Dogs fatally maul 19-year-old looking for lost purse at neighbor’s, Tennessee cops say

A woman who was attacked by a pack of dogs in Tennessee has died, officials say.

Adrieanna O’Shea, 19, left her purse at a Knoxville home and went back to retrieve it on August 23, WBIR reported. Witnesses say they heard O’Shea say “No Boscoe!” before she began yelling for help.

A witness called 911 as five dogs — described as a Mastiff, Pitbull, Rotweiller-Lab mix, and two Mastiff-Lab mixes — attacked O’Shea, tearing off her clothes and “tossing her into the air,” WATE reported.

When law enforcement arrived, they say O’Shea was unconscious, covered in blood and bite marks, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported. Officials say she had tried to jump a fence to escape the pack.

O’Shea was taken to a nearby hospital, WVLT reported. She died a week after the attack on August 30, according to her obituary.

Police say one dog was shot and killed on the scene when it tried to charge at a deputy, WBIR reported. The other four were euthanized after the incident.

The dog’s owner, who lived next door, arrived home after the attack and told officers the dogs were “just doing their job” and that one had been trained to attack when a gun was pointed in its direction, WATE reported. Later, however, the owners told WVLT they had never trained their dogs to attack.

The owner also told officials the dogs “were contained by an invisible fence,” WBIR reported.

“I would not own any kind of animal that would do something like this,” the owner said, according to the news outlet.“We are all traumatized with this freak accident and are praying for Adrieanna and her family.”

O’Shea’s obituary describes her as “the strongest and most determined girl to have ever walked the earth” who wanted to travel and become a history teacher. She had plans to attend Walter State University. Her funeral is set for Sept. 6.

This story was originally published September 4, 2019 at 10:56 AM with the headline "Dogs fatally maul 19-year-old looking for lost purse at neighbor’s, Tennessee cops say."