Boy, 7, mauled to death by adopted dog

‘We knew something was wrong. As a mother, you know that scream’

A seven-year-old boy has been mauled to death by a rescue dog his family had adopted just weeks earlier.

James McNeelis died on 20 October following an attack by the sheltie-corgi mix dog, which the family had found abandoned by the side of a road three weeks prior to the incident.

According to CBS affiliate News on 6, the boy was reported missing by his family after he went outside to play in his backyard, where it is believed he was attacked by the animal.

In a post to a GoFundMe page set up in James’ memory, his mother Hannah Markley wrote: “On October 20th, 2021, Michael and Hannah found their little boy mauled in their back yard.”

The family’s neighbours in Keifer, Oklahoma said they were alerted to the situation when emergency patrol vehicles were dispatched to look for the youngster, but ultimately it was the boy’s parents who discovered his body.

“We just started seeing flashing lights, Kiefer Police, highway patrol, another vehicle had their flashers on driving up and down the road,” the family’s neighbour Shannon Edison told the station.

“We knew something was wrong. As a mother, you know that scream, if anybody has ever heard that scream, you know that scream. Something was catastrophically wrong.”