An Ohio grandmother was mauled to death by her neighbor’s pit bulls — which were later found to have been high on cocaine, according to a lawsuit.
JoAnn Echelbarger, 73, was “peacefully gardening” in October when she was ripped apart by the pit bulls, Echo and Apollo, freely roaming her Ashton condominium’s common areas, according to court documents.
Her husband, Stanley — who suffers from dementia and was in a wheelchair — watched helplessly as his wife was mauled for several minutes while “screaming for her life,” according to the complaint, which said one dog continued the attack even after cops opened fire to try to stop them.
“She did not deserve this. She was tortured, and she suffered,” Echelbarger’s daughter Earlene Romine told ABC 6.
“This is not what you expect your parent to go through. This is not what you expect to happen to anyone you love.”
The dogs both later tested positive for cocaine, according to the court filing. Their owners, Adam Withers and his mother, Susan, were both convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with Echelbarger’s death last month, court records show.
“How do you not look at them as a villain responsible for killing your mom?” the dead woman’s son, Bill Rogers, told ABC 6.
The family is suing the owners as well as their mother’s condominium association and the county dog warden, accusing them of negligence and failing to act on several red flags about the Witherses and their dogs’ behavior.
That included police body camera footage showing officers responding to reports that Echo and Apollo had ingested Adam Withers’ cocaine just weeks before the horrifying deadly attack, the lawsuit claimed.
The officers expressed frustration that the dog warden was unresponsive, according to the filing.
The pit bulls were allowed to live at the condominium even after the Witherses failed to comply with an order to get them out, the lawsuit claims.
Instead, Adam Withers taunted building management, the lawsuit alleged, citing social media posts, including one saying that “humans are the problem.”
“Never ask a pitbull owner to choose between you and their pitbulls. Because they will choose, and it won’t be you,” one Facebook post read.
“It’s reckless,” Rogers told the outlet.
“I feel like they were gambling with a lot of people’s lives that day, and she was the one who paid the price,” he said.
The wrongful death suit seeks compensatory damages exceeding $25,000 along with punitive damages.
“We are looking for justice,” said Rex Elliot, the family’s attorney, saying that local authorities “had a responsibility to take … those dogs out of there.”
