Dog Owner Reacts to Court Decision to Euthanize Dogs Following Fatal Attack on Senior

“It’s a big mess up,” Bagaric said, visibly distressed. “I wake up every morning screaming and crying.”

Bagaric struggled to hold back tears as he recounted the tragic day. He had been hosting a barbeque where Betty Ann Williams, his neighbor, was invited. During the event, his dogs escaped and fatally mauled her.

“It’s been a nightmare,” he said. “Before I came to Canada, life was hell, but then as you grow older, you develop love and things you care for. I love animals, it’s kind of my favorite thing. I loved Betty. So it’s hard. I never wanted all the dogs. I couldn’t find homes for them. Nobody wanted them. So I kept them. I expected a fairy tale and here we are.”

The dogs, Smoki, Cinnamon, and Bossi, are Staffordshire terriers. Smoki was euthanized earlier for his role in the attack on June 5, 2022, which resulted in Williams’ death. The 86-year-old suffered fatal injuries to her head, neck, face, and body after the three dogs escaped a fenced and gated backyard and attacked her while she was gardening in a back alley.

Bagaric and Williams were next-door neighbors.

“My dogs were never trained to harm anybody,” he said.

The court heard that the woman’s injuries were grievous: multiple cuts and bruises to her head and neck, a fractured vertebra just below her skull, a fractured bone under her jaw, injuries to her jugular vein branches and carotid artery, bruises on her legs, and cuts on her arms.

Denis Bagaric said he wanted to share his side of the story but was advised against it by his lawyers.

The city requested the court to euthanize his two remaining dogs, which the judge agreed to on Thursday.

“These dogs should not be returned to the community because they are a high risk and a danger to the public,” Justice Bruce Fraser ruled. “The only option is to direct them to be destroyed.”

Bagaric asked for the dogs to be adopted out and given behavior modification instead. His lawyer argued that the two dogs should be spared because there was no proof they were involved in the attack.

However, Fraser disagreed. “The photos demonstrate horrific injuries to Miss Williams all over her body that led to her death, particularly to her head, jaw, neck, and face. Her lip and one ear had been ripped off. She was covered in blood,” Fraser said. “Miss Williams died a most horrible death.”

An emotional Denis Bagaric spoke to CTV News outside of court on Thursday after a judge ruled his two remaining dogs would be killed, after a two year court battle on their fate, for the role they played in the death of a Calgary senior in June 2022.