A North Carolina woman with a long criminal history is accused of ordering her pit bull to attack her neighbor.
Sheila Marie Hunter, 58, allegedly sent her dog after a neighbor at their Raleigh apartment complex following a dispute, according to a copy of a magistrate’s order filed in Wake County District Court.
The victim suffered serious puncture wounds and could have been hurt even more if a bystander hadn’t shot the dog, the order said.
Hunter is now facing charges of assault with intent to cause great bodily harm, cruelty to animals, and intoxicated and disruptive behavior.
The cruelty charge is for allegedly ignoring the dog after it had been shot in the abdomen and failing to offer any help.
The disruptive behavior charge came after Raleigh Police officers reportedly saw her “curse, shout at, [and] rudely insult others by … pointing at the subject and cursing at him calling him mother f—– several times during an investigation,” according to the order.
Hunter has spent over 10 years in prison and has past convictions including larceny, robbery, and assaulting a government official with a deadly weapon, according to North Carolina Department of Corrections records.
In 2002, prosecutors called her a “habitual felon” in a case that sent her to prison for more than 12 years.
The victim, Eli Santos Blanco, spoke with WNCN about the attack, saying that he and Hunter had been in conflict for months. He described the brutal attack and showed the injuries on his heavily bandaged arms where the dog bit him.
“It’s a hard pain to explain. At first, it was just okay, then she was ripping my tendons, muscles apart,” Blanco said. “I looked at that dog and I saw the grip she had. I just started punching the dog, poking out anything to make it get off.”
It was at that moment that a man with a gun shot the dog, Blanco said.
Hunter made her first court appearance on Monday via a video feed from jail, where a Wake County District Court judge set her bail at $30,000.
If she posts bond, she is ordered to have no contact with Blanco and cannot own any animals, according to her release order.
Hunter, who does not have a lawyer and has not yet entered a plea, will return to court on Oct. 6.
