In 2015, 22-year-old Rebecca Hardy resided in a modest home in Port Huron Michigan with her boyfriend Matthew Grattan and their 18-month-old daughter Molly. Port Huron is a small Canadian border town located 60 miles northeast of Detroit.
On Thursday afternoon, December 3, 2015, Rebecca Hardy stormed out of her house following an argument with her boyfriend. In the backyard of another house in the neighborhood she took off her shoes and climbed over a fence that kept the owner's two dogs confined to his property. The dogs, a pit bull and a pit bull-husky mix, immediately set upon the intruder.
The dogs knocked Rebecca Hardy to the ground and attacked her neck and face. A local resident witnessed the mauling and tried but failed to call the dogs off. Eventually the dogs' owner responded to the attack and subdued his pets. By then the dogs had severely injured the woman who had climbed into their yard.
Paramedics rushed the severely bitten Hardy to the Lake Huron Medical Center from where she was airlifted to the Beaumont Hospital for emergency surgery. That evening Rebecca Hardy died from her injuries.
The dogs who attacked Hardy were gathered up by animal control personnel and euthanized the next day. The local prosecutor, following a police investigation, declined to file criminal charges against the dogs' owner.
On Wednesday, December 9, 2015, Dr. Ljubisa Dragovic, the Chief Medical Examiner of Oakland County, ruled the manner of Rebecca Hardy's death as suicide. In his report, Dr. Dragovic wrote: "These were attack dogs. They were vicious dogs in an enclosed space. She [Hardy] obviously was aware of that because she climbed over the fence to subject herself to this threat." According to the medical examiner Rebecca Hardy recently attempted suicide after being thrown out of her house.
Following Rebecca Hardy's gruesome and fatal mauling, Matthew Grattan, her boyfriend and the father of her child, told a local reporter that he disputed the medical examiner's suicide ruling. "I, in no way, shape or form believe that she was looking to hurt herself on that day. She had a little girl. She wanted us to be a family."
Rebecca Hardy's mother, Terressa Engel, was reported as saying this about her daughter's bizarre death: "I just don't understand how being mauled to death is suicide. They must have a new term for suicide."
Absent suicide, Rebecca Hardy's fate would have been classified as either an accident or a homicide. Her boyfriend, Matthew Grattan, did not offer an alternative theory as to the manner of her death.
In January 2016 Dr. Dragovic released the toxicology report that revealed that Rebecca Hardy had alcohol, marijuana and cocaine in her system at the time of her death.
On Thursday afternoon, December 3, 2015, Rebecca Hardy stormed out of her house following an argument with her boyfriend. In the backyard of another house in the neighborhood she took off her shoes and climbed over a fence that kept the owner's two dogs confined to his property. The dogs, a pit bull and a pit bull-husky mix, immediately set upon the intruder.
The dogs knocked Rebecca Hardy to the ground and attacked her neck and face. A local resident witnessed the mauling and tried but failed to call the dogs off. Eventually the dogs' owner responded to the attack and subdued his pets. By then the dogs had severely injured the woman who had climbed into their yard.
Paramedics rushed the severely bitten Hardy to the Lake Huron Medical Center from where she was airlifted to the Beaumont Hospital for emergency surgery. That evening Rebecca Hardy died from her injuries.
The dogs who attacked Hardy were gathered up by animal control personnel and euthanized the next day. The local prosecutor, following a police investigation, declined to file criminal charges against the dogs' owner.
On Wednesday, December 9, 2015, Dr. Ljubisa Dragovic, the Chief Medical Examiner of Oakland County, ruled the manner of Rebecca Hardy's death as suicide. In his report, Dr. Dragovic wrote: "These were attack dogs. They were vicious dogs in an enclosed space. She [Hardy] obviously was aware of that because she climbed over the fence to subject herself to this threat." According to the medical examiner Rebecca Hardy recently attempted suicide after being thrown out of her house.
Following Rebecca Hardy's gruesome and fatal mauling, Matthew Grattan, her boyfriend and the father of her child, told a local reporter that he disputed the medical examiner's suicide ruling. "I, in no way, shape or form believe that she was looking to hurt herself on that day. She had a little girl. She wanted us to be a family."
Rebecca Hardy's mother, Terressa Engel, was reported as saying this about her daughter's bizarre death: "I just don't understand how being mauled to death is suicide. They must have a new term for suicide."
Absent suicide, Rebecca Hardy's fate would have been classified as either an accident or a homicide. Her boyfriend, Matthew Grattan, did not offer an alternative theory as to the manner of her death.
In January 2016 Dr. Dragovic released the toxicology report that revealed that Rebecca Hardy had alcohol, marijuana and cocaine in her system at the time of her death.
Interesting how Lt. Jim Spadafore, of the St. Clair County Sheriff Department comes up as the owner of the address where the Rebecca was killed.
ReplyDeleteNo kidding? So the dogs belonged to a member of the sheriffs department, or his tenant?
ReplyDelete