After learning that a Springfield girl had been mauled by a pit bull, SJ-R photographer Justin Fowler and I set out to find the girl and learn more about how the girl was doing and what happened. We found 8-year-old Leticia Starks at her home with her mother. Starks’ ear was visibly injured, and she was visibly out of sorts from the traumatic incident.

‘Traumatized’ / Stitches alone may not heal girl attacked by pit bull
May 11, 2006

Eight-year-old Leticia Starks is a shadow of her usually rambunctious self.

That’s to be expected, her mother said, considering the trauma the second-grader suffered Tuesday night when a pit bull attacked her, mauling both ears, her right arm and her upper back.

“It’s not good. I have to look at my baby and see the pain that she’s in,” said Mondai Myers. “To be honest, I wish it was me who was mauled. I’d trade places with her in a minute. My baby is very traumatized.”

Doctors stitched up the wounds, and Leticia is taking pain medication. She returned home early Wednesday after spending several hours at Memorial Medical Center.

Myers said she’s unsure when Leticia will return to her class at Matheny Elementary School. She’s also unsure if the girl’s badly mauled right ear can be rebuilt, or if the attack damaged her hearing.

What is certain is that her little girl is alive and the pit bull is dead.

No one has stepped forward to claim ownership of the dog, which was shot by a police officer after the attack. It had no collar or tags.

Leticia was playing outside her family’s home in the 2000 block of East Lawrence Avenue about 7 p.m. Tuesday when the light-brown pit bull with white paws and a dark pink nose – Leticia clearly remembers the color of the dog’s nose – wandered into the back yard.

The dog attacked the family’s 4-month-old pit bull, which was chained in the yard. The puppy survived, although one side of its face was swollen from the attack.

The other dog continued to the front yard, where it climbed onto the front porch and jumped at a stroller where Myers’ 6-month-old son was sitting. Leticia and her brothers and sisters were playing in the yard near the street when the pit bull ran up to them.

“I had just walked off the porch to go get something to eat. We got to the stop sign down there, and I got a call on my cell phone and all I could hear was screaming and crying,” Myers said. “I just hung up the phone and ran. I didn’t even ask what was wrong.”

When she got back to the yard, Myers found Leticia bleeding and injured. A neighbor had already phoned 911.

“All she kept saying was, ‘I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I want to go to school,’ ” Myers recalled.

Leticia was taken by ambulance to Memorial. She was able to go home about 2 a.m.

Some cartilage and part of her right ear lobe is gone. It took many stitches to close the wound, as well as the one on her left ear, which was not as badly mangled. She also has stitches in her arm and on her back.

Myers has a medical card but is unsure how much the bills will amount to. She and Leticia are going to see a plastic surgeon next week.

Leticia was quiet Wednesday, presumably from the medication and the trauma of what had happened. She broke into a smile only when her mother and siblings described how she is something of a daredevil and likes to climb to the top of one of the large trees in their yard.

Her 13-year-old sister, Tonie Vance, was watching the children outside at the time of the attack. She said that when she realized what was happening, she started ushering the other children to safety on the porch. She said Leticia didn’t immediately grasp the dangerousness of the situation.

“At first she was laughing because she thought the dog was playing. Then the dog jumped over her head, and then it came back around and grabbed her ear,” Vance said. “She ran, and I tried to hold the dog, but it broke loose.”

The dog went after Leticia once more before running away. Myers said her 12-year-old son and a friend ran after the dog with baseball bats.

Police and animal control officers combed the area looking for the dog, eventually finding it at Wheeler and Capitol avenues, where an officer shot it. The wounded pit bull continued running and stopped in an alley off McCreery Avenue just north of the intersection with Cook Street, where it collapsed and died.

Myers said she learned from animal control Wednesday that the dog did not have rabies.

“I thank God that dog did not have rabies,” she said. “I’m not angry at any person because I don’t know whose dog it was. I’m just angry that it happened to my baby.”

Sgt. Pat Ross, spokesman for the Springfield Police Department, said authorities have been asking residents in the area if they know who owned the dog but have had no success. Myers and her children said they had never seen the dog before.

“We would hope whoever the owner of the dog is would come forward,” Ross said.