Advertisement

7-year-old mauled to death by dogs while walking with brother, South Carolina cops say

A 7-year-old who loved animals died after dogs attacked him in his South Carolina neighborhood, his dad said.

Shamar Sherif Jackson and his brother were looking for their chihuahua when they encountered a pack of dogs on Sunday night, their dad said.

“They couldn’t get away because it was so many dogs coming from different directions,” Carnell Jackson, the children’s father, said in a phone interview.

Marion County Sheriff’s Office said Shamar’s brother managed to leave the area off Wilbur Road, roughly 45 miles northwest of Myrtle Beach.

As Jackson was leaving work, he said, he learned Shamar was missing.

“I didn’t think I would come home and find my son dead,” Jackson told McClatchy News. “I was just thinking he went somewhere and hid or jumped in a tree.”

But it turns out, the boy couldn’t escape. The dogs had torn off Shamar’s clothes and killed him, WBTW and other news outlets reported.

Shamar has been described as a first-grade student who earned A’s at Lake View Elementary school.

In a Facebook post on Monday, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office didn’t say whether anyone had been charged in the case. The department said it was working with the coroner and animal control to find the dogs and their owner.

Fletcher Estes, animal control officer for the county, told McClatchy News his department tried to find any dogs that were “running at large.” Five dogs and a puppy were taken from a property on nearby Cleo Road.

Estes said the investigation is ongoing, and it’s not known whether the seized dogs were involved in the deadly attack.

The S.C. Law Enforcement Division responded to the crime scene, the sheriff’s department said.

Pack of dogs abandoned by owner kills 11 goats in North Carolina, officials say

32-year-old likely mauled to death by dogs at home, South Carolina officials say