Pit Bulls Maul Woman To Death

A 40-year-old woman was killed and two men were hurt after they were mauled by three pit bulls Sunday, 7NEWS reported.

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Pit Bull Victim Describes Attack

The attacks occurred in the Meadow Brook Ranches Subdivision in rural Elbert County, about 12 miles east of Parker, the sheriff's department said.

The string of maulings were reported just after 9 a.m. when a man in the 2100 block of Elizabeth Drive called the sheriff's department to say that his girlfriend, Jennifer Brooks, went out to feed the horses at 7 a.m. but had not returned. Bjorn Osmunsen, 24, said he went out to look for Brooks a few hours later but before he could locate her, he had been attacked by a pack of pit bulls.

Then at 11 a.m. a neighbor in the 43200 block of Meadowbrook Drive heard a noise outside his home and went to check it out. When Clifford Lynn Baker stepped outside, he was attacked by a pack of pit bulls and escaped further injury by climbing into the bed of his pickup truck, he said.

While in the pickup truck, Baker, 42, screamed for help. His 16-year-old son, Cody, emerged from the home with a 12-gauge shotgun and found three pit bulls circling the white pickup truck.

"I was standing on my front porch and whenever the dog would be far enough so I wouldn't hit the truck, is when I shot," Cody Baker said. "(My dad) tells me I saved his life."

Cody Baker shot at the dogs, blinding one, knocking one down and disorienting the third. The distraction was enough for the older Baker to jump down, grab his truck keys from the ground and climb into the cab of the pickup.

He drove it close enough to the house to scurry inside, he said.

"It scared me to death. I'm still shaking," said Baker. "I thought I was dying because the one was holding (me down by my hand) and the other (dog) was jumping at my throat."

Deputies were called in and they killed the dogs.

Clifford Lynn Baker and Osmunsen were transported to Swedish Medical Center for bite wounds.

Deputies then went to search for the missing woman and found Brooke, 40, horribly mauled. Deputies said that not even the baseball bat she had with her could have saved her from the dogs.

"It was horrible. I can't imagine what the last few minutes were like," said Jim Underwood with the Elbert County Sheriff's Department.

He said that the mauling was one of the most gruesome things he had ever seen.

"Even the fire department and the rescue personnel were having a hard time dealing with some of it," Underwood said.

Eight firemen were being counseled.

Brooke was airlifted to Swedish Medical Center where she was pronounced dead.

The University of Colorado Medical Sciences Center will determine if the dogs had rabies. The dogs' owners have been questioned but it is unclear whether they will face any charges.

Clifford Lynn Baker said the dogs' owners need to be held accountable and need to be jailed. The dog owners have several other pit bulls still on their property, 7NEWS reported.

On Sunday evening, Elbert County officials held a meeting with the neighbors, who wanted to know why the pit bulls had been allowed to stay when there have been two past incidents with the dogs.

A woman was chased into her home and a jogger was attacked while running by the home where the pit bulls were held, neighbors said. There was a civil lawsuit filed in the jogging incident and that case is pending.

Most Colorado communities, including Elbert County, have ordinances pertaining to vicious dogs but do not specifically ban pit bulls. But at least four cities -- Denver, Castle Rock, Fort Lupton and Commerce City -- have bans against pit bulls. Many pit bull owners balk at such breed-specific laws saying it's not the dog that is the problem, but the dog's owner. They believe pit bulls are singled out as vicious and that removes responsibility from the owner.