Charged with manslaughter in the 2019 case, fiancé Christophe Ellul is expected to receive light sentence
SOISSONS, France––The legal outcome of the most publicized pit bull attack ever, the November 16, 2019 dismemberment death of 29-year-old Elisa Pilarski, six months pregnant at the time, will for her fiancé and manslaughter defendant Christophe Ellul, 51, remain in suspense until 2:00 p.m. on June 11, 2026.
Ellul on that date is due back in court for the verdict and sentencing, following a three-day trial underway from March 3 to March 5, 2026 and more than three months of scheduled judicial deliberation.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Prosecutor seeks four years suspended, no guns, plus euthanasia of killer pit bull
Prosecutor Laureydane Ortuno in her final summation of the case requested a four-year suspended prison sentence for Ellul for involuntary manslaughter, a fraction of the potential maximum of five to ten years imprisonment; that Ellul be barred from possession of weapons for five years; and that Ellul’s illegally imported pit bull Curtis, who killed Pilarski, be euthanized.
Impounded for approaching seven years, Curtis remains highly dangerous, Ortuno told the court.
“Because this dog is still dangerous today, I don’t see how I cannot request Curtis’s euthanasia,” Ortuno said, maintaining that Curtis should have been euthanized much sooner.
Cries for the pit bull
At that, “Christophe Ellul collapsed in tears on the defendant’s bench,” reported Jean-Philippe Deniau for Radio France.
“Curtis was a weapon and you chambered it,” Ortuno said, addressing Ellul directly,
“I don’t know exactly what happened,” Ortuno continued, “but I am convinced that from the beginning, you did everything you could to exonerate Curtis,” by removing him from the scene of the fatal attack in the Retz Forest and until the second day of the trial blaming the attack on a pack of 21 Poitevin hounds, from among 62 of the rare hounds kept by the Paris-based Le Rallye de la Passion hunting club.
The hounds were released into the Retz Forest to hunt deer ahead of club members on horseback, among them the local chief of police.
But there is no record of Poitevin hounds ever killing a human, and the hounds were released about half an hour to an hour after forensic examination indicated that Pilarski died.
DNA convicts Curtis
Neither was DNA from any of the 62 Rallye de la Passion hounds, nor from any of Ellul’s four other pit bulls, found on Pilarski’s remains, torn apart by forensically identified 56 bites.
Two court-appointed veterinarians testified that Curtis was “the only author of the bites that caused the death,” adding that the attack was the result of “unnatural” training, ostensibly for competition in weight-pulling, climbing, and conformation, which “shaped in Curtis a behavior of predation diverted from purpose.”
Defense attorney Alexandre Novion concluded the trial by arguing that Ellul should be acquitted of all criminal culpability, despite Ellul having acknowledged on the second day of the trial that Curtis did in fact kill Pilarski.
“I gained access to the truth”
“On the second day of his trial,” said BMF-TV, “Christophe Ellul broke down,” admitting “proof that he [Curtis] is guilty”
Testified Ellul, “I gained access to the truth.”
“Guillaume Demarcq,” the Rallye de la Passion lawyer, “then pointed out that the case had remained unchanged for years,” BMF-TV continued.
“With everything that has happened, forgive me for having doubted it,” Ellul replied. “I wanted to get to the truth, and today, apparently, I have found it.”
“What is the truth?” asked the judge of Ellul.
“It can only be Curtis,” Ellul acknowledged. “Today, I think we have the evidence.”
Denied confession
Yet, “On the final day of his trial,” recounted Deniau of Radio France, “Christophe Ellul maintained that he had ‘not confessed’ to any criminal offense by acknowledging that his pit bull was ‘guilty,’” despite he and Pilarski having trained Curtis to attack, as videos admitted in evidence demonstrated.
“Christophe Ellul discovered Elisa Pilarski’s body, covered in dog bites,” Deniau summarized. “The numerous bites on the victim’s body, particularly on the head and neck, corresponded to the physical characteristics of a pit bull.
“The dog’s DNA was also found on Elisa Pilarski’s scalp, and her DNA was found in several places on Curtis’s body, notably on his upper right lip.”
Reported the French financial newspaper Bourse Direct, “The animal protection association Les Amis de Sam (Friends of Sam), a civil party in the case, has offered to take Curtis in, to prevent him from being euthanized. The association believes he could be rehabilitated and thus cease to be dangerous.”
Curtis’ pedigree
Beth Clifton of ANIMALS 24-7 discovered the details of Curtis’ origins, initially published on November 25, 2019.
(See Pit bull or hunting hounds? Who killed Elisa Pilarski & unborn child Enzo?)
Both Curtis and Drago, another of Ellul’s pit bulls, ANIMALS 24-7 reported, are pedigreed two-year-old American pit bull terriers apparently bred by Sharon De Wit of Hitam Kennel in the Netherlands.
Pedigree papers indicate that Curtis, originally named Dark Midnight, is descended in part from a pit bull named “Garner’s Biscuit,” produced in 2014 by North Carolina breeder Tom Garner.
As pit bulls are banned in France, Curtis was imported from the Netherlands to France using paperwork misidentifying Curtis as a 34-pound Patterdale/whippet mix, not a pit bull of nearly twice that size.
Injured Ellul & volunteer while impounded
Curtis, as of November 2020, the last report of his whereabouts known to ANIMALS 24-7, was housed under guard at a shelter in Haut-Garonnais, at request of Ellul.
Initially impounded at the Clara Foundation in Beauvais, Oise, sixty miles west of where Pilarski died, Curtis was transferred after injuring a female volunteer who was escorting him to visit the Clara Foundation veterinarian.
Curtis also injured Ellul himself at the police station that first investigated the attack on Pilarski. The attack on the Clara Foundation volunteer came four days later.
(See Pit bull suspected of killing Elisa Pilarski struck twice more in five days.)
Vermont fatality is 18th of year in U.S.
Pit bull fatalities continue to come in the U.S. at a record pace, including most recently the March 10, 2026 death of Stephen G. Campbell, 76, killed by his daughter Jana Campbell’s pit bull Jack, who had mauled two other people in separate incidents during the preceding eight months.
Campbell was the 18th U.S. dog attack fatality of 2026, and the 13th confirmed pit bull victim, with the attacking dogs in four other cases still officially unidentified.
Fatal pit bull attacks are also coming at a rapid pace abroad.
New Zealand fatality
Mihiata Te Rore, 62, on February 17, 2026 became the eighth New Zealand dog attack fatality investigated by a coroner’s inquest since 2021, and the “third person to be killed by dogs in Northland in the past four years, sparking calls for more to be done by local and central government to deal with the growing problem,” reported Finn Blackwell for Radio New Zealand.
The three dogs believed to pit bulls attacked Mihiata Te Rore while she was visiting a friend.
“Kaipara District Council said the property where Mihiata Te Rore was mauled to death had been visited by animal control officers four times, including the day before the attack,” Blackwell said, after the same dogs chased two bicyclists.
The dogs were euthanized, police detective senior sergeant Shane Pilmer told media.
In New Zealand, a nation of only 5.2 human residents, each human dog attack death is proportionate to 64 deaths in the U.S., which before 2023 would have been a U.S. record toll.
“The attacks have sparked calls for an overhaul of the Dog Control Act,” 1News New Zealand said.
“Auckland Council general manager of licensing and compliance Robert Irvine said the council had been calling for change for almost a year.
The New Zealand Dog Control Act was last updated nearly 30 years ago.
German man killed by his own pit bull
A 33-year-old was man “discovered lifeless in a roadside ditch,” in Lohne, Germany on January 8, 2026, “after being mauled to death by his own American Bulldog,” who then guarded the man’s remains, Benedict Tetzlaff-Deas reported for The Mirror.
An “American Bulldog” is a common pit bull variant, also known as an XL Bully.
“A postmortem found injuries consistent with a dog attack, and investigators now believe the man’s own pet was responsible,” Tetzlaff-Deas wrote.
At least 33 people have been killed by dogs in Germany since 1995, 14 by pit bull, 9 by Rottweiler.
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Business as usual. Absolutely disgusting.
Sharing with gratitude.
These cases are heartbreaking for both humans and dogs. No one wins.
It is good to know that at the very least some countries are outlawing this breed.
I do not know what it will take before we in this country decide as a society that death by dog is not acceptable!
As an advocate for animals wild, farmed and domestic, who has always had a special love of canines and been the proud guardian of three precious creatures, I have, nonetheless not closed my mind to the perils of keeping such a breed as a ‘pet’ and, after learning of these horrendous attacks have come to believe that they should be ‘grandfathered out’ They should be spayed/ neutered until they are erased as a welcome breed.
And, I do understand how those who benefit from their capacity to attack financially benefit from that unconscionable trait and will fiercely hold on to their ownership rights and that some persons who favor them live in more socially deprived areas.
I also understand that there are other breeds that are also ‘bite’ suspect. But, all things considered, the time is far from past that this slaughter of persons and other animals be legally ended. Thank you for this deeply discomforting expose.