A pregnant Frenchwoman who died while walking a dog in the woods during a deer hunt was killed by her partner’s dog and not the hunting hounds, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Elisa Pilarski, 29, lost her life while out walking her partner’s pitbull, Curtis, in Retz forest northeast of Paris in November last year.
She was six months pregnant at the time.
A post-mortem showed that Pilarski died of bleeding after several dog bites to her limbs and head.
Suspicion initially fell on the hunting hounds, but DNA tests and veterinary examinations showed that the “sole involvement” of her partner’s dog in the attack, Amiens prosecutor Eric Boussuge said.
Boussuge said that the dog had been illegally imported into France from the Netherlands and trained to attack using techniques banned in France.
A source close to the investigation, who asked not to be named, told reporters that the pitbull’s DNA was found on Pilarski’s bites and that her DNA was also found on his leash.
Just before the attack Pilarski had telephoned her partner, Christophe Ellul, to tell him that she had come across threatening dogs and had difficulty keeping Curtis on his leash.
Ellul arrived on the scene about 45 minutes later to find her body in a ravine, next to Curtis and a pack of hounds.
Her clothes had been ripped off.
Ellul blamed the hounds for her death, but two veterinary reports concluded that only the pitbull’s jaw could have produced the marks on Pilarski’s body.
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