Quincy Man Co-Authors Documentary Short After Surviving Near Fatal Pit Bull Attack; Retraces Steps & Discusses Legal Issues

Moneyback Joe is a documentary short about surviving a vicious pit bull attack.

Quincy, IL - On March 17, 2024, three pit bulls viciously attacked Jerod Welker, 36, as he walked through a park. The dogs ripped off his clothes, tore off part of his scalp, and inflicted lacerations and crush injuries all over his body. The documentary short starts with dramatic police bodycam footage as officers arrive at the scene. They find Welker lying face down in the grass, naked, and covered in wounds. Dr. Dan Liesen later states, "It looked like you were whipped with some type of Roman whip."

The names of the three attacking pit bulls, all female, were, "Moneyback Joe," the title of this documentary short, "Bailey" and "Basely."

Welker was transported to Blessing Hospital, where he was hospitalized for five days and spent three days on a ventilator. In the documentary, Welker retraces what happed on the day of the attack. He interviews Dr. Liesen and the ER practitioner, who treated his injuries. "We were really worried about your left arm," Dr. Liesen said, and if it was getting enough blood flow. "We were deciding whether or not to open your arm up to allow the fluid to weep out," so that you could keep your left arm.

The ER practitioner, LJ Helmke, said it was the worst dog attack he had ever witnessed. "To see somebody come in with, like I said, the hundreds of lacerations that you had from multiple dogs, it catches you off guard," he said. "We prepare ourselves for car accidents and stabbings and shootings," but dog attacks are typically one bite. "This was a whole different category of animal attack," he said. "I mean, where do you look first?" he asked, referring to which injury to treat first.

Excerpts: Dan Liesen, MD

"When we evaluated you, you were just mauled from head to toe. The attack appeared to occur where most of the injuries were kind of on the skin and then into the deep soft tissues. Skin lacerations simply in and of themselves usually don't cause life-threatening problems if you're getting bit, but when you have a crush injury associated with it, now you're injuring all of the soft tissues underneath of it. You're causing this inflammation and swelling everywhere in the body, and you're damaging the tissues as well.

* * *

"So, the skin over your head, where your hair attached into, that scalp was just multiple lacerations. We were really worried about your left arm. We thought that it might have created enough swelling that you weren't getting enough blood flow to your arm in order for it to live. So, we were deciding whether or not to open your arm up to allow the fluid to weep out, so you were going to keep your left arm. It's just all that crush injury to the soft tissues in your arm. It looked like you were whipped with some type of Roman whip. It was just top to bottom.

* * *

"I would say this, if somebody didn't see him and removed the animals that were attacking him, he would not have been alive much longer, maybe it was less than 20 minutes would be my guess because they were going to finish him off.

In my mind, and just from what I understand from the incident, if he didn't come in, in short order he was not going to be alive. He was going to lose his airway within probably 15 to 20 minutes and then then you would have died."

Excerpts: LJ Helmke, NP

"It was definitely the worst animal attack I have ever witnessed. To see somebody come in with, like I said, the hundreds of lacerations that you had from multiple dogs, it catches you off guard. Because you don't think about these things. These aren't a one bite kind of injury. These are massive life-threatening injuries that can really end your life pretty quick if not intervened.

* * *

"We prepare ourselves for car accidents and stabbings and shootings, but animal attacks are, usually they're smaller children that were messing with the family dog and the dog snipped and cut the child's cheek. This was a whole different category of animal attack. I mean this was very distracting ... I mean, where do you look first?"

Harsh Legal Realities

Welker also interviewed State's Attorney Gary Farha. It is a grim dialog, given that there are few laws in Illinois to hold owners of vicious dogs criminally liable. This is due to pit bull lobbying forces, namely Ledy Vankavage. In 2003, these forces pushed through legislation that prohibits municipalities from enacting restricted breed laws,1 made it more arduous to declare a dog "vicious" or "dangerous" and solidified that a previous classification of either is required for the owner to face a felony penalty.2

The owner was charged with dogs running at large. "It's not a criminal act. It's a quasi-criminal action, where there's no chance of going to jail for that type of ordinance violation," Farha said. Yet, had this same off-property attack occurred in Texas or another state with a felony dog attack statute, charges might have applied. Farha believes these types of attacks need to be strict liability. "We're not saying you can't own an animal like this, but if something happens," you're going to be on the line, he said.

Farha also discussed violent breeds. "As we proceed into the future, I don't know what's going to happen. You fear that we're just going to get more and more violent breeds of animals. We have more and more extreme people," he said. This is an astute observation. The XL and XXL bully -- the largest pit bull breed variant -- is today's most extreme breed. Built from fighting bloodlines, weighing up to 130 pounds, and having inflicted enough fatal attacks the UK government banned them.

Excerpts: State's Attorney Gary Farha

"Dogs running at large. That was an ordinance violation. It's basically the dogs not being on a leash or are outside their yard. It's not a criminal act. It's a quasi-criminal action, where there's no chance of going to jail for that type of ordinance violation. Fine only. There are some things that could happen to the animal if it bites. In your case, the three animals were euthanized by the consent of the owners.

* * *

"My hopes would be that some legislator would take this case, and it takes three or four years sometimes to get a bill enacted but that somebody would do something to make it easier for prosecutors to deal with that. Because I do think, like I was saying, these type of cases need to be strict liability. We're not saying you can't own an animal like this, but if something happens, you have to understand you're going to be on the line.

* * *

"As we proceed into the future, I don't know what's going to happen. You fear that we're just going to get more and more violent breeds of animals. We have more and more extreme people. We have more and more mental health issues. I think that all that factors into getting more exotic pets, more dangerous pets, more dangerous breeds. I think that inherently means we're going to get more human beings injured.

Welker next spoke to Sally Westerhoff of the Quincy Humane Society. "Before this happened," Welker said, "I didn't know very much about pit bulls or what to look out for with dogs. I'm really glad it didn't happen to one of my kids." Westerhoff replied, "We had a very serious situation, and it seems like once the animals are euthanized, 'problem solved.' Well, it's not," she said. "We need to figure out how do we prevent that going forward rather than waiting for the result of just the animal being euthanized."

This past January, Westerhoff and Vankavage lobbied the Illinois legislature to pass HB 1603, which prohibits "a landlord or lessor from refusing to rent to, deny housing to, or impose conditions on a lessee or tenant based on the breed of a dog." The bill stalled in the House Rules Committee on April 11. There were 180 proponents, mainly pit bull defenders -- including, Zach Mackowiak, lobbying on behalf of USA TODAY -- and 125 opponents, primarily landlords and property management groups.

Given the solid pit bull defender lobbying block in Illinois, of which no animal activist (like Westerhoff) would break from, there is little chance that a criminal law after a "first attack" by a loose dog that inflicts serious or fatal injuries could pass. There is one reason why: the law would disproportionately affect pit bull owners because pit bulls disproportionately inflict these attacks. The pit bull block would fiercely fight the bill. In the case of Welker, the dogs' owner was given two citations, each for $250.3

Clothes Held as "Evidence"

Towards the end of the video, Welker sees the clothing he wore when the dogs attacked him for the first time. He holds up a big plastic see-through sack he retrieved from the Quincy Police Department. Inside, each article of clothing is wrapped and sealed with yellow evidence tape. He opens each article on camera. His sweatshirt is blood-stained; his sweatpants are ripped to shreds. Seeing his clothes, he said, "It does bring up feelings. I've never actually screamed for my life before, but I did then."

He said he'd like to understand the deeper meaning behind the attack. He may never know, "but I am left to think about it now," he said. Welker plans to meditate to try to get as close to the meaning as he can. One obvious meaning is that he survived; many would not have. Moreover, he appears to have physically healed faster than most victims after one year. Welker also contracted rhabdomyolysis, which is a rare muscle damage condition caused by the extensive crush injuries he sustained.

Excerpts: Jerod Welker

"They pull me down to the ground and they're starting to just like pull my clothes off and rip into my clothes. I was yelling. 'Somebody please help me I'm going to die' I was yelling something like that over and over as loud as I could for a while.

"I eventually decided I was going to try to get up. So, I got up. I think I had like my underwear and my sweatpants like kind of pulled down my legs, and I still had my shoes on of course, so I tried to really quickly get my sweatpants and underwear and shoes off and went running down the hill -- like full speed -- and they start they were following me."

* * *

"I think this might have been where they got part of my ear off ... I remember they were really on me. I had my face really in the ground ... I was like kind of eating the ground because I don't want them to get on my face.

* * *

"When I got up and opened my eyes, everything looked white, like literally white. So, I could see in front of me, but like everything had thick white tint to it. I've never experienced that before. I don't know what that is. I feel like I am just going to sound crazy."4

Additional Discussion

Welker, who co-authored the documentary short with Andrew Sheeley, created a powerful account of a victim reencountering a vicious dog attack after physically healing from it. Having to watch and edit the police bodycam video -- perhaps dozens of times -- would mean reliving the attack and his vulnerability each time. By interviewing the medical practitioners, the audience learns of the severity of his injuries through the authoritative lens of the two people who treated him. This is very compelling.

Reencountering the clothing he wore when the dogs attacked him was also forceful. Even though no criminal charges applied to the attack, police bagged and sealed his bloody clothing as evidence and held them in lockup. Police had treated the scene of the attack as a potential crime scene. So, it must have been a cruel irony for Welker to pull each clothing article out of the "evidence bag" knowing that the brutal attack he endured was nothing more than a "civil" issue. No crime had been committed.

This disturbing irony is perfectly reflected in the sullen face of former Adams County State's Attorney Gary Farha during his interview. We call this expression, "Defeated Prosecutor Syndrome." When a prosecutor's face shows a "a particular grimness, even ashen quality, upon realizing there are no legal options to criminally charge the owner of a pit bull after his dog savagely" kills or injures a person. Because "it’s hard to bring charges without prior adjudication of these animals as dangerous animals."

Most serious criminal dog attack charges require the owner (1) having knowledge of the dog's vicious propensities, and/or (2) demonstrated recklessness or a negligence. State laws like Illinois, which require the dog to be previously adjudicated as "vicious" or "dangerous" prior to criminal charges, are futile. As Welker's case shows, the dogs were declared "vicious" afterward and the owner euthanized all three dogs to avoid the "vicious" dog requirements. Thus, reinforcing the vicious dog owner loop.

Farha states, "these type of cases need to be strict liability," referring to criminal liability after a vicious attack by a loose dog causing serious bodily injury or death. On this website, we frequently use the term "strict liability" when referring to civil liability. But strict liability also exists in criminal law. Dog bite attorney Kenneth Phillips, and the author of dogbitelaw.com explains: "Technically speaking, strict liability offenses are crimes that do not require proof of the defendant's mental state (mens rea)."

"Although we might not know it by its name, every one of us is already familiar with criminal strict liability. We see it all around us every day," Phillips said. Examples include criminal laws against drunk driving and selling alcohol to a minor. "It doesn’t matter how good your intentions were," Phillips said, or "how hard you tried to keep this from happening." Criminal strict liability laws are aimed at conduct that’s intolerable, he said. "Do it and there are no excuses. Do it and you go to jail. That's strict."

Left: Jerod Welker, Dr. Dan Liesen, and Former Adams County State's Attorney Gary Farha.

From Moneyback Joe, a documentary short about recovering from a vicious pit bull attack.

Related articles:
03/24/25: The "Vicious Dog Owner Loop" – Explained Simply by the Author of Dog Bite Law
03/24/25: Ohio's Weak Dangerous Dog Laws: 4-Part Investigation by News Organizations
02/03/25: Man Facing Felonies, Including Assault with a Deadly Weapon for His Attack Dogs
06/13/24: San Francisco Man Scales Tall Fence to Escape Violent Pit Bulls Captured on Video