Roses, whitewash, & a glittery mall can’t hide pit bull pack bloody mayhem

Running-at-large maulings kill three grown adults in two weeks

BALTIMORE, Maryland;  JEREMIAH, Kentucky;  LAWRENCE COUNTY, Alabama–Willard Norton,  84,  was tending his rose bushes in his own front yard on June 2,  2024 in Lawrence County,  Alabama.

Trina Sandlin,  57,  on June 9,  2024 reportedly set out to borrow a bucket of paint from a neighbor.

Sheila Jones,  54,  on June 14,  2024,  apparently just went for an evening walk near the Mondawmin Mall in downtown Baltimore,  as did––separately––a 67-year-old woman and a 42-year-old man,  neither of them known to Jones.

Norton,  Sandlin,  and Jones were all three killed by pit bull packs running at large.

“Everyone,  please stay in your homes.”

The 67-year-old Baltimore woman and the 42-year-old Baltimore man were attacked and mauled by the same pit bulls who killed Jones,  while Baltimore police struggled to catch up with and contain the rampaging pack.

The woman suffered a bite wound to her arm;  the man,  bite injuries to his arm,  leg,  and face.

One of the Baltimore pit bulls was eventually shot and euthanized.  The other was impounded.

“I was in my house and heard the helicopter say,  ‘Everyone, please stay in your homes.’  And then,  the next thing I know,  I saw a lot of flashing lights,”   neighborhood resident Charline Marshall told Barry Simms of WRAL.

“They were trying to kill”

“It is sad,  it’s really sad,”  Marshall continued.  “If you know who the dog belongs to,  they need to be accounted for this murder,”  she emphasized.

Another neighborhood resident,  Melton Montgomery,  told Tony Roberts of the Baltimore Sun that four pit bulls had been running around during the evening,  and all four had collars,  indicating that they were likely owned by someone nearby.

“Police were running for their life,”  Montgomery recounted.

“We saw four dogs,”  Montgomery repeated.  “I was right here, and they were trying to kill.”

“No such thing as a stray pit bull in the Western District”

Matthew Henson Neighborhood Association president Marvin Cheatham,  a 73-year area resident,  told WJZ that at least 30 pit bulls in the vicinity,  “all belong to somebody.  No such thing as a stray pit bull in the Western District,”   Henson insisted.

Two of the four pit bulls and their owner remained unidentified nearly five days later.

The pit bull attacks were scarcely unprecedented within the greater Baltimore area.

Fourteen months earlier and about an hour’s drive west,  two-year-old Blake Bettis was on April 4,  2023 killed by a 145-pound pit bull/mastiff mix at a birthday party for his grandmother,  Kim Russell,  at her home in Brunswick,  Maryland.

(See Pit bulls kill would-be rescuer in Detroit & two-year-old in Maryland.)

            Two hours’ drive straight south,  eight-month-old Jase Fohs was on March 23,  2017 fatally mauled by a pit bull in Lusby,  Maryland.

Just across Baltimore,  James Harding,  62,  was on February 22,  2013 killed by a car on while under attack by two pit bulls.

Humane Society of U.S. & Best Friends undid legislation

Ruling in a liability case,  Tracey v. Solesky,  the Maryland Court of Appeals in April 2007 held that,  “When an attack involves pit bulls,  it is no longer necessary to prove that the particular pit bull or pit bulls are dangerous,”  as a requirement of establishing negligence and therefore economic responsibility on the part of the pit bull keeper,  since the risk that pit bulls might kill or injure people  is widely known.

This precedential ruling,  however,  was overturned in April 2014 by an act of the Maryland House of Delegates.

“Pushing for this with all of our might”

By mid-2019 Humane Society of the U.S. president Kitty Block was “pushing for this with all of our might,”  she boasted,  “along with our coalition partners Best Friends Animal Society,  Humane Rescue Alliance,  and Prince George’s SPCA,”  to undo the last vestiges of breed-specific legislation that might have protected Maryland residents from pit bulls in particular running at large.

No dogs,  of course,  should be allowed to run at large.  But if a pack of beagles,  setters,  pointers,  or golden retrievers running at large has ever killed anyone,  there is no record of it.

Packs of pit bulls running at large,  when Sheila Jones fell,  had killed three people in two weeks.

Trina Sandlin died near notorious cockpit

Trina Sandlin,  the second of the three fatalities,  died alongside Doty Creek in Jeremiah,  Kentucky,  about a dozen miles southeast of where pit bulls running at large killed Corey Godsey,  13,  near Emmalena,  Kentucky,  on February 18,  2020.

The location was also just three miles southwest of a former cockpit at the crossroads hamlet of Isom.

Known as the American Testing Facility or the Whitesburg Chicken Pit,  the cockpit was named in federal grand jury indictments issued on July 20,  2023 for illegal cockfighting and gambling activities.

The cockpit “allegedly had weekly cockfights and featured stadium-style seating;  a main fighting pit and several side pits;  a concession stand;  and an area for selling cockfighting accessories,”  according to Bill Estep of the Lexington Herald Leader.

A longtime target of investigation by Showing Animals Respect & Kindness,  the cockpit was hit by a federal raid on February 25,  2022,  followed by 19 federal indictments altogether.

“RIP Achille’s Lee McIntosh”

Whether Sandlin had anything to do with cockfighting,  or animal fighting of any sort,  is unknown,  but one day before her death Sandlin posted an apparent memorial photograph of a pit bull labeled,  “RIP Achille’s Lee McIntosh.”

What is known is that according to a Kentucky State Police media release,   “Family members [looking for Sandlin after she failed to return to her home as anticipated] located Sandlin near her home over an embankment.”

Sandlin,  who had only recently moved into the rental home,  and had a post office box address in Blackey,  ten miles southwest,  had “suffered injuries consistent with an animal attack,”  the Kentucky State Police said.

Grandson:  “police were too scared to do anything”

Alleged Sandlin’s grandson,  Austin McIntosh,  in a social media posting,  “It was Carlos Bentley’s dogs that killed my grandmother.  The police were called months before this to put his dogs down after they attacked a little boy and he had to be sent to Lexington,”  apparently meaning the Kentucky state penitentiary,  “but the police were too scared to do anything alongside with the dog warden. Now my grandmother Trina Sandlin is dead because of the dogs,”  said to be “pit bulls mixed and starved to death.”

Carlos Ray Bentley,  46,  formerly of Jeremiah in Letcher County,  Kentucky,  is currently serving a five-year prison sentence,  ending on August 11,  2026,  on charges including possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and seven vehicular offenses.

Kentucky priors

Like Sandlin,  Corey Godsey died in an unwitnessed evening pack attack,  and his remains were found dragged off the road,  in that case Montgomery Creek Road.

Godsey was the seventh dog attack pit bull fatality in Kentucky within a fourteen-month span.

Others were:

Lorraine Brock Saylor,  66,  of Arjay,  killed by a pit bull running at large while feeding birds on Christmas Eve 2017.  (See A year in jail for the life of Christmas Eve pit bull victim Lorraine Saylor);

David Brown,  46,  of Owensboro,  killed by a pit bull on February 16,  2018;

Ashton McGhee,  age 1,  of Guthrie,  killed by a pit bull on February 7,  2019.  The pit bull also injured Ashton McGhee’s grandmother and great-grandmother.

Isaiah Geiling,  age 2,  killed by the family pit bull on May 1,  2019,  who had already attacked him once before;

Brian Butler,  46,  of Gilbertsville,  killed by two pit bulls running at large on June 30,  2019;     Steven Thornton III,  age 3,  of Louisville,  killed by a Rottweiler on October 1,  2019.

Willard Norton of Muscle Shoals

Five hundred people reportedly attended the memorial service for Willard Norton,  a retired lifelong employee of Reynolds Metals in Muscle Shoals,  Alabama,   who was survived by his wife of 62 years, Dorothy Norton.

Muscle Shoals is best known for gospel music recording studios.

“One of my favorite memories of Pawpaw was just riding around with him when we were little in his car listening to gospel music,”  recalled granddaughter Abbie Norton to Aria Pons of WAFF.  “He liked to sing,  and it was more of a one-man show when he was in the car.”

But the Norton family were often terrorized by a neighbor’s free-roaming pit bulls,  reported Pons.

Missy & Jonathan Nix

Specifically,  other neighbors alleged to local social media,  pit bulls belonging to sometime backyard dog breeders Missy and Jonathan (also spelled Jonathon) Nix,   said to have earlier killed Willard Norton’s Great Pyranees dog,  menaced his son,  and bitten a female neighbor.

Missy Nix,  who had posted fundraisers for the Villalobos pit bull rescue center,   two days before the fatal attack posted urgently seeking “a new home for a four-year-old blue pittie,”  who “would have to have a six-foot fence” because “she can clear a six-foot fence easily.”

Missy and Jonathan Nix were said to have left for Florida one day after Willard Norton’s death.

“We have to enforce leash laws”

“The Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the Norton family did contact their department a few times about the dogs,”  Pons added.

“We have to enforce the leash laws,”  Lawrence County commission Amard Martin said.

“We have to make sure that we go by the Emily’s law,”  adopted after the December 2017 pit bull mauling death of Emily Mae Colvin.

“And make sure that the animal control has the equipment they need to do their job.  We also have to educate the public also on the things,”  Martin added.

“People don’t know what the laws are”

“A lot of people don’t know what the laws are,  so we need to educate the public on what the laws are and what they can and cannot do.

“There is one full time animal control worker and one part time worker,”  Martin enumerated.  “The community wants more than two for the whole county,  the officers to answer their phones,  and for the shelter to be open fully to the public,  or at all,  for more than eight hours a day.”

Incomplete records currently document only one Alabama death by dog in the 20th century:  Rose Marie Medley,  25,  of Phenix City,  raped and murdered in 1987 by serial killer Curtis Ivey Grantham,  then 36,  and drifter Thomas Judson Poole,  then 46,   who according to testimony set a pit bull on Medley before Grantham slashed her throat.

Both Grantham and Poole appear to be still in prison.

Sixteen Alabamians killed by dogs,  2006-2024

At least sixteen Alabamians have been killed by dogs thus far into the 21st century:

•  Richard Adams,  47,  of Phenix City,  found dead on November 10,  2006,  with “extensive injuries to the head and neck areas,”  according to a sheriff’s deputy who shot a pit bull dead at the scene.

•  Cason Bryant,  age 5,  of Ladonia,  killed on November 16,  2010 by a pack of as many as a dozen “mixed breed” dogs,  many of them believed to be at least part pit bull,  who broke through a fence to attack him.

•  Katie Morrison,  20,  of Smith City,   mauled by a pit bull on April 28,  2014,  dying of her injuries on May 3,  2014.

•  James Derle Patterson,  63,  of Dadeville,  Alabama,  who died on May 7,  2017 from a heart attack after apparently being knocked off a small gasoline-powered scooter and being mauled by two or more pit bulls.

•  Tracy Patterson Cornelius,  46,  killed by four pit bulls on November 29, 2017 in Guntersville,  Alabama,  after rushing to the aid of her friend Valeria Hinojosa,  whose own pit bull the other four had attacked.

•  Emily Mae Colvin,  24,  killed on December 7,  2017 in front of her home in Section,  Alabama,  by a neighbor’s five pit bulls.

            (See Alabama mauling:  “Emily’s Law” fails to protect public from pit bulls.)

Frank Jerome “Red” Cobb,  70,  of Phenix City,  killed by a pit bull on September 21,  2021.  (See Six pit bull-related deaths linked to “The Wickedest City in America.”)

Jacqueline Summer Beard, 58,  of Red Bay,  killed by a pack of free-roaming pit bulls on April 29,  2022.

Michelle Sheeks,  44,  an Alabama Department of Public Health worker who was fatally injured by the same free-roaming pit bulls while investigating the attack on Beard the next day.

Brandy Lee Dowdy,  39,  of Red Bay,  a prominent online pit bull advocate,  was indicted for manslaughter for both deaths by a Franklin County grand jury.  (See Georgia pit bull owner hit with rare criminal charges in mother’s death.)

Joe Cleveland Scott,  73,  of McDonald Chapel,  killed on February 28,  2023 by a six-dog dog pack including pit bull, boxer,  and German shepherd/Malinois mixes.  (See Riverside County, California extends lead in fatal dog attacks.)

Demarcus “Sam” Kenzie II,  27,  of Skipperville,  killed in a July 29,  2023 pack attack by dogs with priors.  (See Pit bull death of 93-year-old woman ends streak of 4 killings of adult men.)

Jonirus Davis,  31,  a Lowndes County sanitation worker,   who on November 1,  2023 fell off and was crushed by a garbage truck while under attack by pit bull.  (See Halloween 2023: three dead by pit bull in 24 hours; U.K. bans XL Bullies.)

Sharon Kaye Billups Portis,  63,  of Birmingham,  killed on November 9,  2023 by a pack of three pit bulls seen at the site.  (See If dogs kill your mama or grandma, don’t expect the law to give a damn.)

Leo Caddel,  three months,  of Chelsea,  attacked on November 30,  2023 in his grandparents’ kitchen with his parents present.  (See Alabama wolf hybrid baby killing: Jack London knew “bastard wolves”.)

Beau Clark,  age four,  killed by a neighbor’s Olde English Bulldogge pit bull variant on February 26,  2024 in Hartselle,  Alabama.  (See “Olde English Bulldogges,” huskies, denial, & avoidable deaths of children.)

Mark Alan Partain,  age two,  of New Hope,  killed on March 1,  2004 by a husky and a German shepherd/golden retriever mix.  (See Four toddlers killed by dogs in 10 days: lessons yet to be learned.)

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