The tragic death of an 8-year-old girl in the city of Malang, East Java, is being widely covered in the Indonesian media today due to the shocking nature of her death – she was reportedly killed by her foster family’s pit bull.
According to the police, the pit bull attacked the girl – who was adopted by the family when she was two – on Sunday afternoon at the family’s home. At the time, her grandmother was at home but her parents were away.
“The victim was alone because everybody else had gone to pray. There was no one around the victim at the time of the incident,” said Lowokwaru District Police Chief Bindriyo said yesterday as quoted by Detik.
From their initial investigation, the police believe that the pit bull was out of its cage, though still chained and asleep, right before the attack. They say it’s likely that the girl dropped her doll near the dog, which startled it and caused it to attack the girl when she got near.
“There is a wound on (the victim’s) neck, because of a dog bite,” Bindriyo said.
The 4-year-old pit bull was taken into custody by the police. According to the family’s neighbors, the girl’s family adopted the pit bull from a dog pound to protect their house from theft, as they have been burglarized before.
The police are also carrying out an autopsy on the victim as part of the investigation.
