Dec. 5 (UPI) — The bodies of a 50-year-old man and a 3-month-old infant were found with bite wounds at a home in Tullahoma, Tenn., on Wednesday, but investigators are unsure if pitbulls killed them.
The Coffee County Communications Center received a call at 3 p.m. CST on Wednesday reporting what appeared to be an attack by pitbulls at a home on the 900 block of E. Warren Street, WSMV reported.
Responding officers found pitbulls mauling the infant’s body, shot them to end the attack and confirmed James Smith and his granddaughter had died.
“This is an especially difficult and brutal scene,” District Attorney General Craig Northcott said in a prepared statement.
“Please pray for the family of the victims in this difficult time, as well as the first responders, as they cope with the trauma from what they witnessed.”
Investigators are unsure of whether Smith and his granddaughter had died before the pitbulls began mauling them and are working to determine their causes of death, according to NBC News.
Neighbor Brian Kirby saw a woman screaming while in the middle of the road when he returned home from work and asked if she needed help, WKRN reported.
She didn’t answer and instead ran back into the home, and Kirby said he heard sirens seconds later.
Kirby said he never saw the dog acting violently against people, but they had been violent with other animals.
One or more killed his cat, and he intended to file a police report regarding the matter a week ago.
“I don’t believe that they thought this would ever happen,” he said. “They just need to put them on a leash better.”
Kirby said the family is “devastated,” and “it’s just hard to understand and wrap your head around it.”
Northcutt has not determined if criminal charges would be filed and said the dogs were staying at the home that is located about 75 miles southeast of Nashville, but it’s unknown who owns them.
He did not say how many dogs were at the home or if they all were pitbulls, but those that were not killed were taken by Coffee County Animal Control.
A 2013 incident in Littlerock, Calif., resulted in Alex Donald Jackson, 31, being sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for second-degree murder after four of his eight dogs attacked and killed 63-year-old PamelaDevitt as she walked near her home on May 9, 2013.