Melissa Astacio, 44-years old, died after being viciously attacked by her pet pit bull.
Pit Bull Kills Owner
Somerset, MA - A 44-year old woman died after being mauled by a family pit bull. Melissa Astacio suffered a seizure Friday evening in her Somerset home. Her daughter called 911 and said that her mother was having a seizure when the dog started to attack her, according to a press release from the Bristol County District Attorney's Office. Police were forced to Taser the dog before they could help the victim. Astacio was rushed to a Rhode Island hospital and pronounced dead.
The family dog is believed to be an 8-year old pit bull. The animal was taken into custody by Swansea Animal rescue, states the release. Photographs from the victim's Facebook page show a family pit bull named Amigo (also referred to as Diego) that is at least 7 years old. Astacio's mauling death marks the seventh adult, ages 40 to 49, killed by a dog this year. The victims are four females and three males. 86% of these deadly attacks (6 of 7) were carried out by pit bulls.
Astacio's death also marks another fatal attack inflicted by a family pit bull, where the attack began after the victim allegedly suffered a seizure. Earlier this year, Homer Utterback, 52, was brutally killed by his pet pit bull of 10 years after suffering a seizure in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. More recently, Dustin Bryan, 21, was killed by pit bulls while sleeping on the couch of the dog owner's home in Modesto, California. A family member blamed the fatal attack on a possible seizure.
GoFundMe for Victim
In a devastating GoFundMe written by one of the victim's daughters, we learned that Melissa Ausmus Astacio was a single parent to three girls of various ages. Elysandra writes, "On Dec. 20, 2019 my mother passed away unexpectedly. She suffered from seizures and the details still are unclear why, our family dog attacked my mother while having a seizure. My 13-year old little sister ran to get help but she passed away due to her injuries. I don't know how or what to do."
WJAR spoke to neighbors, some of whom had known Astacio since she was a little girl. Part of the 911 call is also played in the news video. Astacio was fatally attacked by her pit bull of eight years at her home in the 200 block of Lees River Avenue early Friday evening. A male neighbor who was not identified told WJAR that first responders carried the woman from her home over their shoulders. "They did not wait for a stretcher or anything … she was bleeding pretty bad," he said.
The family pit bull suspected in the mauling death of its owner in Somerset, Massachusetts.
View the DogsBite.org Google State Map: Massachusetts Fatal Pit Bull Attacks.Related articles:
11/08/19: 2019 Dog Bite Fatality: Man Found Dead in Modesto Home, Two Pit Bulls Suspected
07/11/19: 2019 Dog Bite Fatality: Pit Bull Kills Owner in Uniontown; Dog was Victim's 'Best Friend'
Law enforcement departments across the United States should release consistent "baseline" information to the media and the public after each fatal dog mauling, including these items.
Another fatality, my heart hurts. No surprise the seizure excuse is in the forefront for reasons. How about that it is a pit, it’s in the genes. Merry Christmas.
Well said. People can have a friendly breed, such as a Labrador, a Golden, a Beagle, a Dachshund, etc. and have a seizure, and not be severely mauled or killed. Friendly breeds were not artificially selected/bred for unprovoked, no warning attacking and maiming and killing.
I just can’t. I’ve got no more aches to give, heart or otherwise, for these fools who insist on having pit bulls in their home.
The dead eye stare in the 2016 pic is not a great combo with a dog physically capable of killing someone.
I guess we’ll find out if Diego/Amigo is the dog what dunnit.
But HEY, let’s make them all service dogs! They can stop people from having seizures. Yes, that would be permanently.
That is truly a hard eye. I can’t imagine loving a dog with so little love for me. Wow.
What a gore fest this set of Friday night fatals has been. And there may be a possible third one in Houston? What are the odds???
Power breeds observed behaving normal friendly: That is just a cover. Occasionally, unpredictably, the real inner animal comes out. Family member: Very saddening.
I wonder how often the “seizure” is just an excuse, family members trying to cover for pit bulls that attacked with zero unusual circumstances. But let’s pretend that it WAS for sure a seizure.
It’s amazing how many pit defenders will say, “Aww, poor pibbles… he got scared, that’s why he attacked.” I don’t care how terrified most breeds of dogs get… they don’t use fear as an opportunity to maim and kill. If they do bite out of fear (IF!), it’s one bite and then escape, which would be a normal dog reaction. The sad truth is that pit bulls recognize a seizure as vulnerability, and they see it as a chance to kill and win. Even if it’s a dog someone has owned for years.
And these are a breed that supporters tout as being appropriate for service dogs and police dogs? A breed that reacts by attacking a human who is in the most vulnerable of situations? I say that is a breed not suitable for ANY home, because anyone can have an accident, a seizure, a heart attack, etc. I have foot cramps that take me down to the ground in pain as I try to massage my foot out of its distortion. No way I would want a pit bull around when in such a vulnerable position!
Next time you have a foot cramp, stand on tiptoe on that foot–and press your weight down on it as you stand tiptoe, don’t just rest your toe on the floor, you have to put your weight on it.
I got awful foot cramps through both of my pregnancies, and that was the fastest (and really the only) way to ease them. It hurts to start doing–like, it hurts as you start to rest your weight on it–but it fixes the cramp almost immediately.
Hope that helps.
Forgot to say: it helps if you brace your hands on a table or against the wall or something, to help you balance at first.
No, sorry. I am done feeling bad for adult pit bull owners when their dog kills them. There is no excuse, in 2019, almost 2020, to not know the dangers of these dogs.
I feel sorry for her daughters, but yeah, I’m tired of feeling bad for these people. In this day and age there is no way they didn’t know; it was willful ignorance or Lion Tamer Syndrome, or “It’s all how you raise them!” and nothing more.
I hate that pit bulls have made me the kind of person who immediately thinks, “I wonder how many articles about pit victims she showed up on to comment how HER Pittie would never hurt a fly and all breeds bite.”
http://www.dogsbitedecatural.com/ has the dog bite related fatalities for 2019 at 47 so far. Colleen, is this correct? I remember when 36 was a lot.
Isn’t that a (gruesome) record for the year? It’s close to Santa Anita’s horse deaths (fewer than Churchill Downs) and people want to shut down the track and end horse racing. I find this deeply ironic that people care more about horse injury than human fatalities. I care about horses but I care more about people injured and killed by dogs that are supposed to be pets.
‘”Every dog has behavior that comes from nature or nurture, and no dog is inherently good or inherently bad just as no human being is, “said Dr Terry Bright, director of Behavior Services at MASPCA’. From the Boston Herald.
Is this stupidity? Mendacity? Whatever it is, it defies belief.
I can’t tell if he’s being shifty or if he’s just that stupid. At any rate, he’s using moral agency terms for dogs, when those terms apply only to humans.
Dogs have no moral agency. They obey or they do not obey. They behave in ways or they do not behave in ways that help humans. A good dog is a dog that is useful and helps people.
I know it probably distresses the hard-core Animals Are Equal to Humans people for me to say this, but it’s true nonetheless — domesticated dogs are man’s creation, and so their entire purpose is one of relationship to our species. Are they useful? Do they serve, obey, protect, give comfort and cheer? If so, they are good dogs. They are doing what they were created to do, purposes which were and are noble.
Fighting dogs were created for bloodsport and thus are not like other dogs. Normal dogs were bred to fill a specific genuine human need. Fighting dogs were bred to fill humans’ wicked appetites for violence, cruelty, and greed. There is no way a fighting dog can fulfill the purpose for which it was bred and be a good dog, because the purpose of that breeding was corrupt from the start.
A “good” (useful, skilled, fulfills its purpose) fighting dog makes a horrible pet. A good companion dog makes a horrible (loser) fighting dog. These are not arbitrary or vague categories. We are talking specific biological functions, physical form and temperament which were selectively bred for in fighting dogs to make them excellent at fighting and killing other animals.
There is simply no need for fighting breeds, or dogs descended from these bloodlines, to exist in a civil society where dogfighting, bull- and bear-baiting, are illegal.
Wonderful summary of the purpose of dogs! What a contrast to the idiocy spouted by the “expert.”
Brilliant explanation.
The first three letters of this dog DIE says it all. I’ve done stories about seizure dogs. They’re usually labs or Golden Retrievers. They’re amazing. They sense a seizure and guide the person to a place to sit and watch over them. They don’t KILL the person. It’s not in their nature. This is horrendous. That poor 13-year-old who witnessed her mother being mauled to death.. And the middle child (on camera) still can’t see the dog as being at fault. Of course, she’s in shock, but still? These man-made monsters are a scourge on society. Yet, they will continue to be defended, excused and exonerated for all the murder and mayhem they cause.
Exactly !
I don’t necessarily apply blame to this dog that killed. I don’t think dogs are born knowing right from wrong. They have instincts, and they follow those instincts. Do I think this dog should be humanely euthanized?. Absolutely! Human beings created dogs which kill by selecting dogs with explosive aggression, the gameness to kill, and the physical structure to make them capable of killing. There is simply no place for them in our society.
And thS why these dogs should NEVER, EVER be allowed to be ” service dogs ” !
Go ahead, have 20 of this vile shi* breed in your home, get mauled, get killed….I DONT CARE .
But don’t bring them disgusting, vile, aggressive dogs into our PUPLIC PLACES to endanger everyone else.
This breed needs to be banned , ecspecially as ” service dogs ” ….it’s ABSURD.
There wasn’t anything mentioned about what happened to the dog, will it be “rehomed”‘ , put down or what? And the daughter thinks it was trying to help the mother, really! and just accidentally killed mom trying to help, unbelievable. A record number of dog fatalities this year, and supposedly vaping is the big problem. I just spoke to a k9 dog handler today, narcotics border detection, and she has a malinois, but said she prefers pitbulls, easier to train, she said, but what about all the unpredictable attacks I said? Oh, it’s just how you raise them, she said, so there again is part of the problem
Did I hear correctly that the daughters want to keep the dog which killed their mother? If so, will that be allowed? Are any of the daughters eighteen?
The news story didn’t state that, but Good God, the one daughter said she didn’t “blame” the dog for killing her mother. We live in a world where facts don’t matter anymore. I would not be surprised if one of the daughters wants to keep the poor, misunderstood fur baby. I hope the authorities will do the right thing and put it down. The youngest girl who witnessed this horror will be traumatized for life.
Oh no!
Will they get another pit in the future?
Will that one mature,
“light up”, to maim and kill neighbors, pedestrians, passersby, both pets and people ?
The news story didn’t state that, but Good God, the one daughter said she didn’t “blame” the dog for killing her mother. We live in a world where facts don’t matter anymore. I would not be surprised if one of the daughters wants to keep the poor, misunderstood fur baby. I hope the authorities will do the right thing and put it down. The youngest girl who witnessed this horror will be traumatized for life.
Last night I listened to the interview with Ira Glass, The host of the NPR show This American life. The show covers four stories of pets doing incredible things. But the last story is an interview of Ira himself. That story is called Human Sacrifice. The story is sickening. Mr. glass goes on to tell the audience that his pitbull has bitten six people. He calls them nips. But when the interviewer points out that his dog, Piney, drew blood, he calls them bloody nips. Two of those six people were children at the same wedding. Who brings their pitbull to a wedding? The entire interview Mr. Glass is chuckling. He thinks the whole thing is funny. Afterwords my boyfriend and I could not think of what you would call somebody who thinks like that. I said arrogant. He said that’s not the right word. We used the thesaurus. We couldn’t find the right description without using swear words.
This is INSANE!!! Piney was a rescue (who he got at 3 months old so I don’t know what kind of a rescue that is). Piney takes Valium. Piney attacks men on the street if they make eye contact. Piney attacks when he is anxious. Piney has to wear a muzzle. Piney was fine until the wedding. (huh?) Piney has bitten 7 people, including his female owner multiple times. Piney has to protect the female owner (the same one he bites) when she sleeps and lunges at his male owner (Ira).
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/480/animal-sacrifice
https://nycityonahill.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/bad-dog-lover/
It’s repulsive, to think of someone cutting off their own arm and feeding it to their dog. But it’s what my husband and I are doing. We’re wasting our lives on a dog that’s not grateful. On a dog that hurts us. We’re sacrificing our lives and getting nothing but pain and grief in return.
They are quite conscious of the fact that the dog is a stone cold biter.
And they revel (yes, revel … don’t mistake the sighing tone for “I gives up”) in their martyrdom. Because martyrdom proves their worthiness. (Worthiness to be killed and eaten by their pit bull?)
Feeding the stone cold biter kangaroo meat that costs $90/week.
Some people don’t have enough *actual* hardship in their lives. So they create it. They elaborately structure their lives around the created hardship. I would put Mr. and Mrs. Glass in that category. There appears to be at least one and possibly two personality disorders in this home. Along with the stone cold biter.
I could be cynical and say that Piney and the Glasses deserve each other. I really hope it doesn’t come to one or both of them getting seriously mauled or killed by their pit bull. If so, it’s not like they didn’t see this coming. They know who their abuser is, and they just can’t leave him.
What’s also on record is their full knowledge that their dog is not just capable of killing a human, but the distinct possibility that he will do that at some point. They couch it in the form of morbid humor, but there it is. If Piney ever kills anyone but one or both of them, the Glasses are 1000% exposed as fully liable. That’s the truly despicable part of all this. Not that they are wasting their lives on a stone cold biter. But that they are endangering everyone who comes into contact with Piney, and they know this, and they consider themselves virtuous martyrs. They just aren’t too particular about whose blood gets spilled to appease the angry Dog God, apparently.
Human beings are the only species that forces another dangerous species on itself.
Since when did people bring dogs to weddings?
The same people (Anaheed (Ira’s wife) in this case) who brings it to a children’s birthday party where it bit two children:
https://nycityonahill.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/bad-dog-lover/
And they weren’t sued by the kids’ parents?
I believe the term sociopath might be the word you’re looking for.
https://www.health.com/condition/antisocial-personality-disorder/sociopath-traits
Regarding celebrity pit owners, I was just reading a rolling stone article about Adam Driver. He’s described as a “fierce defender” of pits and said there are no bad dogs, just shitty owners. I stopped reading at that point. He also has a six year old child.
There’s a family like that in my neighborhood. Infant in a stroller. A toddler. Parents. And a big, un-neutered pit bull.
I can’t helping thinking that the parents view themselves as rescue angels.
I fell very badly in a dog pen a week ago. All my fault. I had about 110 pounds of GSD puppies (three of them) on top of my chest licking me in the face. Although I won’t say they made it easy for me to get back up, I thought to myself,
“What if they had been pit bull puppies?”. That could have been the end of me. A scary thought.
Because GSDs, unlike pit bulls, are not zero-mistake dogs. They weren’t bred/wired to attack and kill … to literally pounce on supine living creatures in their midst and maul them to death.
When I was a kid, my family had a wonderful GSD mix. She was the best, and to say that I adored her would be an understatement. That dog is why I have loved German Shepherds ever since. During the warm months of the year, we would go swimming in a rural lake outside our small town. Just the family & the family dog. We kids used to pretend we were drowning, and our Shep would bound into the lake, paddle over to us & tow us to shore by the arm. Much praise & love once we got on dry land.
It was just something we kids thought up to engage with our dog. There wasn’t anything more formal to it than that. Make a splash, yell to the dog, wait for her to come to the rescue.
She didn’t need to be trained to rescue us. The instinct to protect and serve was there already. That was her breeding at work.
I can’t imagine bringing into my house a dog from a bloodline of maulers. To have to wonder whether falling down, having a seizure, sleeping on the couch, kneeling down in the garden, having my hands full of groceries or laundry, or doing anything else to signal vulnerability, might trigger my dog to attack and try to kill me. What the …???
I have to wonder whether the owners of these maulers who end up turning on them ever owned a normal dog. Experiencing the love, loyalty and nobility of the German Shepherd we had when I was a child inoculated me, I believe, from mistaking the brute strength of a fighting breed dog for “protection.”
I know what *real* protection looks like in a dog, and TRUST is a huge part of it. If you can’t trust the dog, you’re not being protected. If you trust the wrong dog, you’re also not being protected. You are sharing your house with a predator, and all you have standing between you and grisly ending is luck. Pit roulette.
I do sometimes wonder if these people have ever enjoyed having a normal dog. You know, a dog that doesn’t require crate and rotate, or which you can have almost zero fear of turning on you or others, or which you actually CAN leave unattended with a child without a chance of that child being disemboweled or decapitated. Just a normal dog. They act as if pit bulls are the only dogs which can snuggle, or lick, or return love. Every time I read “I would never have any other breed than a pit,” I have to assume that they’ve never had a normal dog. Because if they’d ever had a normal dog, they would see that a normal dog can do anything beneficial as a companion animal that a pit bull can, with almost none of the liability, the danger, the hassle from frequent escapes or the potential grief involved in having a pit bull. What they need to admit is that they love pit bulls not because they are the “best most loyal dogs ever” but because they like how having a pit bull makes them FEEL ABOUT THEMSELVES… whether that’s as a rescue hero, or for attention, or because they are drawn to drama and trouble because they are troubled people, or because they honestly don’t mind having a dog which can maim and kill pets and people at a level like no other. I’ve had pit bull mixes in the past (before becoming mature and educated), and they didn’t offer anything special that a normal dog can’t provide. What they did provide was (my own) dead cats, dead ducks, wounded small dogs and puppies, scaled fences, torn fences, and grief that the dogs I raised with love and care were causing nothing but hassle and grief. I’m just thankful they never hurt a person. I’ll take a normal dog any day.
Great post, several key points very well said and very nicely stated.
Quote snip: “…or doing anything else to signal vulnerability, might trigger my dog to attack and try to kill me. ”
Or doing anything else to signal any other reason to suddenly be a menacing threat.
I worked for four years at Mingus Mountain Academy, a secure facility for court ordered extreme at risk youth that were committed to Arizona Juvenile Corrections. JCAHCO accredited, every detail was frequently heavily scrutinized. Two German Shepherds were approved to be in the picture. I was night staff supervisor, and I walked into the building while mouth holding a medium size flashlight, keys in one hand, and radio in my other hand. The always friendly dog immediately went into menacing threateningly mode. I opened my mouth, dropping the flashlight, and it was all full friendly in an instant. An official memorandum went out to all night staff to not mouth hold flashlights around the dogs. Or do anything to change face appearance.