Child attacked by three dogs, calf muscle ‘shredded’

• Liam Martinez, 6, was attacked by a neighbor’s pit bull mix dogs in his backyard in Wiggins, Miss., on April 18
• Five of Tamara Melom’s dogs were previously involved in multiple other attacks in Mobile, Ala., leading to a court order to remove them from their owner, who allegedly illegally repurchased them through third parties on Facebook, she said Wednesday, 1 May in court.
• Melom will not face criminal charges for the attack that temporarily affected Liam’s ability to walk, but she has been fined about $3,000 for violating a provincial ordinance regarding vicious dogs.

The Mississippi mother had just returned home when she heard “a death scream” coming from her backyard.

Devyn Phillips ran toward the noise and wrote in a Facebook post that she saw three pit bull mix dogs “shaking” her 6-year-old son, Liam Martinez, and “eating him alive.”

Phillips’ partner, Aries Fairley, waded into the fray and “yanked our Liam off these dogs,” the mother wrote, adding that when she grabbed her son, her “fingers went into his leg.”

“This was a full-on attack and the dogs had no intention of stopping,” Phillips wrote of the April 18 incident in Wiggins, Miss. “They ate my son.”

Liam Martinez, 6, was airlifted to a hospital in Mobile, Alabama, where doctors performed surgery but were unable to repair his “completely shredded” right calf muscle, according to a GoFundMe page set up to cover medical costs. to recover.

Family friends said on GoFundMe that Liam suffered “multiple” bone-deep injuries, causing severe nerve damage.

“This is a tragedy that should never have happened,” Stone County Chief Sheriff Steve Taylor told PEOPLE in an interview.

Taylor says his investigators later learned that Tamatha Melom, the owner of the dogs — who had a history of seizures — had allegedly been illegally reunited with her dogs the year before.

Three previous attacks — including one on an elderly person who received 63 stitches — prompted a Mobile, Ala., judge. to take away four of her dogs by court order, Melom reportedly admitted in a proceeding Wednesday, May 1, in Stone County Justice Court. told by Taylor to PEOPLE.

The dogs were supposed to be sent to a rescue group in February 2023, but Taylor said Melom testified that she paid friends and others on Facebook to buy the dogs back. the street of a local Head Start program for children.

Taylor’s investigators ultimately seized five of Melom’s dogs — some of which were involved in Liam’s attack and all of which had previously been tagged with microchips — that were involved in the Mobile attacks.

In court, Melom said she believed her dogs were innocent and did not apologize to the family, Taylor tells PEOPLE. Melom further alleged during the hearing that Mobile’s animal control fabricated the earlier attacks.

Taylor says Melom’s five attack dogs will be euthanized by a veterinarian by lethal injection in early June. She has thirty days to appeal.

Melom — who has faced no criminal charges and has represented himself in court — was ordered to pay approximately $3,000 in fines for five violations of a vicious dog ordinance, Taylor confirms to PEOPLE.

Taylor tells PEOPLE that Melum still owns several other dogs, including two small dogs with a litter of puppies, and a larger dog “but it doesn’t seem mean.”

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Meanwhile, in an updated statement to PEOPLE, which was also posted to GoFundMe earlier this month, Phillips says Liam is “a long way from being able to walk again,” although with additional surgery and physical therapy they will slowly “rebuild his strength and power.” let him walk again,” but that “he may never be able to play sports again in the future.”

Phillips says her son will miss the rest of kindergarten as he continues his recovery. For the time being, he has difficulty using a walker.

Liam’s next surgery is scheduled Wednesday, May 8 – should “remove any non-viable dead skin/tissue and remove current stitches,” she says, adding, “Then they will close the rest of his leg.”

Phillips said on Facebook that doctors told her that if Liam had not been rescued as quickly as he did, Liam would likely not be alive.

“Liam has had a long road to recovery, but he is here, he is stronger than I could ever imagine,” she added, “and he is overcoming all the obstacles that have come his way.”