Georgia: Charges filed after elderly Jones County woman mauled by her son's pit bulls

GEORGIA -- A Jones County couple faces charges after a 69-year-old woman was mauled by dogs in her home.

Barbara Norman was attacked about 7 p.m. Tuesday as pit bull mixes broke through a door of her home on Gary Road, off Henderson Road near Ga. 49, said Jones County sheriff’s Capt. Earl Humphries.

“It was a vicious, vicious attack,” Humphries said Thursday after filing charges against Norman’s son and his girlfriend.

Peyton Elwin Norman (aka Peyton Norman, Payton Norman), 33, who lives with his mother and keeps his dogs locked up inside the house, and Leslie Gayle Kidd, 37, were charged with reckless conduct and cruelty to animals.

The deputy responding to the attack noted in his report “the smell of garbage and ammonia was stifling” in the house, which contained numerous garbage bags and rotting flooring.

Barbara Norman was able to drag herself from the kitchen to an office, where she cordoned herself off in the rear of the house and called for help.

“Deputies found her very seriously injured,” Humphries said.

She sustained extensive injuries to all her extremities in the attack, which involved up to four dogs, including one that weighed about 50 pounds, Humphries said.

The dogs were turned over to animal control and are expected to be examined by a veterinarian in the coming days.

Wednesday, Jones County deputies returned to the house and seized six more dogs from other rooms there.

“Deplorable conditions the dogs were kept in prompted the cruelty to animals charge,” Humphries said. “The six dogs all appeared to be malnourished.”

The reckless conduct charges stemmed from the attack.

Peyton Norman told deputies he was a “dog lover” and had rescued the dogs from a “violent past,” thinking they had been previously been used in fighting, Humphries said.

More charges may be filed in the case.

Humphries said Peyton Norman (aka Payton Norman) also was supposed to be caring for a Great Dane belonging to vacationing neighbors on Gary Road, but a Jones County deputy was called to that address to investigate an animal cruelty case the day before the attack.

“That dog was so emaciated it could hardly move,” Humphries said.

Charges are pending against the owners of that dog once they return from vacation, he said.

(Macon.com - June 16, 2016)