(Beth Clifton collage)
And one more pit bull fatality comes to light from 2023
ALTON, Illinois; DELAND, Florida; PHARR, Texas––Robert W. Echols, 53, on January 10, 2025 became the first U.S. dog attack fatality and first U.S. pit bull fatality of the year when his own pit killed him at the home he shared with his brother in Alton, Illinois.
Michael Millett, 8, mauled by neighbor Amanda Bailey Franco’s two free-roaming pit bulls near his home in DeLand, Florida, on January 13, 2025 became the second U.S. dog attack fatality and second U.S. pit bull fatality of the year.
Estela Manteca, 91, of Pharr, Texas, was meanwhile identified in a lawsuit brought by survivors as the previously undisclosed seventy-second U.S. dog attack victim of 2023, and the 58th U.S. pit bull fatality of that year.
Adding Estela Manteca’s name to the list of victims pushed the 2023 toll one ahead of the 2024 toll of 71 dog attack fatalities, 52 by pit bull.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Alleged “expert” understates the toll
Madison County Coroner Nicholas P. Novacich reportedly told media that victim Echols’ brother “was able to get out of their home,” during the pit bull rampage at about 5:00 p.m., “and using his neighbor’s phone, called 911.”
Said “board-certified associate applied animal behaviorist Jody Epstein,” according to Osama Ayyad and Laura Barczewski, of KSDK, none of whom actually checked the data, “any breed of dog can bite and bite someone significantly, but it’s very rare to have a dog attack that results in death.”
Claimed Epstein, “It’s somewhere between 30 and 50 fatalities per year.”
There have in fact been no fewer than 29 U.S. fatalities by pit bulls alone in every year since 2012. The last year in which there were fewer than 50 total dog attack fatalities was 2020, the second of two years in a row at 49.
(Beth Clifton collage)
More than 80% of fatalities are by pit bulls
Fatal dog attacks per year have increased 12 times over since 2000. And of the more than 1,000 U.S. dog attack fatalities documented by ANIMALS 24-7 since 1982, 67% were by pit bulls; 81% were by pit bulls plus other “bully” breeds.
Mike Koziatek of the Belleville News Democrat was not as far off in writing that, “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an average of 43 fatal dog attacks have occurred annually nationwide between 2011 and 2021.”
The actual average for 2011-2021 was 45.4 fatal dog attacks per year, 37 of them (82%) by pit bulls. Pit bull attacks continue to increase annually, as do attacks by other “bully” breeds such as Cane Corso, Dogo Argentino, and XL Bully, among other closely related pit bull variants.
Michael Millett. (GoFundMe photo)
“Saw two unleashed dogs & went to pet them”
General ignorance––and denial––about the extent of pit bull menace likely contributed to the death of Michael Millett, both because Amanda Bailey Franco, 31, according to neighbors habitually let her two pit bulls run at large, and because victim Michael Millett allegedly thought he could safely pet them.
“A visibly upset Sheriff Mike Chitwood said Michael Millett was riding his bike with friends at the front of the Berry’s Ridge subdivision north of DeLand when he saw two unleashed dogs and went to pet them,” reported Selim Algar of the St. Johns Citizen.
Within minutes Millett suffered a broken foot, broken leg, and a broken neck, among 12 bite wounds and other injuries that Sheriff Chitwood described as “just horrific.”
Alexander Storer, communications director for the law firm Morgan & Morgan, hired to represent the Millett family, subsequently disputed Sheriff Chitwood’s report that Millett and his friend had approached the pit bulls. (See Storer’s complete account under “Comments,” below.)
Police arriving at home of Amanda Bailey Franco. (From Volusia County Sheriff’s Department video)
“Somebody help me, my child’s not breathing!”
Testified Sheriff Chitwood to media, “In all my years of policing, to listen to that 911 call, and hear Michael’s mother in the background,” Tiffani Millett, who threw herself on her son to try to save him, “screaming, ‘Somebody help me, my child’s not breathing!’ just strikes to the core of who we are as human beings.”
Continued Algar, “Bystanders screamed at her to flee the area due to the threat posed by the dogs, but she refused to wrench herself from her boy until emergency crews arrived.
“Investigators learned that the dogs were routinely left to roam around the area unleashed and had been ‘terrorizing’ locals for some time.
“Some residents reported that the animals were known for killing chickens.”
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood.
“Screaming for help”
Updated Patricio G. Balona for the Daytona Beach News-Journal, “’We are going to do everything legally possible to hold the owner of these dogs responsible and we are going to do everything possible to make sure that these animals are destroyed,’ Sheriff Chitwood said at a press briefing.
Sheriff Chitwood played a 911 call recording from a caller who detailed the attack as it happened.
“There is a little boy being attacked by two dogs,” the caller began. “Oh my God, please hurry. He is not moving, the boy that is being attacked. He was screaming for help and they pinned him down to the ground and they are like biting him and he is not moving, he is not responding.”
Picked up Balona, “The caller then informed dispatchers that the child’s mother had come to the scene.
“’Oh my God, she is on top of him. Mom is on top of him,’ the caller said.
“The child’s mother is then heard shouting ‘He is not breathing.’”
(Beth Clifton collage)
“I don’t need people to be afraid”
Sheriff Chitwood said investigators were looking into reports that the dogs might also have been involved “in some incident in another county.”
Added Sheriff Chitwood, “I don’t need people to be afraid. Right now we need people to come forward and tell us, because there are no 911 calls to animal services or the sheriff’s office about this address and about these animals. Clearly this did not happen in a vacuum. These dogs have been terrorizing the neighborhood.”
Amanda Bailey Franco, Balona detailed, “has been arrested 12 times since 2015 for drug offenses, aggravated battery, battery, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, and a probation violation.
“Chitwood said Franco is currently on supervised weekly drug testing,” after convictions for offenses involving methamphetamines and cocaine.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Pit bull mauled six-year-old in nearby Deltona
Offered Brenda Argueta of WKMG television news in Orlando, “J.D. Yambao, a resident of the subdivision and frequent runner, told News 6 that just last week he received a Ring notification about two aggressive dogs loose in the area. The alert warned neighbors that the dogs had killed a cat.”
The Volusia County Sheriff’s office as recently as December 23, 2024 responded to a call about a pit bull mauling a six-year-old in Deltona, 14 miles south.
“The child sustained bite wounds to his head and leg during the attack,” reported Abigail Lafferty for FOX 35 in Orlando.
Chad Bunfill, Darlyn Warner, and sheriff’s deputies Bobby Blackwell and Justin de la Rosa, who rescued them.
(Volusia County Sheriff’s Office photo)
Mother’s Day mayhem
FOX 35 colleague Dani Medina on June 24, 2024 detailed how a New Smyrna Beach couple, Darlyn Warner and Chad Bunfill, were mauled in their home on Mother’s Day, May 11, 2024, by a “rescue” pit bull they had adopted six weeks earlier.
The “rescue” pit bull had already attacked someone earlier in the week, Sheriff Chitwood told Medina.
“When deputies arrived,” Chitwood narrated, “they found the female dog owner inside the dog’s cage to escape and protect herself. At that point, the pit bull had turned to the male victim and was mauling him on their bedroom floor.”
It took three shots from an arriving sheriff’s deputy to stop the attack, the last shot fired after the wounded pit bull redirected to “charge the deputies,” Chitwood said.
The male and female victims each required multiple emergency surgeries, Medina reported.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Deltona fatality
The most recent pit bull fatality in Volusia County before January 13, 2025 was 63-year-old Mary Bernal, from Dallas, Texas, who was in Deltona visiting her sister Estela Macias, 52.
Reported Bravetta Hassell on June 30, 2007 for the Daytona Beach News-Journal, “Bernal started calling for help about 9 a.m. because one of eight dogs in the [Macias] yard, a pit bull named Tazz, was barking at her and the little dachshund in her hands.
“Bernal turned to walk into the house and tripped on her flip-flop sandals. Immediately, the pit bull began mauling her, her sister told sheriff’s deputies.”
Macias, Hassell continued, “also was injured when she tried to stop the dog, even hitting it with a shovel. But the attack continued,” until deputies arrived and shot the pit bull with a Taser.
This was one of the very few cases among more than 10,000 archived by ANIMALS 24-7 in which, according to witnesses, a Taser actually stopped a pit bull attack.
Estela Manteca. (Beth Clifton collage)
Estela Manteca
The pit bull attack death of Estela Manteca came to light on January 3, 2025, reported Jose De Leon III of KRGV in Weslaco, Texas, when her daughter and granddaughter Lorena Cundari and Michele Piszczor filed a lawsuit seeking $100 million in damages from the city of Pharr.
“According to the lawsuit,” De Leon explained, “Estela Manteca died on May 6, 2023,” after months in a coma and the amputation of both of her legs.
“She was attacked on January 10, 2023 by four dogs who belonged to her son,” De Leon continued. “The lawsuit accuses the city of Pharr of playing a role in the ‘preventable tragedy’ because the city public works department failed to mitigate the threat posed by the dogs.
“The dogs, identified as Ringo, Billy, Casper, and Bonita, were previously identified,” on January 24, 2022, “as vicious animals by the city’s animal control department due to previous attacks reported to their department, the lawsuit states.
Beth & Merritt Clifton with friends.
“Despite repeated warnings, urgent pleas for assistance, and specific notice of the dangerous nature of the dogs,” the lawsuit alleges, “the city of Pharr exhibited a pattern of deliberate indifference, neglecting to take reasonable measures to mitigate the known and escalating threat.”
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