Courtesy Fox 61
Pirate, one of the attacking dogs.
Winfrey.
Jocelyn Winfrey died at Yale-New Haven Hospital Monday morning with her mother beside her bed one week after two dogs ripped apart her body.
Doctors stopped life support for Winfrey, who was in a medically induced coma, according to Assistant Police Chief Anthony Campbell.
The attack on Winfrey took place last Monday evening at a home on Ella Grasso Boulevard owned by a 37-year-old Yale psychiatric intern.
Winfrey — who was 53 years old, grew up at the Church Street South housing complex, and attended Lee High School — was accompanying the man in his car. They were smoking crack, according to police.
They arrived home. The man opened the door to his house. His two dogs set upon Winfrey, ripping apart her leg, her face, and her arms. Neighborhood kids rushed over and climbed a fence to throw large rocks and a trash can to try to get the dogs away. The homeowner tried to fend off the dogs, but they bit him, too. For days the vicious attack would haunt emergency workers and police officers who saw it.
Winfrey went by the nickname “Jazzy.”
By the time an ambulance crew arrived, the main attacking dog retreated. Winfrey stopped breathing twice on the way to Yale-New Haven Hospital. Doctors operated on her for days, amputating a leg. She had lost her eyes and skin all over her body. She spent the week in a coma until the decision was made to end life support.
Doctors described the injuries as even worse than those of a Stamford woman who was attacked by a chimpanzee in 2009.
Police charged the man with misdemeanor offenses. He hired one of the city’s top criminal defense attorneys, Willie Dow. But it appears Dow won’t need to defend him against any more serious criminal charges.
Assistant Chief Campbell said that after reviewing the case with the state’s attorney’s office, police don’t see a basis for further charges.
“It’s not like the man used the dogs as weapons,” Campbell said. “It was a tragic accident.”
Police initially described the dogs as pit bulls. It turns out they are American bulldog mixes, according to city Animal Control Officer Joseph Maganiello. The dogs were licensed and were up to date on their shots, he said. The owner had bought them in Florida and then moved to New Haven with them.
Courtesy Fox 61
Nomad, the other attacking dog.
Manganiello has been keeping the two dogs in quarantine at the animal shelter on Fournier Street. He said Monday evening that the dogs’ owner has signed over custody of them to the city. The plan is to euthanize (kill) them on July 6, following a two-week quarantine period.
The city has to wait for that quarantine period to end to make sure the dogs didn’t have rabies. Government policy is to keep a dog that bites a person in quarantine that long to see if it had rabies; dogs die within two weeks if they are infected, Manganiello explained.
What set off the dogs?
“My take on on it is, dogs are generally more aggressive when they’re protecting their own property,” Manganiello said. “To that degree, it’s kind of crazy. But I would believe they were protecting their own property.”