- Liam Martinez, 6, was attacked in his Wiggins, Miss., yard by a neighbor’s pitbull-mix dogs on April 18
- Five of Tamara Melom’s dogs had been beforehand concerned in a number of different assaults in Mobile, Ala., resulting in a court docket order for his or her removing from their proprietor, who allegedly illegally purchased them again via third events on Facebook, she mentioned in court docket Wednesday, May 1
- Melom just isn’t criminally charged within the attack that has briefly impaired Liam’s skill to walk, however she has been fined roughly $3,000 for violating a county ordinance relating to vicious dogs
The Mississippi mom had simply gotten home when she heard “a death scream” from her yard.
Running towards the sound, Devyn Phillips wrote in a Facebook post that she noticed three pitbull-mix dogs “shaking” her 6-year-old son, Liam Martinez, and “eating him alive.”
Phillips’s companion, Aries Fairley, waded into the fray and “snatched our Liam up from these dogs,” the mom wrote, including that when grabbing maintain of her son, her “fingers went inside of his leg.”
“This was a full on attack, and the dogs were not going to stop,” Phillips wrote of the April 18 incident in Wiggins, Miss. “They were eating my son.”
Devyn Phillips
Liam Martinez, 6, was airlifted to a hospital in Mobile, Ala., the place, per a GoFundMe page set as much as assist cowl medical bills, docs performed surgical procedure however had been unable to restore his “completely shredded” proper calf muscle.
Friends of the household mentioned on GoFundMe that Liam had endured “multiple” accidents right down to the bone, inflicting extreme nerve injury.
“This is a tragedy that should have never happened,” Stone County Chief Deputy Sheriff Steve Taylor tells PEOPLE in an interview.
Taylor says his investigators later discovered that Tamatha Melom, the proprietor of the dogs – which had a historical past of assaults – had allegedly illegally reunited together with her canines the yr prior.
Three earlier assaults – together with one on an elderly individual who had gotten 63 stitches – led a Mobile, Ala. decide to remove 4 of her dogs by court docket order, Melom allegedly admitted in Stone County Justice Court, Wednesday, May 1, in proceedings recounted by Taylor to PEOPLE.
The dogs had been slated to be despatched to a rescue group in February 2023, however based on Taylor, Melom allegedly testified she paid buddies and others on Facebook to purchase the dogs again, crossing state traces into Mississippi and taking over residence together with her dogs, throughout the road from a neighborhood Head Start program for kids.
Taylor’s investigators in the end seized 5 of Melom’s dogs – a few of them concerned in Liam’s attack and all beforehand tagged with microchips – concerned within the Mobile assaults.
Devyn Phillips
In court docket, Melom mentioned she believed her dogs had been harmless and didn’t apologize to the household, Taylor tells PEOPLE. Melom additional alleged on the listening to that Mobile’s animal management had fabricated the sooner assaults.
Taylor says Melom’s 5 attack dogs are slated to be euthanized by deadly injection by a veterinarian in early June. She has 30 days to attraction.
Melom – who doesn’t face legal costs and represented herself in court docket – was ordered to pay some $3,000 in fines for 5 violations of a county vicious canine ordinance, Taylor confirms to PEOPLE.
Taylor tells PEOPLE that Melum stays in possession of a number of different dogs, together with two small dogs with a litter of puppies, in addition to a bigger canine “but it does not seem vicious.”
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Meanwhile, in an up to date assertion to PEOPLE, additionally posted to GoFundMe earlier this month, Phillips says that Liam is “a long ways” from having the ability to walk once more, though with further surgical procedure and bodily remedy, they are going to slowly “rebuild his strength and get him walking again” however that “he may never be able to play sports in the future.”
Phillips says her son will miss the remainder of kindergarten to proceed his restoration. For now, he struggles to make use of a walker.
Liam’s subsequent surgical procedure – scheduled for Wednesday, May 8 – ought to “remove any non viable dead skin/tissue and to remove the current sutures” she says, including: “Then they will be closing the rest of his leg.”
Phillips mentioned on Facebook that docs instructed her that if Liam had not been rescued as shortly as he was, Liam would doubtless not be alive.
“Liam has a long road of recovery but he is here, he is stronger than I could have ever imagined,” she added, “and he is overcoming all the obstacles that have been thrown his way.”
