One Ohio family’s holiday season was upended by tragedy. Three dogs reportedly mauled a 3-year-old girl to death while she was in the home with her father, whom she was visiting for Christmas. Her father stumbled upon the gruesome and bloody scene in his living room on December 27, 2024.
When he saw his daughter’s lifeless body on the floor at 7:50 a.m., he immediately called police. Police have reported on some of the conversation they recorded.
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“My baby is dead,” Kingsley Wright’s father says on the audio recording, The Express reported. “This has got to be a f—ing nightmare.”
When he spoke to dispatchers, they instructed him to put his dogs away. He told police that all of the dogs, terriers, were in their cages. The father also told authorities that the door was still locked and there did not appear to be a break-in.
“That’s why I’m like did any of my pets attack her or something? I would have heard this,” he said. When the dispatcher asked if the dogs were loose, he said no. The dogs were taken to an animal shelter for a state-mandated 10-day quarantine.
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Gina Smith, the child’s mother, took her daughter to her father’s apartment in Roselawn, Ohio, on December 23, 2024, to celebrate the holidays.
Home security footage captured Kingsley sleeping on the couch before the attack, The Express reports. Smith told WLWT TV that this was the first time she’d ever spent time over there.
“And that was the last time that I got to say goodbye to my baby. And I told her I loved her, and I would see her in a few days,” Smith said.
In addition to the loss of her daughter, Smith still has many unanswered questions. “I’m not going to get to see her sing or dance anymore,” Smith said. “I just want to know why and how.”
When first responders first arrived at the scene, they were told to turn their body cameras off.
The coroner who determined that the dogs were the cause of her death would not let Smith see her daughter’s body, saying the injuries were too graphic.
Smith said she had no idea the dogs at the relative’s house were dangerous.
“I would have not left my baby around vicious dogs. Why would I do that?” Smith said. But she still doesn’t really know what happened.
“Those kinds of dogs are over 100 pounds, so did they just sit on her and then start mauling on her? Did they crush her? And why? What made them want to do that to just a little baby sleeping on the couch?” Josh Justice, Smith’s boyfriend, asked.
Calissa H., a friend of Kingsley’s father, said he is devastated and “very sorry” about what happened. “This is a nightmare, as he just learned that Kingsley was his daughter. He was so excited for her to spend time with him and meet her sister and family. He feels that it is his fault for not being able to protect her,” she shared.
The police are still investigating the death. As they do so, Smith worries that she may never see her daughter’s body again.
Now, she is hoping that as the police learn more, they keep her in the loop. She wants to know how the dogs got near Kingsley and why no one was able to save her.
