A 7-year-old boy was killed Wednesday when his family’s new pet dog attacked him, Oklahoma officials say.
Deputies in Creek County were dispatched around 7:20 p.m. Wednesday for reports of a missing child, the sheriff’s office said. Fifteen minutes later and not long after deputies arrived on the scene, a family member found the body of the boy, according to the sheriff.
The boy was identified by KOCO as James McNeelis, who was playing outside with the dog before it attacked him. Family members told KJRH the dog was a sheltie-corgi mix and they only had it for three weeks after rescuing it as a stray.
Shannon Edison, a neighbor of the family, described the incident as “gut-wrenching” in an interview with KOTV.
“We knew something was wrong. As a mother, you know that scream, if anybody has ever heard that scream, you know that scream,” Edison said. “Something was catastrophically wrong.”
The sheriff’s office said an animal control facility has possession of the dog.
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