Family accused of killing dog with baseball bat tells their side of the story

MICHIGAN -- Dan Morofsky says his neighbor's German Shepherd, Duke, has been terrorizing his family and their own family dog since August 2011, and that three prior "attacks" left injuries to them and their dog, Diesel.

The story of what happened to Duke on Tuesday, November 19, has heated tempers to the boiling point.

Duke's owner Linda Lorenzen admitted that her dog left the backyard and began to fight with the neighbor's leashed dog that was in front of the neighbor's house. But Lorenzen told Action News that she witnessed a relative of Morofsky fatally beat Duke with the bat about 25 times.

"There is no way that dog was hit 25 times," says Morofsky, a bail bondsman, who was forced to temporarily move his family out of their home in White Lake Township because of online death threats after the incident. "They said they were going to have a candlelight vigil and our house was going to be the candle."

We're told, that day, one of Morofsky's relatives was outside with Diesel when Duke came charging at them. Diesel had been on a leash on Morofsky's own property when it happened. We're told one of Morofsky's relatives, a young man who has not been identified, ran inside the house to get the bat when he couldn't separate the dogs.

And when he came back outside, the two dogs were still fighting when it seemed Duke was now coming for him, so he swung the bat two to three times to stop Duke.

Morofsky says in September of 2011, Duke even attacked the same young man who killed him the German Shepherd last week with the bat. Morofsky showed Action News photos of puncture wounds on the young man's arms from that day. We were shown photos of multiple puncture wounds on Diesel from previous "attacks" by Duke. We were also shown photos of injuries to Morofsky himself.

On November 14, just five days before Duke was loose again and reportedly attacked Diesel and the young man, Morofsky filed a lawsuit against Duke's owners.

"It was for continuously getting bit," Morofsky told Action News. "Our dog was getting attacked. I was getting attacked. The boy was getting attacked... this is enough."

White Lake Township Police are investigating Duke's death, looking to determine if the force used to stop the dog was appropriate and justified.

Results from a necropsy are still pending.

(WXYZ - Nov 25, 2013)