The Jury Court of Veroia imposed a five-year prison sentence on the 38-year-old owner of three herding dogs that mauled the 50-year-old woman in Neochoruda Thessaloniki, in December 2023.

The Court, by a majority (6-1), found the defendant guilty of manslaughter by negligence (misdemeanor), upon conversion of the indictment from manslaughter with possible malice (capital offense).

The 38-year-old was not granted mitigating circumstances, but the judges decided his appeal would have a suspensive effect on the execution of the sentence, so he will be released at least until the Court of Appeal.

During his plea, the defendant, who had been temporarily detained and was in prison until today, expressed his regret for the death of the 50-year-old woman and said that the large dogs had come out of a hole in the fence which they had opened, denying that the hole in question had been caused by human hands.

According to information from protothema.gr, the results of the autopsy – autopsy show that the woman received dozens of bite wounds – more than 50 the ERT mentioned – all over her body and suffered multiple blows all over the surface of her body. Significantly, on one arm alone she appears to have received more than ten bites from the three large dogs.

The testimony of the deaf worker who ran to help the 50-year-old

The first person who ran to help the 50-year-old woman was the deaf worker who had described a few hours after the tragic incident – via messages – to protothema.gr what happened in the yard of the woman’s house.

“These dogs are killers, they attacked her so viciously that she died as a result. I was standing outside the fence and because I am deaf I could not hear her screams. I was cutting the bushes and using a chainsaw so I didn’t understand that the dogs came in and, of course, what happened,”he said, adding that the woman was pulling branches out of the yard and the dogs probably followed her when she saw them and went inside to avoid them.

“The dogs came in and all hell broke loose. Unfortunately, there was a lot of harm done. A neighbor who heard the screams came into his car, had his gun with him, and shot in the air to scare them off. He called me too, at first I didn’t understand and I was looking for her in the fence but once I got inside the yard I saw her body. I started the chainsaw to scare the dogs away and they left. As soon as I got into the yard she was down and she was bitten all over, she was beaten all over her body, her clothes were in pieces, and she had holes all over her body from the dogs’ teeth,” the gardener described.

“I ran to take care of her. I tried. I screamed and yelled. The ambulance was late coming, it took about an hour and it was already late. Her children were in the house but they didn’t understand what had happened. They came out when they heard our voices but their mother was unconscious,” the gardener noted.