Port Huron, Michigan - Although authorities said 22-year-old Rebecca
Hardy was intent on killing herself when she exposed herself to vicious dogs,
the woman's fiancé is insisting she had everything to live for.
Hardy deliberately climbed a fence to a backyard and
allowed herself to be mauled to death last Thursday in Port Huron, authorities
said.
She died at a local hospital with extensive injuries to her
face and neck. The death was ruled a suicide from injuries caused by multiple
dogs mauling her, according to the Oakland County Medical Examiner's Office.
"These were attack dogs. These were vicious dogs in an
enclosed space," Oakland County Medical Examiner Ljubisa Dragovic said.
"She obviously was aware of that, because she climbed over the fence to
subject herself to this threat."
He said his office's investigation shows Hardy had recently
been kicked out of her house and had attempted suicide in the past. A
toxicology report is still pending, but Dragovic said it wouldn't matter if she
were intoxicated: "If (drugs or alcohol) were a factor in general
behavior, it still does not eliminate the purposeful act of climbing into the
dangerous area."
After the attack at about 4:45 p.m. last Thursday, Hardy
was taken to Lake Huron Medical Center and later flown to Beaumont Hospital,
where she died, the Port Huron (Mich.) Times Herald reports. The two dogs, a
pit bull and a pit bull-husky mix, were euthanized the next day. A pit
bull-husky mix puppy was also euthanized.
Hardy had an 18-month-old daughter with her fiancé, Matthew
Grattan. He told The Times Herald on Wednesday that he finds it hard to believe
that she would do anything to harm herself.
"I, in no way, shape or form believe that she was
looking to hurt herself on that day," Grattan said. "She had a little
girl. … She wanted us to be a family."
Dragovic said he didn't immediately know whether there were
signs Hardy resisted the dogs' attacks at any point. He also said that she
lived nearby and would have been familiar with the area.
"This is not a situation like the kid that was
attacked by similar kinds of dogs out on the street," Dragovic said,
referring to a Dec. 2 incident in Detroit where a 4-year-old boy was mauled to
death after dogs escaped a home. In the Detroit case, the dogs' owner is
charged with murder.
Grattan said he's trying not to pay attention to the
controversy surrounding Hardy's death.
"It's so much about the pit bulls that it seems like
it's not so much about my fiancée anymore," Grattan said.
