Family searching to understand dog attack

YERMO — For the family of Kelly Caldwell, the events of Christmas evening don’t make sense.

Her daughter, Rhonda Dugger, who lived with Caldwell in Yermo and spent Christmas morning with her mother, does not understand why Caldwell was walking alone near the intersection of Yermo Road and Second Street the night several dogs attacked and killed her. She does not understand what happened to her mother that night.

“It was horrible, absolutely horrible. She was gone when I got there. I never saw her take another breath,” Dugger said of her mother. “She didn’t know that side of Yermo. She never ventured over that way. She never went out alone.”

Despite a medical condition that left Caldwell with weak lungs and forced her to always walk with a companion, her sister, Theresa Davies, said Caldwell was a tough woman who had a bit of rough side. Both Davies and Dugger said sometimes Caldwell rubbed people the wrong way and she had enemies in Yermo but both still loved her.

“I love my sister. I love my sister to death, but a lot of people didn’t like her,” Davies said.

Both Dugger and Davies said Caldwell’s body was badly damaged by the attack. Dugger said it looked like Caldwell’s legs had been run over by a car. Pieces of her body were scattered around the scene. Davies, who saw her sister in the emergency room, said she had skin nowhere else on her body but her face.

“I can’t fathom it. I can’t believe an animal could do that,” she said, “but I saw her in the emergency room, and they did do that to her.”

The owners of the four dogs suspected in the attack — two of which were shot and two held as evidence — said the dogs had never been violent to other people. However, Dugger and Davies have heard from other people that those dogs have attacked people in the past. Sgt. Rob Ciolli said detectives have also talked to people in the area about violence by the dogs.

According to records from San Bernardino County Animal Care and Control, reports about vicious dogs and bites have been made against the location, but not against the dogs suspected in the attack, John Papp, a supervisor of field services for the county, said.

Amid the investigation and questioning about what happened that Tuesday night, the community has decided to hold a candlelight vigil for Caldwell at dusk on Saturday evening at the corner of Second Street and Yermo Road, where the attack occurred.

The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information can call the sheriff’s department at 256-4838. To remain anonymous, contact WeTip at 1-800-78-CRIME.