Four new pit bull fatalities under investigation in Colorado, Hawaii, Alabama & Florida
CINCINNATI, Ohio––Warren Houston, 45, whose three pit bulls on December 27, 2024 killed his biological daughter, three-year-old Kingsley Renee Wright, was on February 11, 2025 indicted by a Hamilton County grand jury for involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, and endangering children.
Wright was on her first overnight visit to the Houston home in the Roselawn district on the north side of Cincinnati, Ohio.
A family member told ANIMALS 24-7 on January 9, 2025 that Houston only learned he was Wright’s father in September 2024.
Houston to that point had not been identified in media coverage and online accounts by multiple friends and family members.
“She’s completely torn apart”
“According to 911 call recordings and police documents,” wrote Quinlan Bentley and David Ferrara for the February 12, 2025 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer, Houston “called Cincinnati police at 7:50 a.m., just after he reported waking up. He said he walked into the living room and found Kingsley lying dead on the floor.”
“She’s completely tore apart,” Houston told the dispatcher.
“After giving his daughter’s description to the dispatcher,” Bentley and Ferrara resumed, “who told him to put away any pets in the home before officers arrived, Kingsley’s father said they had terriers, and that the dogs were already in their cages.
“He told the dispatcher that there was one other person in the apartment and they woke up at the same time,” Bentley and Ferrara recounted. “Houston said there did not appear to be a break-in because the front door to the apartment was locked.”
“I don’t understand what went on”
Claimed Houston to the dispatcher, “I don’t understand what went on,” Houston said.
Finished Bentley and Ferrara, “Houston was not listed as an inmate at the Hamilton County Justice Center as of Wednesday morning. It is currently unclear when he will make his first court appearance.”
Two days after Wright was killed, a poster to the Facebook page of WLWT television in Cincinnati who identified herself as “Nicky Lane,” from Lebanon, Tennessee, said “He is in jail,” apparently meaning Houston, but did not specify who “he” was, or cite a source for the information. No arrest associated with the fatal attack on Kingsley Wright had been reported.
(See Pit bull victim Kingsley Wright, age 3, was 70th dog attack death of 2024.)
Killed in her flower bed
In Circleville, 106 miles northeast across Ohio on I-71, son and mother Adam and Susan Withers, ages 35 and 61, are as of the evening of February 12, 2025 awaiting a jury verdict on charges of involuntary manslaughter and owning a dangerous dog, brought against them after the Withers’ two pit bulls killed neighbor JoAnn Echelbarger in her flower bed on October 17, 2024.
One of the pit bulls was shot by the first responding police officer, in order for him to approach Echelbarger. The other pit bull ran away, killed another dog near Teays Valley East Middle School, menacing the owner, and was finally run over by a Pickway County Sheriff’s Office deputy, but survived until shot by the deputy “in the vicinity of a park and another residence, which included a dog outside in the yard,” according to an Ashville Police Department media statement.
Claimed killer pit bulls were “service dogs”
Between September 8, 2020 and January 2024, reported Adam Conn for WCMH in Columbus, Ohio, “Susan and Adam Withers received as many as seven warnings from their home owners’ association, or lawyers representing The Reserve at Ashton Village, in Ashville.”
One of the warnings, Conn detailed, came after the pit bulls killed another dog.
Despite the Withers’ contention that the pit bulls were “service dogs,” a Pickaway County Court of Common Pleas judge on September 11, 2024 ordered that both pit bulls be removed “immediately and permanently.”
The two pit bulls killed Echelbarger five weeks later.
Charged twice, got one slap on the wrist
“Adam Withers has previously been charged with owning a dangerous dog twice, facing two counts in May 2024 and one count in December. 2023,” Conn continued.
“He was also charged with owning an unconfined dog in October 2023. The dangerous dog charges were dismissed in court, with prosecutors citing insufficient evidence, while the defendant paid a fine for the unconfined dog charge and waived his right to a trial.
“Susan Withers,” Conn said, “had no prior charges related to dog ownership.”
Ada Delores Woolverton
Police in at least five other communities are still investigating recent dog attack fatalities, four of them occurring since January 28, 2025, all involving pit bulls, who at this writing have inflicted all 16 of the 16 most recent dog attack deaths.
The multiple dogs responsible for the December 18, 2024 death of Ada Delores Woolverton, 88, fatally mauled in her own yard at the edge of Rockdale, Texas, have not yet been publicly identified.
Neighbors alleged on social media that the dogs all belonged to a neighbor and were running at large.
The location is about 2,000 feet by road from the Rockdale Dog Shelter & Dog Park, suggesting the possibility of dumped dogs or runaways having attacked Woolverton, who for more than 35 years was a medication assistant at a local nursing home.
The Milam County Sheriff’s Office said only that, “Deputies responded to a residence in the 500 block of Beverly Drive and discovered her body,” but another neighbor specified in a social media comment that the dogs came from 523 Beverly Drive.
The listed resident at 523 Beverly Drive, Larry Joe Jackson, 64, appears on multiple lists of registered sex offenders.
The dogs allegedly responsible were reportedly rounded up and euthanized.
Eight-year-old in Hawaii
Police in Wahiawa, Hawaii have likewise been quiet about a January 28, 2025 fatal pit bull attack on a yet to be publicly identified eight-year-old boy, described as having “intellectual disabilities.”
The death was announced five days later.
“According to Honolulu police, the incident happened just after 11 a.m. at a home in the 100 block of Ohai Street,” reported Allyson Blair for Hawaii News Now.
“Law enforcement sources told HNN Investigates the attack was captured on a home surveillance system,” Blair continued.
“We’re told the child appeared to be alone, unattended, in a neighbor’s yard when he was mauled by a large dog who was on a chain.
“When help arrived, the boy didn’t have a pulse. First responders managed to revive him and rushed him to the hospital with severe injuries to his head and neck,” Blair finished.
ANIMALS 24-7 was able to identify the building to which police responded, a multi-residence dwelling with frequent turnover of occupants, in a neighborhood of multiple occupancy dwellings, but could not establish the exact address of the victim.
LaVonne Hoff
“The Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office is continuing an investigation into the death of 76-year-old LaVonne Hoff, found dead in a Colorado City residence on February 3, 2025,” reported Ashleigh Quintana for KOAA in Colorado Springs, Colorado, four days later.
“Inside the residence,” Quintana said, “police found ‘several dogs loose inside the home along with at least a dozen more dogs in cages,’” who were impounded “by the Sheriff’s Office in collaboration with Animal Law Enforcement.”
The Sheriff’s Office “worked with Animal Law Enforcement to seize numerous dogs from the home and a related property,” according to the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office in an official statement.
“Dragged to the ground”
Updated Brianna Leonard for KKTV 11 News at Noon on February 11, 2025, “Police said they determined that the dog owner had been dragged to the ground by two pit bulls.
“Police said one of the dogs was still ‘extremely’ aggressive and not fully secured by her harness.
“Police said they later discovered that a neighbor attempted to help the owner during the dogfight and was bitten on the hand,” Leonard relayed.
“One person was taken to the hospital and both dogs were secured by the Humane Society of Pikes Peak Region, according to police,” Leonard finished.
Disbarred & rapped for unlicensed shelter
LaVonne Hoff appears to have shared the Colorado City address and several others in recent years with her daughter, former bankruptcy attorney Jessica Lee Hoff, 47.
According to court records, “In May 2022, the State Bar of Texas disbarred Hoff for engaging in professional misconduct. The discipline was effective on May 23, 2022. Hoff did not alert Colorado disciplinary authorities about her Texas disbarment.”
On August 4, 2022, Jessica Hoff was “arrested by the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office on a U.S. Marshal Hold.”
On April 27, 2023, Jessica Hoff was disbarred in Colorado for “reciprocal discipline, which calls for imposition of the same discipline as that imposed in Texas.”
On January 23, 2024, the Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture won a temporary restraining order against Jessica Hoff, enjoining her from operating “an unlicensed pet animal shelter or sanctuary by harboring, sheltering, or otherwise possessing more than fifteen dogs, cats, or combination thereof, in a central location, without a Colorado Pet Care & Animal Facilities Act permit.
Further developments in the LaVonne Hoff death case are anticipated.
Amanda Hutchins-Born
Amanda Hutchins-Born, 46, appears to have been the victim of a February 6, 2025 fatal mauling on Boyd Road near Echols, Alabama, reportedly “while feeding a pack of dogs as their owner was out of town.”
While her name was not released, her age, date of death, and location of death match.
The Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, NorthStar Emergency Medical Services, and the Echola Volunteer Fire Department all responded to a 911 call circa 9:00 a.m. about the pack attacking a woman in front of a property in the 13000 block of rural Boyd Road, Captain Jack Kennedy of the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit told media.
“The mauling occurred in the yard and on the property that the dogs belonged to. The woman came to the residence to feed the dogs for the owner who was out of town, Kennedy said,” wrote Jasmine Hollie for the Tuscaloosa News.
“Respect” as cover-up
“He said the woman’s death appears to be a non-criminal incident and out of respect for the woman’s family, no other details will be released,” Hollie added.
A search of NewspaperArchive.com indicates that the phrase “out of respect for the family,” in multiple variants involving names of deceased persons not being released, was occasionally used in reports of suicides between 1880 and 1924, but dropped out of print thereafter until 2011, when it abruptly and frequently reappeared in accounts of dog attack deaths––mostly pit bull attack deaths involving family members.
“The Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit conducted an investigation at the scene. They discovered that the dogs belonged to the residence, where the woman was visiting to feed the animals while their owner was out of town, police said,” according to multiple media accounts.
Acquaintances of the victim posted to Facebook that the victim had been visiting the property for as long as a year to feed the dogs.
victim in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
(Taren Finnen Channell Facebook photo)
“Momma dog was a pit mix”
Offered Hannah Clements Shirley on Facebook, “I live right beside this place and momma dog was a pit mix. The puppies, maybe a few years old, were pit mixed with many other things. Those dogs were starving and freezing when it was cold!
“I watched them attack and kill one of their own or someone else’s dog,” Shirley said. “I did report it to the sheriff office. I told them that day, January 20, 2025, they were going to kill somebody. I also can’t tell you how many I’ve seen hit and killed by cars!
“I saw the cop who came out the day I called,” Shirley added. “He sprayed his pepper spray to keep them back and it didn’t faze them.
Renona Ewing was killed by her own pit bull 36 miles north
“Eight to 10 dogs in a pack like they were is not a good situation,” Shirley continued. “No interaction with people at all besides when someone fed them. And we don’t know how often they were being fed.”
Added Taren Finnen Channell, posting a photo, “They’ve been roaming all hunting season and have come 10 miles from Boyd road. We have them on our hunting cameras.”
Identifying herself as “with Amanda Hutchins-Born,” her sister Lisa Hope posted to Facebook that, “Our sweet Sister was called home today where her body will forever be whole.”
Thirty=six miles north of the Boyd Road fatality, in the same county, dog breeder Renona Ewing, 62, was killed in a pen on July 11, 2024, by her own “Bully XL” pit bull.
Michael Arthur Fabjon, Jr.
Michael Arthur Fabjon, Jr., 49, of Panama City, subject of the most recent fatal pit bull attack fatality under current police investigation, died on February 9, 2025, five days after he was mauled outside his home by a pit bull named Gunner, belonging to neighbor Brendan Murphy.
Murphy “was initially charged with resisting arrest without violence, and obstruction, for blocking animal control officers from entering his home. The Bay County Sheriff’s Office says they are not pursuing any other charges against Murphy,” reported Grace Velez for WMBB television of Panama City.
“Fabjon spent five days in Ascension Sacred Heart Bay’s intensive care unit. His mother has retained Panama City attorney Zachary Taylor with the Manuel & Thompson law firm,” Velez said, “in what is now a wrongful death claim.”
“A fight broke out”
Fabjon was outside with his dog, also a pit bull, talking to a female neighbor, according to the Bay County Sheriff’s Office incident report, when “a fight broke out” between Fabjon’s pit bull and Murphy’s pit bull Gunner.
Gunner attacked Fabjon after Fabjon and Murphy intervened in the fight. Murphy reportedly contended that Fabjon was fatally attacked by his own pit bull, but Gunner was subsequently euthanized.
Rap sheets
Both pit bulls and both Fabjon and Murphy had priors.
The pit bulls’ history was acknowledged but not released by the Bay County Sheriff’s Office.
Murphy pleaded “no contest” and was convicted on January 3, 2025 after punching a man in the face during a New Year’s Eve bar fight.
Fabjon, at age 27 in 2003, was charged with possession of cocaine, marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
On June 23, 2024, Fabjon was booked for “possession of weapon or ammo by convicted Florida felon.”
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