List of fatal dog attacks in the United States (before 2000)

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These are lists of fatal dog attacks in the United States reported by the news media, published in scholarly papers, or mentioned through other sources. In the lists below, the breed is assigned by the sources.

1800s

Date	Breed	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
March 6, 1833	Bull dog	Child Chandler	Unknown	A man led his "ferocious bull dog" to Mr. Sandal Chandler's yard and sicced his dog on a child. Witnesses implored to save the child's life, to no avail.
November 14, 1844	Bull terrier	John A. Dubernard	Unknown, but > 50 years	Baltimore, Maryland - Victim had been attacked by a 'ferocious' dog kept in a residential yard and died some days later. The same dog had previously attacked a colored woman.
April 2, 1856	Cuban blood hound	Unknown	Little boy	Cleveland, Ohio - A little boy was killed by a Cuban blood hound.
March 3, 1860	Bulldog	Three people	Unknown	Milwaukee, Wisconsin - Three people were killed and seven more mangled by a large bull-dog. The dog was shot along with all the other dogs it had bitten in its rampage.
October 16, 1880	Bulldog	Miss Shearer	16 years	Bradford, Pennsylvania - The large bulldog was loose, having broken its chain, when a visitor arrived. The daughter told the man to stay in the house while she chained the dog. The dog tore open her throat and lacerated her limbs. The father shot the dog.
February 6, 1886	Bulldog	Jimmie Gallagher	Unknown	Augusta, Georgia - A huge bull-dog grabbed up a boy, shaking him like a rat as he ran down the street. The dog was shot.
January 30, 1887	Rabid Lap dog	Ada Clare	39 years	Attacked by her friend's lap dog in her theatrical agent's office in New York City. Her face was badly mutilated but she recovered and returned to the stage; one month later, after suffering greatly, she succumbed to the later stages of rabies and died on March 4.
September 7, 1891	Mastiff-type dog (6)	Edward Gillis	9 years	Attacked by six Mastiffs after he teased them in their kennel.
September 30, 1896	Saint Bernard	Laura Barmann and an unnamed infant	7 years & a baby	Maryville, Missouri - Dog attacked a group of school children. Two other children were also bitten. The infant was inside the owner's home at the time of the attack. The dog was killed.

1900s

Date	Breed	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
March 17, 1901	Fox terrier	Carrie Cobus	38 years	The dog attacked its owner while she was having an epileptic seizure. A neighbor tried to beat the dog away with a poker. It then attacked him and Carrie Cobus's mother.
February 10, 1904	Rabid Rottweiler	William Huston	57 years	The dog had been poisoned by someone, so the man decided to shoot it to put it out of its misery. As he prepared to shoot, the dog bit him on the hand. He died several months later of rabies.
1905	Bulldog	Yvonne Davis	18 months	Chicago, Illinois - Child chased a ball into the chain-ring of a bulldog and was attacked by her family's dog, a "heavy-headed bulldog". The dog was shot eight times and died still clinging to the child. A pry bar was needed to open its mouth and release the child.
February 2, 1909	Bull Terrier	Bert Leadbetter	2 years	Newburyport, Massachusetts - Victim's mother brought her son to visit her brother, John P. Colby. The boy went out back to the kennel area and was attacked by one of Colby's dogs, a fighting bull terrier.

1910s

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
March 29, 1912	Newfoundland	Anna de Calve	3 years	The girl was killed after attempting to play with the dog while it was eating a bone.
September 9, 1912	Mastiff-type dog	Mary Pisdarek	7 years	Killed by a large mastiff. After the attack, fifteen dogs, including the Mastiff, were killed.

1920s

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
December 11, 1924	Unknown	James Tillman Neil	39 years	Denison, Texas - Bitten by his own dog on October 29, 1924. Dog was euthanized, its head sent for rabies testing, and it was positive. Victim took the Pasteur treatments but succumbed six weeks later from rabies.

1930s

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
March 21, 1934	Boston Terrier (2)	Eunice Dean	4 years	Mauled by two Boston Terriers while walking to her house.
July 4, 1936	Mongrel	Maxwell Breeze	14 years	The dog dragged him under water and killed him by drowning.
August 31, 1937	Chow Chow	Charlotte Parker	65 years	The victim was described as a "cripple" who was killed by her pet Chow Chow.
May 4, 1939	Bull dog	Charles Lyons, Jr.	3 years	Stilesville, Indiana - Victim was bitten on the throat by his grandmother's dog, and died two days later in hospital from the infected wound.
May 14, 1939	Rottweiler	Raymond Gene Smith	4 years	The boy was tormenting a small dog by wrapping a sack around its head while it yelped and struggled to escape. The larger dog, a lifelong companion of the boy, reportedly attacked while coming to the aid of the smaller dog.

1940s

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
May 14, 1940	Bulldog	Raleigh Leroy Henderson	3 years	Kermit, Texas - Chewed and mangled by a bulldog, it took three men to pry the dog off the child. The boy had been left in the care of another family, owners of the pet.
February 9, 1942	Husky	Mrs. Albert McBain	60 years	Found in a pool of blood beside the crouching, growling dog with severe lacerations to the neck, arms, and shoulders. She died before arriving at the hospital. Investigators concluded she had fallen down some steps before the dog killed her. The SPCA killed the dog.
June 16, 1942	Bulldog	Vernel Jacobs	17 months	Victim died of wounds received when attacked by a dog.
August 27, 1942	Rottweiler	Dorothy Whipka	21 years	A large black dog known as Blackie ran into Whipka as she walked to work. The dog, which had a history of chasing cars, was described as having "crashed" into Whipka, sending her flying so hard that when she landed, her head hit the pavement and she suffered a fractured skull. She died three hours later from the injury. The dog was put to sleep.
July 1943	Doberman Pinscher	May Jane Lund	2 years	Killed by the family's pet dog.
February 13, 1945	Staffordshire Bull Terrier	Marguerite Derdenger	21 months	A female family dog, Woof, attacked its family's infant child, biting through the base of her skull and crushing her spine. The dog was surrendered to the city animal shelter for euthanization by the owners. A retired sailor and bar owner named Grady Terry attempted to block the euthanization, complaining that the dog had not received a trial. Superior Judge Charles McKay granted several reprieves before Superior Judge Emmet H. Wilson finally voided a restraining order on the procedure, allowing the shelter to euthanize the dog. The shelter's superintendent, Bert Morse, opined that the dog's reason for attacking was jealousy, a theory the newspapers and police seemed to adopt as an explanation, without any real proof.
May 16, 1945	American Pit Bull Terrier (9)	Doretta Zinke	39 years	Zinke was mauled to death by a neighbor's dogs, which attacked her as she walked one evening, ripping off her clothes and shredding her body; she was found still alive, able to respond "The dogs" when asked what happened to her. Joseph E. Munn, 43, was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Zinke, and sentenced to 5 years in prison. His dogs were well known in the area for attacks on people and livestock. Munn's entire kennel of 26 dogs were put to death.
January 31, 1947	Rottweiler	Glen Howard Brace	5 years	Mauled by six dogs.
February 7, 1947	German Shepherd	Walter Momer Jr.	4 years	The boy was killed while sledding. The dog reportedly had been in an incident the day before where it had attacked four children. An article reported that the Philadelphia boy was "torn and mangled".
January 1, 1948	German Shepherd	Surname: May	1 month	The girl was dragged from her bassinet and killed. The girl's father said that the dog had never been vicious, but was jealous of his other child, 18-month-old Lawrence May.

1950s

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
1950	Bulldog	Unnamed girl	3 years	Killeen, Texas. Attacked and killed by a bulldog. Mentioned in an article about another fatal attack.
March 1950	Siberian Husky	Donald A. Boucher	5 years	Portland, Maine - The dog was chained at the time of the attack.
June 1, 1955	Doberman Pinschers (2)	Winifred W. L. Bacon	64 years	Toms River, New Jersey - Victim was found dead on the beach with her two dogs "racing madly about", and the male had blood on his face and mouth. The coroner listed cause of death as "a massive hemorrhage from dog bites."
August 11, 1955	Alaskan Husky (6)	Danny Betz	21 months	Anchorage, Alaska - Victim killed just 500 feet from his home. It's unclear from the news reports if the boy wandered into the area where the sled dogs were staked out or whether one of the dogs had gotten loose and dragged the boy over to the kennel area. The father of the dogs' owner refused to surrender the dogs without a court order.
November 24, 1958	German Shepherd	Michael Kaminski	3 years	Erie, Pennsylvania - The dog was 6 months old and had been acquired by the boy's family two weeks prior to the attack. The family said the dog had not shown any previous aggression. A veterinarian suggested that Michael may have made a sudden movement interpreted by the dog as a threatening gesture.
March 24, 1959	Siberian Husky	Billy Stillions	5 years	Olympia, Washington - Attacked when the boy crawled into a shed where the dog was chained.
April 27, 1959	Pack of stray dogs	Unnamed woman	58 years	St. Louis, Missouri - The woman was knocked down and mauled by a pack of dogs on April 5 and died on April 27.
May 23, 1959	Pack of stray dogs (7-10)	Mark Draper	30 months	St. Louis, Missouri - A neighbor found the pack attacking the child. This death, on the heels of another dog mauling fatality the prior month, caused local officials to organize a roundup up of stray dogs. A group of 100–150 people (including police) armed with guns and clubs searched the area and killed 15 dogs and wounded or captured 3 more. The pack was a known nuisance in the area and they may have attacked the boy for food, as they were found eating his body.

1960s

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
March 19, 1960	Doberman Pinscher	Frances Tetreault	50 years	The dog was a full-grown male and prize-winning show dog. The victim was the owner of some local dog kennels, and there were no witnesses to the attack. Officers arriving found the dog in "a state of uncontrollable wildness". The dog had lived alone with Frances since her husband's death six months earlier. The house was found in complete disarray, with furnishings overturned and torn.
October 23, 1963	German Shepherd	Shari Nicoletti	2 years	The girl was visiting a neighbor when their 1-year-old female dog jumped into the dining room through a window and killed the girl.
November 18, 1963	Alaskan Malamute	James Henderson	4 months	Mauled by an Alaskan Malamute when he was left alone on a car seat with the dog. The five-year-old dog had been purchased a month prior as a watchdog.
March 17, 1965	American Pit Bull Terrier/Airedale Terrier mix	Vincent Scardina	22 months	The dog had been recently acquired for the purpose of hunting wild hogs. It had been severely mistreated at some point in the past, showing obvious signs of fear and stressed eating habits. The boy had wandered to the area of the yard where the dog was usually kept, chained, and the attack happened silently. The owner said that he'd had dogs all his life, but that this one "was a screwball".
April 23, 1965	Siberian Husky	Marla Perry	4 years	The girl was attacked by the family's chained Siberian Husky. The county coroner ordered a rabies test to be performed, believing that the dog had been scratched or bitten by other dogs.
November 1965	Mongrel	Louis Rasmussen	60 years	The dog had attacked the woman twice prior to the fatal attack. One month before the fatal attack, another attack had required 2 weeks of hospitalization.
June 8, 1966	Rottweiler	Johnny Sunshine	3 years	Bitten by dog in neighbor's back yard.
August 3, 1966	Great Danes (3)	Sharon K. Sparks	5 years	During the attack, a 6-year-old boy was also seriously injured. The dogs had escaped from their kennel two days before.
December 17, 1967	A pack of four dogs: German Shepherds (2) and Mongrels (2)	Gene Anthony Goodman and Kenneth Goodman	5 years and 4 years	When the attack happened the boys were playing in a nearby creek. The dogs were owned by a neighbor who often kept them penned up but let them loose to work on his house. They had recently been accused of killing pets in the area, but had never shown any animosity towards children, and had even played with the boys on several occasions.
December 23, 1967	Great Dane	Darla Anne Harper	4 years	Mauled by her family's dog in the front yard of her home in Lookout Mountain, GA. According to the sheriff, the dog "killed the girl accidentally, during a playful romp" and that it "didn't appear vicious". She bled to death from wounds inflicted by the dog.
March 6, 1969	German Shepherd	Susan Babiarz	1 month	The 3-year-old dog jumped into the girl's crib and clawed her to death.

1970s

1971

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
March 3	Labrador Retriever	Karrie Fritz	3 years	Killed by a neighbor's black lab.
September 19	German Shepherd	Heidi Sufficool	21 months	The child's parents left her in a pen with the dog, which was owned by a friend. They returned 15 minutes later and found the baby bleeding from multiple bites. The baby died two hours later at the hospital.

1972

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
March 5	Saint Bernard	Dawn Quintal	8 years	The girl was attacked by the dog that neighbors said she had thrown rocks at and punched in the past. The attack occurred while she was watching nearby construction work and the owner said the dog had "always been gentle before".
August 14	German Shepherd	Abel Valdivia	2 years	Killed by the 4-year-old pedigreed dog that belonged to his family and had known the boy all his life. The boy was following his mother around when the apparently unprovoked attack took place, and afterwards the dog roamed the house growling and barking.

1974

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
January 4	Saint Bernard	David Scott Little	3 years	Indianapolis, Indiana - Victim was playing in the snow in his backyard with another boy. Mother saw the dog on top of the boy and pulled it off, but it broke loose and attacked again. Father came out and hit the dog on the nose to drive it off. After a tussle with police, the dog died when shot a second time with a tranquilizer. The dog was 1 year old and 200 pounds.
April 24	Saint Bernard	Lawrence Calemmo	6 years	Islip, New York - The boy was at a neighbor's house, playing indoors with their child, when the neighbor's 116lb dog attacked. The neighbor killed the dog with a shotgun after being attacked trying to stop the dog. The killing was initially reported as a stray dog which attacked outdoors.
May 14	Golden Retriever	Toni Lynn Edgeworth	5 years	Charlotte, North Carolina - Victim was attacked by Chad, a three year old 60# Golden Retriever, while visiting a neighbor. The girl had gone behind the dog and was going to hug him.
June 17	Saint Bernard	Walter Schell	70 years	Delafield, Wisconsin - Elderly victim was knocked down in his backyard when the next door neighbor's dog knocked him down and bit him a dozen times. The dog was 6 years old, 120#, and was destroyed at its owner's request.
July 31	German Shepherd	John Marcellus Johns Jr.	5 years	Anne Arundel County, Maryland - The dog dragged the victim 20 feet by his head after being taunted with rocks and breaking free of its chain. There were two other children playing with him who tried to get the victim to stop throwing rocks, and his mother tried to stop the dog with a chair. The decision was made to euthanize the dog.
September 6	Dachshund	Christopher Granger	7 months	Volny, New York - Victim was bitten by the family's newly acquired dog when the baby was left on the bed. The mother returned a few minutes later to discover the dog had attacked the boy.
November 15	Labrador retriever and two Collies	Brent Cryder	5 years	Minooka, Illinois - Victim was playing in his backyard when he was attacked. Mother found him on the ground and the dogs nearby. The dogs were owned by someone several miles away.

1975

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
January 14	Basenji or Basenji mix	Tracy Wax	5 months	Kansas City, Missouri - The baby was attacked while asleep on the living room floor.
March 7	Mongrel	Fern Atchley	75 years	Walnut Grove, Missouri - The husband said they were sitting in the living room when the 7-year-old dog, which they had had since it was a puppy, latched onto the woman's throat and she died within minutes.
May 25	German Shepherd	Johnny Patterson, Jr	2 years	Fort Worth, Texas - The dog was usually kept on a chain, but the chain was broken and the dog was being kept with just a rope. The dog broke the rope, broke through a screen door and killed the boy before being shot dead with a .22 by the boy's father. The father said the dog had always been gentle when he was on the chain.
June 5	Husky type	Heidi Foust	3 years	Helena, Montana - Attacked by a dog that was chained up outside a welding shop. The girl had bites all over her body and a punctured trachea; the girl suffocated.
August 1	German Shepherd-Labrador retriever mix (7 dogs)	Michael Yount	5 years	Reno, Nevada - The boy was killed after entering a fenced-in yard where the 7 dogs, all 5 months old, were kept.
August 22	Great Dane	Lisa D. Erwine	17 years	Mount Perry, Ohio - While seated in a lawn chair while visiting friends, the girl was attacked by their 3 year old 200# dog. She suffocated from a crushed larynx.

1976

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
May 15	pit bull	Misty Lee	6 years	Fresno, California - Killed by a 70-pound dog that was chained to a carport pole behind an apartment complex. She died from a severed jugular vein and broken neck. The owner, Eric P. Johnson, 20, was charged with owning an animal responsible for the death of a human being because of the owner's neglect.
June	German Shepherd	Vincent Buffoleno	14 days	The 90-pound dog tipped over the baby's bassinet while the mother was sleeping and then bit and tossed the baby around.
August	Saint Bernard	Christopher Steven Simpson	4 years	The dog bit and broke the boy's neck.
September	German Shepherd	Carra Bashold	5 days	Killed after the mother left her alone for 1½ hours with the starving, four-month-old, 15-pound, female dog. Mother was charged with negligent homicide; however, the charges were later dropped.
December	Cur dog "bred for hunting"	Josh Gatlin	4 years	The boy was playing with the dog and had a stick in his hand, when the dog apparently "became angry." The 7-year-old dog was said to have "never even growled at anyone."

1977

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
January 3	Alaskan Malamute	Darrell Enneking	6 years	Attacked by a large dog while walking home from school.
April	Saint Bernard and Labrador Retriever-Shepherd mix and third dog (puppy)	Tamara Rhae Newton	6 years	Killed while walking home. The dog's owner was charged with criminally negligent homicide.
April	Saint Bernard	Matthew Weck	5 years	Killed when he tried to pet the tied-up dog.
May 17	pit bull	Mathew Cochran	6 months	Riverside, California - The baby was killed by the family dog inside the family's home. The father found the dog had mauled the child's face and he shot the dog.
July	Great Dane	Jeremy Tomkinson	3 months	Skull crushed by his grandparents' dog.
September	Elkhound-German Shepherd mix	Robert Boyd	7 months	The boy was killed after being left alone for a few minutes by his deaf babysitter. The 11-month-old dog entered the boy's playpen and the babysitter said the dog was "only playing with the child."
December	German Shepherd and possibly Irish Setter	Jon Setzer, Jr.	3 years	The German Shepherd had attacked at least 3 other people prior to this incident. The Irish Setter was also suspected, but no human remains were found in its stomach.

Fatalities in 1978

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
September	German Shepherd	Danielle Nicole Russell	3 weeks	Killed in her crib while the baby's 14-year-old mother talked to friends.
December	German Shepherd	Jennifer Schafner	3 years	The girl was playing in the backyard with the dog, which was owned by a friend of her father.

Fatalities in 1979

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
October 30	Dachshund	Christopher Johnson	2 weeks	The boy died after the 6-year-old dog chewed off his legs while the mother slept in a nearby room. The dog was described as well-behaved by neighbors and friends.

Fatalities in the 1980s

Fatalities in 1980

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
(Date unknown, 1980)	pit bull	(Unknown)	3 years	Mentioned in another article, a three-year-old boy chased a ball into another yard in Hawthorne, California and was attacked. He died 10 days later.
January 4	Alaskan malamute	William Travis Crews	2 years	Killed by his family's 120-pound, 14-month-old dog when he opened a door to let it inside.
February 10	Siberian husky	James Gradecki	1 month	Killed by his grandmother's dog.
February	Siberian husky	Shannon Marie Hicok	27 days	Killed by her parents' friends' dog after being left in a room with the dog.
April	Great Dane	Nicole Klingenbeck	4 weeks	The dog had been given to the family a week before the girl was born. It was always kept outside, but managed to open the door and enter the house before turning over the bassinet and biting the baby on the head.
April 27	Alaskan Malamute	Tonia Chester	3 years	Attacked by her grandfather's dog while playing in the back yard.
December 29	Three Great Danes and a Great Dane-Saint Bernard mix	Kevin Zook	14 years	The dogs chased the boy through a field and bit him until he died.

1981

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
October 25	Doberman pinscher (2)	Ronald Messer	4 years	Killed after he climbed over a fence into a yard where the dogs were kept in a kennel.
?	Mongrel(s)	Mary Logan	81 years	She was killed by several of the dogs she kept in her house in Northern Liberties, a neighborhood in Philadelphia.
?	pit bull	Truston Heart Liddle	6 years	In Kaimuki, Hawaii
December 8	Chow chow	Daniel Thornton	infant	The 45-lb dog bit the sleeping infant.

1982

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
April 19	Saint Bernard mix	Kerry Wezensky	5 years	Douglass Township, Michigan - Victim was attacked by a dog at a house near her home and was dead on arrival at the hospital.
June 11	mixed-breed, "mostly German shepherd"	Roy Emmanuel Hamilton Jr	7 weeks	Warrior, Alabama - The dog jumped through a screened window, still attached to his chain, and attacked the sleeping baby. The dog was put down.
September 19	Coon hound	Paul Zechman	5 years	Westminster, Maryland - Killed by the dog while playing unsupervised in his uncle's back yard. The child was bitten severely around the throat.
October 17	pit bull	Crystal Rose White	2 months	Euclid, Ohio - The baby was mauled, suffering extensive internal injuries from bites to her chest and abdomen. The police shot the dog with a shotgun after the animal warden failed to catch the dog and it was getting more vicious.
November 10	Pack of mixed-breed dogs (14)	Marilyn Thacker	10 years	Paoli, Indiana - Victim was riding her bicycle to her grandparent's house when a pack of dogs attacked and killed her. The owner of the dogs, 72 year old Clifford Bird who took in strays, was indicted by a grand jury and later pled guilty to a criminal recklessness charge and was ordered to pay a $500 fine. The incident sparked a roundup of all stray dogs in the town and 14 of Bird's dogs were put down.

1983

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
February 19	Malamute	Toby Daniel Brown	3 years	Knoxville, TN - The boy was watching TV but wandered outside in his pajamas. Mother found the child dead in the yard with the dog lying next to him. The mother said she'd owned the dog just two weeks and requested it be euthanized.
April 22	Unspecified	(Baby girl) Eichsteadt	~1 week	Wautoma, WI - Father reported that the family dog attacked and killed his newborn daughter.
July 7	pit bull	Sara Delance	5 years	Claremont, CA - Attacked by the family's dog while left with babysitter. The babysitter was unable to stop the dog; police shot it.
September 9	Akita	Stephen Stanley	3 years	Woodlawn, MD - The boy wandered into the basement of his grandparent's house and was attacked by the dog. His mother heard the screams and found him. The dog was euthanized.
October 22	American Pit Bull Terrier (2)	Grace Parsons	67 years	Harper, KS - The woman had long been afraid of her neighbor's dogs in the trailer park where they lived. The dogs were usually kept chained to a post, but the day they attacked they were loose and killed the woman when she bent to pick up a newspaper. One dog had been trained as an attack and guard dog. The dogs' owner was charged with involuntary manslaughter plus two misdemeanor counts of permitting a dangerous animal to run at large.

1984

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
March 3	Siberian husky	Rachel Hernandez	4 years	She was attacked in her front yard by a neighborhood dog that had broken free from its rope.
July	German Shepherd Dog	Daniel Briggs	Unknown	The victim was a burglary suspect and was killed by a single bite to the throat by a police dog.
October 14	pit bull	Coral Robinson	2-months	The baby was mauled to death while she was in her crib.
December 11	pit bull	Daniel Smith	infant	The infant was attacked by a pit bull inside a bedroom.
December 19	English Sheepdog	Gertrude Monroe	87 years	The woman was killed after she fell on the 8-year-old, intact, male dog. The dog, named King Boots, was a prize-winning show dog and rated top dog of his breed by the American Kennel Club.

1985

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
June 23, 1985	Malamute	unknown (boy)	2 years	Fairbanks, Alaska - The toddler was killed by a chained 100lb Malamute chained 300 yards away in a neighbor's lot. The dog bit the child in the throat, and he bled to death. The dog was euthanized the next day.
June 27, 1985	German Shepherd Dog	Melissa O'Rourke	3 years	Cecil, Pennsylvania - Melissa was killed, and her grandmother injured when attacked by the family dog, a 5-year-old male named Lance. The dog bit Melissa in the throat, severing an artery, and attacked her 73-year-old grandmother, Loretta Hennaut, when she tried to rescue the child. The dog was tied in the backyard by a chain that reached to the back door of the house. The dog attacked Melissa on the back porch of the house.

1986

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
January	Feral dogs (8) (with an appearance "similar to pit bull dogs")	Stephen Fiengo	6 years	While playing alone in a field near his home, he was attacked by 8 wild dogs. He died later from infection of his wounds. Although the dogs were reported to be wild, the sheriff's sergeant said they had an appearance "similar to pit bull dogs" and was suspicious that they were involved in dog fighting.
April 9	pit bull	Christopher Dickey	5 years	Mauled by a chained dog.
June 10	pit bull	Kyle Corullo	20 months	Mauled to death by a dog while playing outside his home.
September	Coonhound	Thomas Ebersole	7 years	The boy was trying to free the dog that was tangled in a chain.
October 26	pit bull	Fernando Salazar	3 years	Mauled by the dog, which was chained in a neighbor's yard.
November 21	pit bull (3)	Billy Gordon	4 years	The boy was mauled by three dogs owned by Hayward Turnipseed, who was later sentenced to prison.
December	Husky	Rachel Ann Blevins	3 years	Bitten and scratched to death by the large, female dog her family had acquired 3 weeks earlier.

1987

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
April 6	pit bull (2)	William Eckman	67 years	Two pit bulls mauled Mr. Eckman as he walked past the house where they were being kept.
April 6	pit bull	Melissa Larabee	16-months	The young girl was attacked by the family's pit bull while it was chained in the back yard.
June 13	pit bull	James Soto	30 months	The boy was mauled by neighbor Michael P. Berry's pit bull, which was being used to guard Berry's marijuana crop.
July 4	pit bull	Robert Barbarita	29 years	Mauled by a pit bull while watching fireworks in a park.
September 24	pit bull and German cattle dog	Shannon Tucker	2 years	Mauled to death outside her apartment building. Neighbor and owner of the dogs, Kenneth Ferguson, 32, was arrested.
December 4	pit bull	Brian Lillis	2-weeks	Mauled by the family's pet.

Fatalities in 1988

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
January 20	Labrador Retriever	Megan Stack	2 years	Early in the morning, her father heard her scream and ran downstairs to find the dog biting her head. The dog, "Toby", was 80 pounds, eight years old, and had been their family dog for nine months. She died of several bites to the head and neck. Experts expressed surprise, noting that the breed had been well known for its gentleness and for being good with children.
May 2	Rottweiler	Melissa Boyse	16 months	The dog was usually kept in a cage in the house but was let out by the girl's brother.
September 3	Rottweiler	Cara Rognaldsen	35 days	The baby was found chewed to death after being dragged from her crib by her mother's 100-pound dog. The mother faced criminal charges for the attack in addition to other drug-possession convictions. The dog had a history of also biting the mother, other humans, and attacking other dogs.
September 22	Wolf-husky hybrid	Nathan Carpenter	4 years	Adopted two hours earlier by its third home in a month, the dog escaped a fenced yard and was found by victim's mother who read the phone number on the dog's tags. When she went through her yard gate to go make a call, it ran into her backyard. While inside making the phone call, the mother heard screams; the dog had mortally attacked her son in her backyard. Responders tried to capture the dog and eventually it was shot. Victim died later that day. Panhandle Animal Welfare Society was sued and settled for $425,000.
November 10	pit bull (2)	Kevin B. Cull	25 years	Cull was mauled to death by 2 pit bulls outside a rural home owned by Thomas Kennedy. The pit bulls were described by law enforcement as weighing 75lbs and 90lbs. Neighbors said one was frequently loose but the other was usually tied up and seemed aggressive. Both were finally euthanized. Kennedy was not charged with anything; the local animal control later attempted to create penalties for people whose dogs seriously injured or killed people.
November 12	Mongrel	Douglas Semaken	5 years	Mauled by a chained mongrel while the boy was delivering party invitations.
December 12	pit bull	Amber Haverstock	6-months	The baby was fatally mauled by the family's pit bull.

Fatalities in 1989

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
January	2 male dogs (breed never specified) and 1 female Doberman/Labrador mix	April Loveless	4 years	The child was found badly injured on her family's rural property, covered in scratches and with a deep, fatal wound to one thigh; a large chunk of flesh, including blood vessels and the femoral artery, had been torn out. April died of blood loss at a hospital. Although the parents said they suspected the dogs, police suspected her parents of torturing her to death, and they were convicted in late 1989 of her murder. In 1992, after the couple's new lawyers got access to ER and autopsy photos showing evidence of dogs, their convictions were vacated.
March	Pack of dogs, possibly including a Husky and German Shepherd	Angie Nickerson	5 years	The girl was killed by the roaming pack of neighborhood dogs after she got off the school bus.
May 4	pit bull	Dustin Webb	3 years	Clute, Texas - Victim was attacked by his grandparent's dog while playing in their backyard. A neighbor jumped the fence to rescue the child and struck the dog, which released its grip. The child died at hospital.
July	Chesapeake Bay Retriever	Nelson Bunting	73 years	Autopsy determined he died from bites inflicted by the 4- to 6-year-old dog. The dog, which had belonged to his son, attacked Mr. Bunting's wife earlier that day. It killed Mr. Bunting while the wife was at the hospital being treated for her bites.
October 20	Rottweiler (2)	Hoke Lane Prevette	unknown	Attacked while jogging near his home.
December	German shepherd and possibly a German Shepherd-Chow Chow mix	Alexander Jones	3 years	The dogs were usually kept fenced in behind a storage building but were running free at the time of the attack.

Fatalities in the 1990s

Fatalities in 1990

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
January 21	Siberian husky	Ana Lynn Pagliaro	5 days	New Jersey - The dog pulled the baby from her crib, breaking her neck.
March 1	Manchester Terrier	Sarah Swineford	4 years	Jefferson County, Pennsylvania - On February 27, the girl was bitten on the face while playing with her father's tenant's 60lb dog, described as a Manchester Terrier although this breed does not go over 22lbs. She was brought to the hospital for surgery and her heart stopped during the operation. She died 2 days later from complications of surgery, not directly due to the dog bite.
March 26	German Shepherd	Laurene MacLeod	35 years	West Palm Beach, Florida - A homeless woman was bitten by a police dog that entered a vacant house where she was staying. She died 15 hours later due to blood clotting problems.
June 9	pit bull	Betty Lou Stidham	57 years	Memphis, Tennessee - Mauled to death by two pit bulls owned by her nextdoor neighbor, police officer Edwin Hill. Hill was later sentenced to 2 years in prison for criminally negligent homicide. The dogs mauled their victim for 20 minutes in spite of attempts by witnesses to stop the attack. Arriving police shot and killed the dogs. The dogs had a history of aggression including twice hospitalizing the owner's mother.
June 23	pit bull	Kelsi Provo	2 months	Dolton, Illinois. Newborn infant Kelsi is attacked by her uncle's pit bull/shepherd mix as she lies beside her grandmother on a couch. It bites her on the head, face and upper back. The grandmother pries the pit bull's mouth off the baby. Kelsi dies at a trauma center of a skull fracture and brain injuries.
July 1	pit bull	Jason Lee Wilson	5 years	Seneca, South Carolina - Victim and his mother were visiting friends, and victim was outside playing when the dog killed him. A responding deputy shot and killed the dog when it turned on him.
July 18	pit bull	Tionna Kenny	6 months	Chicago, Illinois - The baby was fatally mauled as she slept in her bedroom. The neighbor (with his dog) was babysitting and could not free the child from his dog's grip.
August 18	Akita	Richard Stitch II	17 months	Bremerton, Washington - Mauled by his 11-year-old dog as he played with another child in their grandfather's home.
November 27	German Shepherd	Kayla Reaves	2 weeks	Fort Myers, Florida - The baby girl was taken from her bassinet and bitten by her father's police K-9 dog. The five-year-old dog was euthanized and the department immediately changed its policy that had allowed officers to bring their K-9 partners home with them. According to U.S. Police Canine Association, this was the first killing of an infant by a police dog.

Fatalities in 1991

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
April 23	Akita	Ishmael Gonzales	8 years	Liberal, Kansas - The 125-150lb dog was one of two Akitas being used to guard a large construction zone in the center of a neighborhood. Ishamel and a friend entered the yard by jumping a 6'7" concrete barrier to retrieve rubber bands they had been shooting at the dogs. The victim went to pet the dog, which didn't react at first, then attacked. The dog had bitten a girl in February, 2 months earlier, who'd reached over the barrier. Owners Vic and Carolyn Huddleston said they would have the dogs euthanized.
September 29	pit bull	Steven Ray "Rocky" Oerther	6 years	Louisville, Kentucky - September 21, victim was attacked by the family pit bull which had been chained in the back yard. He never regained consciousness after surgery.
November 2	Alaskan Husky	David Swaine	3 years	East Amherst, New York - David was playing with two other children in his yard when the 1-year-old dog from across the street attacked him. Victim died of "cuts" to his neck and throat; the other two children were injured with "cuts" to the stomach, back, ear and arm. Responding officers shot and killed the dog.
November 6	Labrador Retriever and 2 mixed-breed Rottweilers	Raymond Joseph Gosh	86 years	Great Falls, South Carolina - Mauled by neighbor Richard Morrison's three dogs. The dogs were destroyed; rabies negative.

Fatalities in 1992

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
February	Rottweiler	Jonathan Christopher Williams	7 years	The boy had found the dog and was leading it through his neighborhood on a leash looking for its owner. He had also taken along his own dog, a Rottweiler-Chow mix. When he was attacked by the lost dog, his own dog reportedly tried to defend him.
February 12	pit bull	Robert Coffman	9-months	Mauled to death by the family's pet pit bull.
February 22	pit bull (2)	Derrick Goree	2 years	The boy was attacked while he was sleeping.
May 9	pit bull	Randall Ayers	2 years	Orlando, Florida - Mauled to death by a neighbor's pit bull that was chained behind a wooden fence, except that there was a hole in the fence. The pit bull was slated to be destroyed.
June 20	Rottweiler	Daniel Worley	6 years	Mauled by the family's pet Rottweiler.
September	pit bull	Angela Kaplan	28 years	Jeffrey David Mann, 35 years old at the time, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for ordering his 70-pound pit bull to attack Kaplan, his girlfriend. It was later determined that Mann had earlier sexually molested the oldest of the two daughters he had with Kaplan along with three of her girlfriends.

Fatalities in 1993

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
May 14	Rottweiler	William Sheppard	2 years	The dog attacked the boy after breaking out of a fenced-in enclosure where it was usually kept. The victim's mother was in the yard at the time of the attack, but was unable to drag the 121-pound dog off her son in time to prevent it from killing him. Neighbors said the dog was frequently allowed out of the kennel to play with local children as long as a parent was present, and no one could recall the dog frightening or attacking anyone before.
December	Alaskan Malamute	Unknown boy	6 years	The boy was bitten on the neck by the chained, 8-month-old dog.
December	Wolfdog	Kevin Michael Lahey	2 years	The boy wandered into a yard where the 120-pound dog was staying with her litter of nine puppies.

Fatalities in 1994

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
January	Rottweiler	Amarillys Torres	2 months	The dog was usually kept chained to a water heater outside the house. She somehow got loose, got into the house, and killed the sleeping baby. The dog was later euthanized along with its four 10-week-old puppies.
February 9	pit bull	Tevin Williams	16 months	Victim and his mother were visiting a friend and her son (as they had done almost weekly for the prior year). The young boys were playing together when the dog, named Rampage, attacked the victim. Both the mother and the dog's owner fought to separate the dog and boy, including stabbing the dog repeatedly. A civil lawsuit against the landlord, who had received multiple complaints about the dog and had a "no pet" policy, was filed, won, appealed, and lost.
September 9	pit bull (2)	Anna Claudio	66 years	Mauled inside her apartment, along with her husband Manuel, by their son's dogs in Bronx, New York. Manuel survived, but he was in stable condition at the Bronx Lebanon Hospital.

Fatalities in 1995

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
January	German shepherd Wolfdog (2)	Unknown	2 years	The boy in South Dakota wandered into a neighbor's yard, where he was attacked and killed by two chained dogs.
April	Rottweiler	Lindsay Shanaman	2 years	Killed by her grandmother's 120-lb dog.
May 19, 1995	Rottweiler mix and at least 11 other dogs	Robert A. Thorpe	11 years	The boy was killed when visiting the trailer where the dogs lived to check on one that he had hit earlier in the day with his go-cart. The boy's father and cousins were accused of burning the trailer where the dogs lived in retaliation.
May	Rottweiler	Kirby Lawrence	2 years	Killed by a chained dog.
September	Chow Chow	Sara Beth Wilkenson	2 weeks	A girl in Pennsylvania was killed in her crib by the family Chow Chow while her parents slept in the next room.
October	Rottweilers (3)	Melton Earl Smith	60 years	Three dogs were implicated in the attack. Little information available.
October 20	pit bull	Walter Feser	75 years	Mauled to death by two dogs while sitting in a wheelchair in his back yard.
November 17	Rottweilers (2)	Alec Balbachan	4 years	The Rottweilers, one male and one female, had rarely left the fenced-in backyard since they were puppies. Alec's uncle came home and let the dogs into the yard, where Alec's 8-year-old cousin and others had regularly played with the dogs in confidence. Alec, visiting from another town, followed his cousin into the yard, and the attack occurred. His grandmother stopped the attack, but not before it caused severe wounds to the head and neck. Alec was found unresponsive by EMTs and taken to intensive care. The dogs were seized and taken into quarantine. The decision to take Alec off life support was made just after noon on Sunday. The dogs were euthanized on Monday. No charges had been filed as of Tuesday.

Fatalities in 1996

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
February	Rottweiler and German Shepherd	Anthony Hunt	4 years	The little boy in Jacksonville, Florida was playing in his backyard when two family dogs killed him.
March	Rottweilers (2)	Unknown	86 years	A woman in Tennessee went outside of her home to check the weather and was fatally mauled by two Rottweilers owned by a neighbor; the dogs had attacked and injured the woman 1 month before the fatal attack.
June	Rottweilers (2)	John Young	8 years	John Young and a group of other boys in Oakland, California found a neighbor's 2 Rottweilers roaming loose, and tried to play with them. The dogs had always been treated like friendly neighborhood pets, roaming freely and appearing safe. The dogs had been playing with a ball. Police say the boys teased the dogs by taking the ball, but fail to explain how that was sufficient provocation for a 5-minute mauling in which the dogs dragged a child 25 feet down a sidewalk and bit him so viciously that he bled to death.
July 4	Rottweiler (1)	Matthew Pedercini	1 year	The boy in Orange, Massachusetts was snatched away from his mother by a 130-lb dog, which was tied up outside at the time. The dog's owner had brought the child out to see the dog, which was tied to a doghouse. The dog, which appeared calm, immediately lunged, biting the child, dragging him away toward the doghouse.
July 10	Rottweiler	Kasandra Duvall	21 months	The dog broke free from its chain before killing the toddler in Springfield, Missouri.
October 31	Rottweiler (5) and Rottweiler mix (1)	Corey Hines	10 years	Six Rottweilers in Lake Wales, Florida escaped from a fenced yard and attacked the boy from behind as he walked into his own front yard. It took 5 adults to drive the dogs off the child. Corey bled to death from bite wounds covering his entire body. Neighbors say the dogs were often loose, and police had records of complaints and a prior bite.

Fatalities in 1997

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
April 24	Rottweiler (3)	Christopher Wilson	11 years	Attacked while trying to get on his school bus in a rural part of Kansas. The Rottweilers crushed the 11-year-old boy's spinal cord, and severed his carotid artery and jugular vein as a bus filled with his classmates watched. The dogs, owned by Sabine and Jeffery Davidson, had been terrorizing the area for years. Sabine Davidson was eventually sentenced to 12 years for involuntary second-degree murder, largely because she had a documented history, testified to at her trial by multiple witnesses, of training her dogs to attack.
April 24	pit bull (2)	Derrick Cole Brandell	4 years	Killed by 2 pit bulls in the backyard of a house where his parents were working. The little boy's parents had been hired by the homeowner to mow their lawn. They were out front, doing the job, when their other son found Derrick covered in blood in the backyard of the house. The pit bulls were euthanized.
July 8	pit bull	Salvatore Biagini	70 years	Mr. Biagini and his dog, a schnauzer named Teddy, were attacked by a pit bull while they were out for a morning walk in Queens, New York. Biagini dragged the pit bull off his dog, screaming "Please help me save my dog!" and tried to restrain the pit bull with his own body as bystanders picked up Teddy. The pit bull attacked Biagini, biting his legs until he collapsed from a fatal heart attack, and then charging the people holding Teddy, forcing them to flee into a nearby diner.
August 14	pit bull	Jonathan Langford	7 years	Jonathan was playing in a friend's yard with his brother when a pit bull attacked him, ripping out his windpipe. The other 2 boys escaped onto a trampoline. Locals described the killer by a regional name, white English Bulldog, which the animal control officer and a local vet described as another name for pit bull. The killer was euthanized.
December	Labrador Retriever (1) and Rottweilers (3)	April Edwards	5 years	April was found dead in her own backyard before dawn on Christmas morning, mauled to death by dogs belonging to her uncle, who lived nearby. The little girl, who was described as developmentally disabled, was bitten over 200 times by her uncle's dogs, which police said had prior complaints.

Fatalities in 1998

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
September 10	Saint Bernard and Mastiff (2)	Jordan Schwarze	8 years	Durham, NC. Jordan went to friend Jessica Crocker's house to play, and was attacked by her family's 3 giant breed dogs, which weighed 170-200lbs each, in the family's backyard. The dogs bit into Jordan's chest at least twice. His friend tried to fight off her family's dogs, putting a ladder over his body to try to stop the attack, while her 14-year-old sister called their mother at work, who then called 911. The girls' father later had the dogs euthanized. Neighbors say the dogs were scary, barking aggressively and attacking the fence when people walked down the street.

Fatalities in 1999

Date	Category of Dog	Victim's name	Victim's age	Circumstances
February 3	Mixed-breed dogs or Labrador retriever-German shepherd mixes (2)	Ellyssa Rhae Peterson	5 years	The Crivitz, WI family had adopted the two dogs after they had been found as strays. The girl was alone with the dogs in the back yard when she was bitten and left with multiple puncture wounds. She died at the hospital that day. The sheriff said that the 50 to 60-lb dogs were not Pit bulls or Rottweilers, but unknown mixed-breeds that looked as if they had Labrador retriever and German shepherd ancestry. Before the attack, the girl and dogs had played together with "no problems". After the attack, the dogs were destroyed and tested negative for rabies.
March	Airedale Terrier	Tyler Dean Teter-Chilton	2 weeks	The child was asleep in bed before his grandparents heard a noise and then found the dog shaking him in its mouth. The family had owned the dog for 9 years.
March	Unclear (see text)	Darrel Roberson	42 years	A newspaper carrier found the man with the two dogs chewing on him. The dogs were never identified or found, but police said they were "relatively sure" they were Rottweilers or Doberman Pinschers.
June 10	Briard (2)	Lore Owens	72 years	Kitsap, WA. Owens had been on an extended visit with her adult daughter, who owned 2 Briards. The fatal attack occurred while Owens was alone in the house with the dogs; her daughter found her conscious, with dog bites all over her body. A paramedic said there was almost nothing left of her arms, describing it as a mutilation. Owens died after being airlifted to a hospital. Her daughter almost immediately authorized the euthanization of the male dog, Mookie, which was claimed in the sheriff's report to be solely responsible.
October	German shepherd mix	Demetrius Marcellus Tucker Jr.	5 days	The boy was bitten by his foster family's dog, 3 days after being placed in their care.

Fatalities between the years 2000 and 2009

Further information: List of fatal dog attacks in the United States (2000s)

Fatalities from year 2010 and later

Further information: Fatal dog attacks in the United States

See also

• Fatal dog attacks in the United States
• Animal attack
• Beware of the dog
• Coyote attack
• Dingo attack
• Dog bite prevention
• Dogs in the United States
• List of wolf attacks
• Wolf attack

In other countries:

• Fatal dog attacks
• Fatal dog attacks in Canada
• Fatal dog attacks in the United Kingdom

References

This article "List of fatal dog attacks in the United States (before 2000)" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:List of fatal dog attacks in the United States (before 2000). Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

📰 Article(s) of the same category(ies)

• Daniel P. Dukes
• List of fatal dog attacks in the United States (2000s)
• List of fatal coyote and wolf attacks in Canada
• American Temperament Test Society
• List of fatal dog attacks in the United States (2014)
• Fatal dog attacks in the United States
• People Who Were Killed in Animal Attacks

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