Warning: The video on this story contains the disturbing depiction of a deadly dog attack in Winslow. Viewer discretion is advised.
WATERVILLE — Surveillance video and a police 911 tape released Friday under a public records request reveal a harrowing account of two pit bulls attacking a woman and her small dog in Winslow.
The release of the tapes come as authorities continue to investigate the disappearance of the dangerous dogs this week just minutes after the state’s high court upheld their death sentence.
In the video, obtained by police from a nearby business, Sharron Carey can be seen last year walking down Lucille Avenue in Winslow around 12:40 p.m. with her Boston terrier, Fergie Rose. Two pit bulls sprint across the front yard and to the road from behind a home, viciously attacking the small dog as its owner, Sharron Carey, tries to fight them off with her hands. The dogs then attacked Carey, seriously injuring her.
“The dog’s dead — oh, my God,” a 911 caller and witness who reported the attack is heard saying in a separate police audio tape.
The chilling surveillance video and tape from Aug. 30, 2016, were obtained Friday by the Morning Sentinel under a Freedom of Access Act request to the Kennebec County District Attorney’s Office. The witness, a neighbor who has called police, frantically tells a dispatcher that pit bulls are attacking a woman and that she needs help.
“This is awful,” the caller cries, as the dispatcher asks her to tell Carey that help is on the way.
Warning: This audio contains disturbing content.
The neighbor, who repeatedly gasps and cries out, “Oh, my God,” throughout the tape, tells the dispatcher that people are trying to get the dogs off the woman and then says, “The owner is there … she can’t control them.” The caller thought three dogs were mauling the small dog, but the third dog was later determined to not be involved in the attack.
The video tape shows the pit bulls’ owner, Danielle Jones, running down the steps of a house and racing to the scene. Carey can be seen swatting at the pit bulls, to no avail, as they latch onto the dog and thrash it around the front yard and roadside.
Shortly thereafter, a police cruiser pulls up. Dogs are seen throughout the video, running around the lawn. Eventually, Jones leads one of the dogs into the house.
Two pit bulls in the attack were later declared dangerous by a court and ordered to be euthanized. Jones appealed the case and the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday upheld that court ruling.
But the pit bulls, Kole and Bentley, remained nowhere to be found Friday, three days after Jones reported they had slipped their leashes and escaped as she was walking them outside the Webb Road animal shelter Tuesday afternoon. Waterville police are investigating the case and Waterville police Chief Joseph Massey says it is doubtful the dogs actually slipped their leashes and are running loose.
“We’re still working on it and hopefully, we can come up with them,” Massey said Friday of the missing dogs.
The dogs had been held at the Humane Society Waterville Area animal shelter.
Michael Brown, president of the board of directors for the Humane Society Waterville Area, said Friday morning that he is not sure if there are rules regarding whether the owner of a dog deemed dangerous is allowed to come to the shelter and walk it outside, as Jones had apparently been allowed to do. Tuesday was not the first time Jones had come to walk the pit bulls — she had walked them outside the shelter on previous occasions, according to police.
“We’re looking into all those policies,” Brown said Friday morning. “I can’t tell you right now what the answer is to that, unfortunately. I know we’re looking into that.”
But Brown reiterated what he said Thursday about the Humane Society’s commitment to work with authorities to ensure the public and other animals are kept safely.
“As for the public safety, we’re going to work with the police departments and with the state of Maine to make sure we’re in compliance with any of those rules,” he said.
Gov. Paul LePage said in a phone conversation Friday that state officials are looking into the situation. There’s “no question,” he said, that Jones knows where the dogs are and that she knew the court’s decision before she took them out of the shelter for a “walk.”
“I believe she’s on the lam with the dogs,” LePage said.
He also said he thinks Jones took the dogs out before Humane Society officials became aware of the court’s decision.
“She really was slick,” he said.
Winslow police Chief Shawn O’Leary says he suspects the dogs’ disappearance was a “coordinated effort.” Winslow police, he said, will work with Waterville police on the case with whatever they need.
O’Leary said that the town of Winslow will still have stray animals brought to the Waterville shelter, but if there is a situation involving a dangerous dog that needs to be taken to a shelter and there is a question about it, the animal will be taken to a shelter in Augusta. He said if changes in management and policy at the Waterville shelter do not change by 2018, Winslow will start having all animals taken to a different shelter.
Jones’ lawyers, Tom Page and Bonnie Martinolich, did not return calls Thursday and Friday seeking comment in the case.
Decisions by the court are normally published on the court’s website at 11 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursday. An employee in the clerk’s office said the decision in the dog case was posted as usual Tuesday and attorneys involved receive an email within minutes after the decision is posted.
The Kennebec County District Attorney’s Office received an email at 11:11 a.m. Tuesday, notifying officials in that office that the Supreme Judicial Court’s decision had been posted upholding the death sentence against the two pit bulls. Jones’ attorneys would have received that at the same time.
Waterville police first learned of the court decision around 12:30 p.m. and tried contacting the animal shelter, but couldn’t reach anyone. Jones, meanwhile, was allowed to walk the two dogs outside the shelter property sometime between 12:30-1 p.m.
Lisa Smith, executive director of Humane Society Waterville Area, did not return phone calls, texts or emails sent to her on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Brown said Thursday that Smith would release a statement later that day, but she never did and Brown said on Friday he doesn’t know why.
Meanwhile, the Morning Sentinel also submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to both Waterville and Winslow police and the municipalities of Waterville and Winslow seeking any written communications with town and city officials and the Humane Society between Tuesday and Friday. Both municipalities reported on Friday they had no such communication with the organization.
Kennebec County District Attorney Maeghan Maloney said Friday that the order in the case says Jones has “ownership of the pit bulls but not the right to possession.”
Asked about the process taken in such cases, Maloney said that all criminal cases and investigations proceed the same way — police collect evidence and interview witnesses and if they think a search warrant is needed they apply for one and that is a process the district attorney’s office takes part in. If they find enough evidence to charge someone, they do so.
With some cases, if police are not sure, they will send a case to the District Attorney’s Office for review, which means they ask that office to make the first call, according to Maloney. If a charge is brought forward by police, the district attorney’s office can then read the case and decide to bring that charge or additional charges or no charge at all in the case, according to Maloney.
This article previously included an audio recording of a 911 call reporting the deadly dog attack in Winslow. After realizing the recording contained the caller’s phone number and local addresses, we edited the audio file to redact that information.
Staff writer Madeline St. Amour contributed to this report.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
