The two pit bulls were seen eating the rib cage on the body, police said
Authorities in the US state of Virginia have said a 22-year-old woman was mauled to death by her two dogs while out on a walk last week amid rumours that someone else killed her, reports have said.
Goochland County sheriff Jim Agnew held a press conference on Monday, four days after Bethany Lynn Stephens’ body was found from the wooded area she frequented, to quell rumours and widespread misinformation of foul play on social media.
Agnew said he decided to disclose the gruesome details about Stephens’ death, which he had been reluctant to divulge out of concern for her family, to reassure people that there isn’t a killer on the loose.
The sheriff said that when officials found the dogs on Friday they were guarding what police at first thought was an animal carcass. But the body was Stephens’ and police say the pit bulls were eating her, he said.
“I observed, as well as four other deputy sheriffs observed, the dogs eating the rib cage on the body,” Agnew was quoted as saying by the Washington Post.
The dogs, named Tonka and Pacman, were first found by Stephens’ father after he went looking for her in a wooded area on Friday, one day after she disappeared. They have since been put down with the family’s permission.
“Ms Stephens was terribly, terribly injured, but it was very apparent to us that she had been dead for quite some time,” Agnew told reporters, adding later that the damage to her body “was so extensive that there was nothing left to compare bite marks to.”
