Spotsylvania County (VA) man dead -- apparently from dog attack

Yesterday, an autopsy has confirmed that 38 year old David Quyon Haigler was killed by his own 'pit bull'. This is a bit of an unusual story -- and not a lot of details are known (they seldom are in cases where someone is found dead in their own home).

Haigler was found dead by his 18 year old son.  The room he was in had blood stains around and Haigler had wounds on his arms, hands and head.  They also specifically point out that Haigler had "defensive wounds" on his fingers and hands (which would have not been life-threatening). The report also felt compelled to mention that there was a baseball bat in the room, but there is no mention of whether it played a role in the attack (I know the dog didn't use it, but wonder if the man may have).

There was a second dog in the house that was not inovled in the attack -- it was chained up elsewhere in the house.  

According to early reports, Haigler was sentenced to 7 years in prison in 2003 due to a high speed chase that ended up with him repeatedly ramming a Spotsylvania deputy's cruiser and pulling a gun on an officer. He also had been convicted of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, possession of cocaine, felony eluding, hit and run and driving on a suspended license.

Authorities are still awaiting a toxicology report...as it appears they at least have some reason to believe drugs may have been a factor in this.

I'm actually somewhat proud of the media not jumping all over this case early on before the autoposy was performed. The story has now been picked up by more than 175 media outlets.

I'll update this more if any other information becomes available.

Comments

[jen]

Agreed- I hope the media lays low until the results are in. If this was a lab, do you think they'd conclude that the dog was trying to wake him up like in other similar stories?

[PAMM - People Against Malicious Men]

My guess is the wasted bastard was beating the dog and this is another case of "he got what was coming to him"

[Sarah Clinton]

This was on our local news last night (I live in Richmond, VA), and I actually turned to my aunt and said, "Well, I'm sure it wasn't a pit bull because they would have splashed 'Man attacked by pit bull' all over the news."

The news report was actually pretty non-sensational, as far as this type of reporting goes. Two neighbors were interviewed, both who said that they were surprised by the attack because they had never seen the dogs act aggressively. The owner was seen often walking the dogs, and while they had outside kennels, they spent much of their time inside the house with the owner.

It was reported that the owner may have been recovering from a previous dog bite on his hand.

It will be interesting to see how this story plays out, especially when the toxicology report comes back.

[Lori S.]

I hope I won't come across as a loony toons pit bull nut when I ask if anyone knows the qualifications of the person doing the autopsy? I ask not because I think it's impossible that a dog could have done this, but because if you've seen Frontline: Postmortem on PBS (or heard the audio stories on NPR), you know that our death investigations are performed within a dysfunctional system in which there are few standards, little oversight and the mistakes are literally buried. In state after state, reporters found autopsies -- our final physical exam -- conducted by doctors who LACKED CERTIFICATION OR TRAINING. (There were even people who had NO medical training at all elected to a position that I happen to think they had no business being in.)

It's an interesting series that has lead me to stop taking autopsy results at face value.

If you're interested, there's free (1hr) video program here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/post-mortem/

Or some briefer audio reports (that are also transcribed if you want to check them out at work but can't stream audio) here: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/01/133301436/the-real-csi-death-detective-dysfunction