NEW RUSSIA TWP. — A group of dogs mauled and killed a New Russia Township man Tuesday in the driveway of the state Route 511 home he shared with his father.

Lorain County Coroner Paul Matus said Michael Winters, 30, was bitten “hundreds” of times during the attack by as many as nine of the family’s dogs. Winters’ clothing was torn off during the attack, which caused extensive bleeding, Matus said.

Winters’ father, Michael Kywa, frantically dialed 911 just after 12:15 p.m. after returning to his home at 48385 state Route 511 — between Quarry and Baumhart roads near the Henrietta Township line — from the store to find his son in a pool of blood.

“My dogs attacked my son,” Kywa told a dispatcher during the call.

When asked if his son was breathing, Kywa replied that he wasn’t. He also said his son was covered in bites and probably dead.

“It’s all over the place, from head to toe,” Kywa told the dispatcher during a conversation in which he cried out several times in anguish.

Kywa, 63, also told the dispatcher that he couldn’t touch his son’s bloody body because Winters had AIDS.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Don Barker said that when deputies arrived, they fanned out across the sprawling 9.12­-acre property with members of county Dog Warden Jack Szlempa Sr.’s staff to deal with the dogs, two of which were shot when they approached deputies in an aggressive manner.

During the hours-long search of the fenced-in property for the dogs, neighbors were told to stay inside their homes and media were largely kept back from the scene because of safety concerns.

Seven other dogs were euthanised at the scene, Chief Deputy Dennis Cavanaugh said. A 10th dog that was inside the house at the time of the attack was spared, he said. Barker said authorities had no choice but to put down all of the dogs, which varied in size and breed, but included a mastiff and a Rottweiler.“All the dogs are going to be euthanised,” he said. “There’s no way to tell which ones were involved.”

Kywa didn’t object to the dogs being put down, Barker said.

The dogs will be tested for diseases, including rabies, Matus said.

Barker said the only call to the home that deputies have responded to in recent years was a 2001 burglary call, but Szlempa said his office has been called out to the home twice in the past two or three years. The most recent call, he said, took place about a year and a half ago and involved several dogs attacking another dog, but no report was taken on the incident because it occurred on private property.

Barker said the dogs — many of them strays taken in by Kywa — appeared to have been well-fed and well-cared for.

“These are family pets, they love their dogs,” he said.

A neighbor also said that the family took care of the dogs, and they weren’t vicious.

Authorities said they had no idea why the dogs attacked Winters, whom Kywa told deputies were very familiar with his son.

“We really don’t know what prompted this,” Matus said, who added that although he’s heard about them, he’s never seen a fatal dog attack since he began working as a medical examiner in the 1970s.

The dogs may have developed a pack mentality, he said. “When they develop a pack mentality, they are likely to launch an attack on someone.” Once the attack began, Matus said, the dogs appeared to have targeted areas of Winters’ body where there were arteries, including the neck and thigh.

Barker said it appeared that Winters arrived at the home sometime after Kywa departed for his shopping trip around 11:30 a.m. Winters appeared to have parked his car in the garage and was closing a security gate — marked by a “beware of the dog” sign — on the driveway when he was attacked, Barker said.

There were no witnesses to the actual attack, he said.

Chief Photographer Bruce Bishop contributed to this story.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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