Owners of the pit bull that viciously attacked and killed 4-year-old Mia Derouen in Houma last week have lawyered up, leaving local police frustrated and with few answers.
Owners of the pit bull that viciously attacked and killed 4-year-old Mia Derouen in Houma last week have lawyered up, leaving local police frustrated and with few answers.
"What we have is a dog attack. We have a dead 4-year-old child. We have a parent that was in the house. That's what we have here and we're trying to get to the bottom of it," Houma Police Chief Todd Duplantis tells The Daily Advertiser.
According this report from the Advertiser, the dog was owned by the 4-year-old victim's mother's boyfriend, Kerry Dominique, but since last week's attack, they've retained legal representation and aren't cooperating with Houma PD's investigation.
"Animal control experts, people who first arrived on the scene, they described this dog as being a very huge, massive dog," says Duplantis. "The officers described the dog as being a monster."
Based on the dog's size - it weighed 130 pounds compared to most pit bulls, which weigh 80 pounds on average - police suspect Dominique may have been injecting the animal with steroids or some other growth hormones.
Yet, since the dog was killed at the scene, steroid testing is now out of the question. There was a second, and smaller pit bull also belonging to Dominique, which will be tested for steroids as part of the ongoing investigation.