Meals on Wheels driver & second grade teacher also among week’s pit bull death toll
OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma; THOMASVILLE, Georgia; TYLER, Texas––Locklynn McGuire, whose third birthday was to have been on December 12, 2025, 73-year-old retired Duke Energy employee, volunteer firefighter, and Meals on Wheels driver Michael Bodenheimer, and 23-year-old second grade teacher Madison Hull are the latest pit bull fatalities of 2025.
The 2025 toll has already tied the U.S. records for both dog attack fatalities in a year (75) and pit bull attack fatalities (57), with the holiday season, usually a peak time for dog attacks, still ahead.
News anchor struggled to read report
Abigail Ogle, five p.m. television news anchor for KOCO in Oklahoma City, barely managed to hold herself together in reporting Locklynn McGuire’s death.
“Two parents in Oklahoma City have been arrested on complaints of second-degree murder,” Ogle began, “after their two-year-old daughter, Locklynn, was mauled to death by a family dog.”
On November 17, 2025, Ogle continued, “Oklahoma City police were called to the house for a welfare check,” at about 11:30 p.m., “where the girl’s mother reportedly told officers, ‘My daughter got ate by the pit.’ Once inside, police found Locklynn’s body covered in bite marks and other gruesome injuries.
“Officers said the little girl had been locked in a room with the dog,” one of four pit bulls in the home, who killed her.
Same pit bull had previously mauled the victim
“Oklahoma City Animal Welfare removed all four dogs from the home and noted that three appeared to be malnourished,” Ogle added.
“Both parents were taken to the station for interviews, where police said the father stated, ‘I just have a feeling my gut’s telling me I’m going to jail.’”
Posted Ogle to Facebook afterward, “I’m going to keep it simple and stick to the facts… as I couldn’t even get through my 5 p.m. report without emotion. Two-year-old Locklynn was locked in the room with the same dog who had already attacked her in the past. The dog had severed her ear weeks before the deadly encounter.
(Beth Clifton collage & Oklahoma County Detention Center photos.)
“Double lock so the child couldn’t escape”
“The parents told police they kept the dog in their toddler’s room because the dog would kill their other dogs. The door had a double lock so the child couldn’t escape.”
Updated Oklahoma City Free Press founder and editor-in-chief Brett Dickerson, “According to Staff Sergeant Dillon Quirk with the Oklahoma City Police Department, Jordan McGuire, 34, and Darci Lambert, 24, were booked into the Oklahoma County Detention Center and remain in the Oklahoma County jail as of publication.
“Each have had their bond set at $1 million.”
Impounded along with the four pit bulls were reportedly a pet rat and two pet lizards.
Ohio child victim was handcuffed
The death of Locklynn McGuire echoed an August 17, 2024 pit bull attack on a six-year-old boy who had been handcuffed, wrists and feet, at a home in Savannah, Ohio.
The outcome could be similar, as was the offense.
The boy survived his injuries, but his mother, Angelina Williams, on July 3, 2025 was sentenced by Ashtabula County Court of Common Pleas judge David Stimpert to serve a minimum of 19 years and a maximum of 23.5 years in prison.
Williams had in May 2025 pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping, four counts of endangering children, one count of obstructing justice, and one count of possessing criminal tools.
The pit bull was impounded.
Accessories go to prison too
A second adult who was reportedly present during the handcuffing and the pit bull attack, Taylor Desiree Marvin-Brown, 30, was sentenced to serve from 10 to 15 years in prison on the same charges.
The homeowner, Robert Michalski Jr., great uncle of the victim, was convicted on two counts of complicity to commit endangering children and tampering with evidence, but was found not guilty of kidnapping, endangering children, and possessing criminal tools. He was sentenced to serve nine years in prison.
(J.C. Green & Sons photo)
“Beyond possibility of life-saving”
Michael Bodenheimer was found dead from an unwitnessed pack attack at his home in Thomasville, North Carolina, at about 7:30 p.m. on November 18, 2025, approximately 20 hours after Locklynn McGuire was killed.
Bodenheimer was “beyond the possibility of life-saving,” WFMY News reported.
While there were apparently no eyewitnesses, WFMY News reported, there apparently was evidence at the scene sufficient for Davidson County sheriff Richie Simmons to “confirm criminal charges are coming.”
Simmons also said he believed the threat to the neighborhood from the dogs had been reduced, apparently because police shot or impounded the suspect dogs.
Neighbors not reassured
Details were scarce. Neighbors were not reassured by Simmons’ statements, nor by the lack of prompt communication about the case to the community.
“At best, it is neglectful to not go door to door or call. At worst, it’s dangerous,” Rachel Green told WGFP.
“Azure Hensley, who runs the Clover’s Clubhouse cat rescue, first heard about the tragic incident when someone messaged her, initially worried about stray cats possibly being attacked. Soon after, she learned about the victim,” reported Michaela Ratliff and Celeste Smith for Piedmont Triad News.
“It’s concerning to me that people didn’t know,” continued Hensley. “They didn’t know to not let their kids outside to play or anything.”
“I am shattered” says mother of Tyler victim
Madison Hull, of Tyler, Texas, had two pit bulls herself, according to Facebook postings, but was pet-sitting three pit bulls for a friend who was out of town when found dead in the friend’s yard by Smith County sheriff’s deputies at about 4:15 p.m on November 21, 2025.
The first responding deputy shot one of the pit bulls who killed Hull at the scene, reported KLTV digital media staff.
Posted the victim’s mother, Jennifer Hubbell, to Facebook on November 22, 2025, “I am shattered in a way I didn’t know a human being could break.
“To answer a lot of questions,” Hubbell said, “one dog was shot and the other two were taken by animal control and will be euthanized. Madison had been dog sitting for a couple in Tyler and she was familiar with the dogs. She had been around them for a few weeks.
Victim was asked to break up dog fight
“With that being said,” Hubbell continued, “one in particular was very aggressive and temperamental and was the one who was shot.
“I do not know what was different about yesterday,” Hubbell said, “other than the dog’s owner texted Madi and told her the dogs were fighting each other and had gotten out of the house and were in the back yard and [asked] if she could go by and get them back in the house.
“The dogs attacked her and severed her brachial artery, under her arm,” Hubbell detailed. “She was likely gone very quickly.”
Previous Tyler-area fatalities led to attempt to ban pit bulls in Texas
Two previous pit bull attack fatalities within 20 miles of Tyler, both occurring in a 15-day span in 2010, temporarily put momentum behind an unsuccessful effort by retired Tyler district judge Cynthia Stevens Kent to ban pit bull terriers in the state of Texas.
Both fatalities came after Kent in September 2010 won a record $7 million liability award in another local fatal attack case, and after repeated courtroom failures of Lillian’s Law, a “punish the deed not the breed” statute passed by the Texas legislature in 2007.
Kaden Muckleroy, age 2, of Henderson in Rusk County, Texas, was killed on November 10, 2010 while playing on a swing set behind his grandparents’ house when one of 30 to 40 dogs on the premises broke his chain and attacked.
(Garmon Funeral Home photo)
Murder & arson
The pit bull who killed Kaden Muckleroy was a favorite of the victim and had often played with him, his grandmother Nettie Muckleroy told Robyn Claridy of the Longview News-Journal.
The dog originally belonged to the victim’s uncle, Kelvin Muckleroy Jr., 33, but was impounded after Kelvin Muckleroy Jr. was found shot to death in a burning house in nearby Longview in October 2009.
Convicted of murder and arson in the Kelvin Muckleroy Jr. case, Toronto “Trigger” Lockridge received a 45-year prison sentence. An alleged accomplice, Brandon “Bull “ Horne, was charged only with arson, but also was sentenced to serve 45 years in prison.
Kaden Muckleroy’s grandfather, Kelvin Muckleroy, reportedly paid the pound fees to retrieve the dog after Kelvin Muckleroy Jr. was murdered.
Suicide
Kaden Muckleroy’s cousin, Emily Fenison, 18, visited the family after the two-year-old’s pit bull attack death, then hanged herself in Carthage that evening, but Panola County officials said they believed her suicide was for unrelated reasons.
The Muckleroy family surrendered most of their dogs to the Henderson Animal Shelter.
“About a third to half were pit bulls or pit mixes,” said shelter supervisor Ronnie Whittington. “There were some puppies that we were able to save,” Whittington told Tyler Morning Telegraph staff writer Kenneth Dean, but most were euthanized due to conditions allegedly resulting from chronic neglect of their health.
Thanksgiving morning
The other Tyler-area fatality in 2010 came on November 25, Thanksgiving evening.
“Two pit bulls belonging to Kathy Rogers and Michael Miller of Canton escaped from their home and attacked a border collie outside the home of Richard Martratt, 64,” Van Zandt county sheriff Pat Burnett told media.
“Martratt’s mother-in-law Joan Hardin, 78, tried to stop the fight but was knocked down by one of the pit bulls and suffered a head injury,” Burnett said. “Martratt cut that pit bull’s throat with a pocket knife, but the dog bit Hardin’s son Alan Hardin, 50, before dying. As emergency medical personnel arrived to help Joan Hardin, Martratt suffered a fatal heart attack.”
Uncollectable award
Cynthia Stevens Kent, representing bereaved mother Serena Clinton, won the record jury award of $7 million against pit bull terrier owners Rick and Christi George of Leveritt’s Chapel in Rusk County, Texas, for allowing their two dogs to escape and kill skateboarder Justin Clinton, 10, on June 15, 2009.
“However,” Kent wrote in a November 11, 2010 open letter to Texas legislators, “The owners had no home owner’s insurance and our client will likely never see a dime, even toward Justin’s funeral expenses. Not that money could ever bring a dead child back to life, but this fact just added insult to injury to the Clinton family.”
Lillian’s Law
“In 2007 the Texas legislature attempted to address the dog attack problem with Lillian’s Law,” Kent recalled. “However, this legislation has such serious drawbacks that prosecutors often use another portion of the penal code rather than jump through the Lillian’s Law hoops.
Underscoring Kent’s point, Fannin County judge Lauri Blake in January 2010 ruled that Lillian’s Law is unconstitutionally vague, dismissing all charges against one John Hardy Taylor.
Two of four pit bulls whom Hardy was transporting in an open vehicle in August 2008 leaped out to attack an 11-year-old girl and a 44-year-old woman in downtown Bonham, Texas.
Hardy was believed to be the first person to be charged with a felony under Lillian’s Law.
Lillian Stiles & Amber Jones
Despite Blake’s ruling, Lillian’s Law remains the primary prosecutorial tool against dog attacks in Texas, where sentences for dog attacks, even fatal attacks, remain notoriously weak despite an amendment to Lillian’s Law in 2022 that allows prosecuting fatal dog attacks as a second-degree felony.
Lillian’s Law was named after Lillian Stiles, 76, who was killed in November 2005 while working in her garden in Milam County.
The law cleared the Texas legislature and was signed into law by the governor soon after Amber Jones, 10, of San Antonio, freed a neighbor’s pit bull whose collar was caught in a chain link fence and was killed by the dog seconds later.
Kenneth Phillips predicted Lillian’s Law would fail
California dog law attorney Kenneth Phillips predicted when Lillian’s Law passed that it would prove ineffective both in preventing dog attacks and in winning felony convictions after severe attacks occur.
Phillips was right: of the 81 fatal dog attacks occurring in Texas since Lillian’s Law took effect, fewer than half a dozen are known to have resulted in felony convictions.
“Lillian’s Law increases the jail time for owners who fail to reasonably secure their dogs, resulting in serious bodily injury or death,” explained Phillips, but does “absolutely nothing for victims, who have to pay their own medical bills, receive nothing to minimize the effect of their scars, and are not compensated for pain, suffering, lost income, loss of earning capacity, disability or anything else,” Phillips posted to his web site www.dogbitelaw.com.
“Three glaring errors”
“There are three glaring errors in Lillian’s Law,” Phillips continued. “The first one preserves the defense that enabled Jose Hernandez to escape conviction for the death of Lillian Stiles herself. Conviction is not possible unless there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the dog owner knew or should have known that his dog was going to cause death or severe bodily injury.
“In the Lillian Stiles case, Hernandez convinced the jury that he did not have the necessary culpability because he was unaware that his six pit bull/Rottweiler mixes were dangerous.”
(Daniel Leventhal photo)
“Secondly,” Phillips said, “Lillian’s Law deals only with a dog running at large, or a dangerous dog who is not confined. If one of those conditions are not met, the law does not apply.
Finally, Phillips said, “Lillian’s Law requires proof that the dog already had ‘one free bite.’”
Please donate to support our work:
More related posts:
Discover more from Animals 24-7
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
