She was critically injured, hurt so badly that six days later she still was unresponsive in an intensive care unit, according to Sanford police.
Farley has a long, checkered history with pit bulls, according to public records. So do two other family members.
They are her daughter's boyfriend, Sean Pitts, 33, who owned four of the dogs that attacked her, and daughter April Farley, 31.
Family members would not provide an update on Virginia Farley's condition or say where she was being treated.
Six pit bulls, three kids, and three adults
It's not clear why there were six pit bulls in Virginia Farley's two-bedroom apartment on Jan. 19, but Seminole County Animal Services records provide a big clue:
Two days before the attack, a Seminole County animal services employee went to a Winter Springs apartment from which Pitts had just been evicted. An anonymous caller said several dogs were still inside and had been abandoned, records show.
When the officer arrived, he saw two gray and white pit bulls in a window and heard what sounded like another dog in a crate, according to department records. The dogs appeared to be healthy but dirty, the officer wrote in a report.
Two days later — the day of the attack — another animal control officer went back to check on the dogs and found them gone. A maintenance man said the owner had picked them up.
The attack took place six hours later at Stonebrook apartments in Sanford, about eight miles away.
The six dogs in the apartment, said Bianca Gillett, a spokeswoman for the Sanford Police Department, "were all staying there, but I don't know if they were all living there."
Pitts owned four of them: Boss, a 3-year-old 42-pound male; Chevy, a 1-year-old 37-pound male; Sugar, a 1-year-old 35-pound female; and Tiny, a 3-year-old 32-pound female.
Authorities say they're not sure who owned the other two, but a family member told them it was Virginia Farley. One was involved in the attack and was killed, a 2-year-old, 43-pound female.
The other, 2-year-old female named Stormy, was in a crate and was not involved. It remains at the Seminole County animal shelter, according to Bob Hunter, the agency's manager.
'Stop it'
What triggered the attack?
A commotion, according to Gillett. The dogs turned aggressive when one of the victims, a granddaughter who's a senior at Winter Springs High School, began to scold one of her little brothers, Gillett said.
Why they turned on the grandmother is unclear, but they pinned her down in a hallway, biting her arms, legs and upper body, according to a police report.
In a 911 call punctuated by screams, Virginia Farley can be heard in the background, begging for help.
"Stop it," she says. "Get him off … Help me. They're going to kill me. … Please, please, please help me."
The attack went on for more than eight minutes, according to 911 calls.
When Sanford police Sgt. Nigel Price arrived about 3:15 p.m., he heard screams and saw bloodied children outside the apartment.
He ran inside and fired his gun, hoping the sound would stop the attack, but it didn't, he wrote in his report. When one dog turned and began charging toward him, he shot it. He then shot the other four.
Police collected 13 shell casings at the scene.
Virginia Farley was initially taken to Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford then, because her injuries were so severe, was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center.
For days, Sanford police feared she would die. They waited for her to regain consciousness so she could answer their questions then gave up and closed the case.
Gillett says they do not know where she is or her condition.
A premature baby
The attack came at a difficult time for the Farleys. On Christmas Day, Virginia Farley created a "Go Fund Me" account online. One of her daughters had just delivered a baby three months early, she wrote.
The child weighed 1 pound, 9 ounces, was in a neonatal unit, and the medical bills would be more than the family could handle.
"We work (for a) living, week to week like 99 percent of us," she wrote.
Family members earn $9 an hour at customer service jobs, she wrote – not enough to take care of what she predicted would be a mountain of medical bills. She asked for $10,000 in contributions.
As of Feb. 19, no one had made a donation.
Pit bull owners and pit bull rescue groups should pay 100% of their bills. Actually, the HSUS should as well since they're always pushing pit bulls onto the public saying they're no different than any other dog.
Farley not such a victim after all: Animal control complaints
A week and a half before the attack, Virginia Farley posted a photo on Facebook of her blue-nose pit bull at the office of a veterinarian in Altamonte Springs. The dog is on a leash and appeared to be calm and healthy.
She did not identify the animal by name, and it's not clear if it was one that would later attack her.
Former neighbors complained to county employees about Farley's dogs several times over the past eight years, according to public records.
In 2008, a 70-year-old Sanford woman who lived up the street complained that Farley's dog bit her.
Farley told county employees she didn't have a dog, a claim the neighbor disputed. County employees checked back several times but never found a dog, records show.
At other times, neighbors made other complaints about Farley and her dogs, records show, accusing her of neglecting her pit bulls, leaving them without shelter or food or water; keeping one tethered to a tree, where it charged at and frightened passersby; allowing them to bark for days on end.
Dogs owned by Pitts and April Farley also generated complaints.
Shyra Elkins used to live next door to them in Winter Springs. They had a pair of pit bulls that mated and had a litter of eight puppies, Elkins said.
They sold four or five and kept the others, Elkins said, housing them in crates in the garage. One pit bull threatened her six-year-old daughter one day, she said.
On Dec. 4, four dogs owned by Pitts attacked April Farley (Virginia Farley's daughter) and a 26-year-old man, sending them both to the hospital, according to public records.
The man, Shannon Bethea, told Sanford police that one of the dogs was bothering him so he hit it, and that dog and the others then began biting his arms and legs.
Sean Pitts was not there, but April Farley was, and when she tried to rescue Bethea, she, too, was bitten, according to the report.
April Farley and Sean Pitts could not be reached for comment.
(Orlando Sentinel - Feb 19, 2016)
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