Couple Sentenced for Deadly Pit Bull Attack in Texas

Harsh Sentences for Lethal Dog Attack

An elder­ly wid­ow let out screams of anguish dur­ing the sen­tenc­ing of a cou­ple whose dogs mauled her hus­band to death and left her seri­ous­ly injured. 

Juani­ta Najera wept as she told a court in San Anto­nio, Texas, of her dev­as­ta­tion since the loss of 81-year-old vet­er­an Ramon Najera.

Brutal Pit Bull Attack

Najera was sav­aged last year by a pack of dogs includ­ing two pit bulls which belonged to Chris­t­ian Moreno and his wife Abi­lene Schnieder. The cou­ple was jailed for a total of 33 years on Friday.

Devastating Impact on Victim’s Family

“You both took a big part of my life away. You took my bet­ter half away. I feel that you’re serv­ing what you deserve for the crime you com­mit­ted,” Juani­ta Najera sobbed in the Texas court.

Lack of Remorse from Defendants

Najer­a’s son told the court the cou­ple had shown no remorse over the death. On leav­ing the court, Moreno was seen non­cha­lant­ly throw­ing up a hand ges­ture to the pub­lic gallery.

History of Dangerous Dog Behavior

The ani­mals named Snow, King and Leg­end had been the sub­ject of numer­ous com­plaints by neigh­bors and had attacked peo­ple twice before. They were con­fis­cat­ed by the author­i­ties before their own­ers fought to get them back.

Preventable Tragedy

Judge Meza called the tragedy “pre­ventable” as she admon­ished the pair for not being bet­ter dog own­ers. “To echo what most, if not all, the wit­ness­es tes­ti­fied to, this was pre­ventable,” Meza said. 

“(Dog own­er­ship) involves not only tak­ing care of your dog, but insur­ing the safe­ty of the peo­ple in our neigh­bor­hoods, in our com­mu­ni­ties and you failed at that.”