back together.
The woman’s testimony ended with her removing a sweater and showing jurors her scarred arms, both of which have large parts of several muscles missing.
Attorneys for the Biggses spent less than two minutes cross-examining the woman.
After the woman stepped down from the witness stand, the tenor of the trial shifted a bit. The Biggses’ defense attorneys got a prosecution dog expert to insist that dogs attacking humans and dogs attacking other animals were very different and very distinct behaviors.
Prosecutors want jurors to believe the Biggses’ dogs past attacks on another dog and on a neighbor’s newborn calf should serve as notice that their dogs were dangerous to people.
The dog expert also stressed the importance of keeping the dogs secured and that the damaged porch railing the Biggses’ dogs went through at their home hours before the attacks was insufficient to ensure the dogs were not a threat.
The prosecution may wrap up its case Thursday when the trial resumes.
(Daily Republic - May 2, 2013)
