A Texas man who went missing was completely eaten by his own dogs, authorities said.
Deputies with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office were called to a trailer near Venus on May 6 to check on the welfare of a man.
Freddie Mack, 57, had not been seen since April 19, relatives told deputies, noting that he was reclusive.
Family members said they’d tried to go to check on the man themselves but weren’t able to approach his residence because of 18 dogs on the property, reported CBS DFW.
Deputies went to the property and were able to search part of it after distracting the dogs but didn’t find anything.
Deputies returned on May 9 but couldn’t gain access to the house because of the dogs. Using a drone, they tried finding evidence of his whereabouts but that attempt failed.
He was listed as a missing person on May 10.
The next day, family members told deputies they couldn’t care for the dogs so deputies began giving them food and water, reported NBC DFW. Deputies were told Mack cared for his dogs regularly and began canvassing jails and hospitals to try to find Mack.
During a search of the property on May 15, deputies spotted a small piece of a bone on the ground. Executing a search warrant on May 17, they found several other bone fragments.
Sixteen of the dogs were seized two days later, enabling deputies to perform a more detailed search. Evidence collected included fabric and what detectives believed was human hair.
Officials found pieces of clothing that fit the description of Mack’s only set of clothing in animal feces and sent the bones they’d found for identification. On June 9, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that two pieces of bone fragments that were found on the property were confirmed to be a human and linked to Mack through a DNA match.
“During the course of our investigation it was found that Freddie suffered from serious medical conditions so we will never know if the dogs killed Mr. Mack or consumed him after he died from a medical condition,” said Sheriff Adam King with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office in a statement sent to news outlets. “Either way, it is a very gruesome event and we extend our sympathy to Freddy Mack’s family.”
In a press release, the office said Mack was “entirely consumed by his own dogs.”
Two of the dogs that were originally on the property were killed by deputies during the course of the investigation, officials told the Cleburne Times-Review. Of the 16 others, 13 were put down because of their aggressive behavior and suspected involvement in the killing of Mack.
Dozens of people are killed by dogs every year in the United States.
A study published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association in 2013, examining 256 dog bite-related fatalities from 2000 to 2009, found that the main factors of such fatalities included the absence of an able-bodied person to intervene, incidental or no familiar relationship of victims with dogs, and owner failure to neuter dogs.
Researchers concluded that most of the deaths were characterized by “preventable factors.”
