Police seek evidence in pit bull attack on boy

Eric Leake

Thursday, Feb. 27, 2003 | 11:19 a.m.

Police are trying to gather enough evidence to charge the owner of two pit bulls for the dogs' mauling of a 7-year-old boy in North Las Vegas on Sunday.

The victim, Austin Bechtel, suffered a fractured skull and required about 100 stitches to close his wounds. Surgeons had to remove bone fragments from his brain Wednesday, and he was listed in serious condition today.

Neither of the dogs that attacked him had tags, but one was wearing a collar and the other was dragging a leash. That's one reason investigators are convinced the dogs were not strays. Mark Martin, spokesman for the North Las Vegas Police, said the department needs the public to come forward with information about the dogs or the attack, no matter how slight they may think the information is.

Bechtel's neighbor, Damon Gordon, has told police he thinks the owner of the dogs lives within their Rancho Del Norte Estates neighborhood.

After another neighbor, Jeff Goodrich, chased the dogs away from Bechtel with the help of his own dog and a baseball bat, the dogs appeared to run home, Gordon said.

"I followed the dogs around the corner. They were trying to bite kids all along the way," Gordon said.

Gordon said he followed the dogs down an adjacent street and to a yard in the neighborhood. The people there called one of the dogs by name, "Bow Wow," Gordon said.

But a man at the residence said Wednesday that he did not own the dogs and didn't know who did.

Goodrich said he was doing what any father would have done when he fought the dogs off Austin. But not every father is 6 feet tall, over 300 pounds, and experienced at swinging an aluminum bat.

Goodrich said he was getting ready to watch television Sunday when he heard a commotion in the front yard. He ran out to find the two pit bulls mauling his son's playmate.

"I knew there was nothing I could do with my bare hands to get the dogs off the boy, so I ran into my garage and grabbed an aluminum baseball bat," Goodrich said. As he hit one dog, his big Rottweiler-mix, Hooch, begun biting and pulling the leg of the other dog from inside the fence, he said.

"The male dog, the bigger one, I hit in the head as hard as I possibly could. It staggered a bit and took off down the street," Goodrich said.

"I don't even want to think about what could have happened if I hadn't been in that back bedroom getting ready to watch TV," Goodrich said.

Animal control officials caught and quarantined the two loose pit bulls, one brown and the other black with white markings.