Mom indicted in dog-maul death of son

[Gormy Cuss]

SAN FRANCISCO
Mom indicted in dog-maul death of son
12-year-old was killed at home by family's pit bulls
- Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 31, 2006

A year after her 12-year-old son was mauled to death by the family pit bulls, a San Francisco woman has been indicted by a grand jury on charges of felony child endangerment causing death, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Maureen Faibish, 40, appeared briefly in San Francisco Superior Court on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to the charges, which are punishable by as much as 10 years in state prison.

She already had been charged by the district attorney's office in the June 3, 2005, death of her son Nicholas, who was mauled after she left him alone with the dogs in the family's home on Lincoln Way in the Inner Sunset District.

The grand jury issued its indictment Thursday. It is not clear why prosecutors opted for a secret grand jury in lieu of a preliminary hearing in a case that already had been filed. Bilen Mesfin, spokeswoman for the district attorney, would not offer a reason except to say that prosecutors thought it the best way to proceed.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/31/BAG3GJ50821.DTL
©2006 San Francisco Chronicle

[SteppingRazor]

1. Christ. Like the woman hasn't suffered enough...

If they can't prove that these dogs had a history of violence, and that the mom knew it, then these prosecutors are doing a far worse thing than the mom ever did.

[SteppingRazor]

10. Yeah, I gotta addendum my post, given the rest of these posts...

If all this other info is accurate, the woman's dangerously stupid.

She should have just cut the male's balls off and been done with it, unless she intended to breed the pair.

But going beyond that, she should've crated the dogs when she left.

Still further, how could you lock the KID in the basement and leave the dogs upstairs, instead of vice versa?

I dunno. The woman seems mental.

[sandrakae]

12. This woman doesn't deserve sympathy.

She blamed her son for this. She locked him in the basement and told him to stay there while she did errands. After his death. She complained that he never listens.

[SteppingRazor]

13. Please note my second post, right below my first one. n/t

[Booster]

15. If I remember correctly, the dog has bitten the boy like the day

before, so when she left that day, she put the boy in the basement and told him not to come out. This woman knew the dog was dangerous and could have made other arrangements for the boy - I have no sympathy for her at all. Why the hell wouldn't you lock the dog in the basement and leave the boy in the house so he could go about his normal routine?

[idgiehkt]

2. Careful with this one...

There is alot more to this story than this article is telling. I am trying to find a link. This lady is a complete nut in my opinion.

[idgiehkt]

3. Maureen Fabish quote (hurl warning):

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- The mother of a 12-year-old boy who was killed Friday by the family's pet pit bulls expressed guilt over her son's death Sunday.

"I have a lot of guilt," said Maureen Faibish. "But I have to realize he was destined to go at this time."

Faibish's son, Nicky, was mauled to death by two pit bulls Friday afternoon in the bedroom of the family's Sunset District home.

Authorities are investigating what might have set off the attack while Faibish was home alone with Rex and Ella, 80-pound pets who had lived with the family since they were puppies.

"I don't want people to make this a dog thing," Faibish said. "It was an accident. It was something that happened, and I think god has a plan for everybody and it was time for Nicky to go."
http://noexcuses.tribe.net/thread/5f39e10e-4cc4-4fb6-952f-eadeec880509
I read this article when it first came out, it's linked on this site now and I don't have the original article link but these are the same quotes I read when it came out.

She locked her CHILD in the basement to keep him away from the dogs, she knew the female was in heat and the male was aggressive. Talk about a psycho.
SICK, SICK, SICK. She endangered this child and I hope she rots in jail.

another quote:

"In a startling interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Maureen Faibish said she ordered her 12-year-old son, Nicholas, to stay in the basement while she did errands June 3, the day he was attacked by one or both of the dogs.

"I put him down there, with a shovel on the door," said Faibish, according to the newspaper. "He had a bunch of food. And I told him, `Stay down there until I come back.' Typical Nicky, he wouldn't listen to me."

Faibish said she was worried about the male dog, Rex, who was acting possessive because the female, Ella, was in heat.

Home alone, Nicholas Faibish apparently found a way to open the basement door. That's when his mom believes he walked in on the dogs while they were mating and was attacked by Rex.

"It was Rex. I know it in my heart," Faibish said. "My younger dog (Ella) was in heat and anyone who came near her, Rex saw as a threat. He may have been trying to mate. It was a freak accident. It was just the heat of the moment."


"I'm not mad at my dogs," Faibish said. "I just love them to death."

[elehhhhna]

14. thank god her deeply felt religious beleifs are helping her through

this "troubling" time.

[11cents]

4. Right.

She locked the kid in the basement because she was concerned that the dogs were dangerous. Then she left for a few hours. The boy got out and was killed. In the interviews that she (unwisely!) did after the death, she seemed to blame everyone except herself, even the kid for being disobedient. Of course she was grief-stricken, but she did come off as a nut. And if she'd been that worried about the dogs, she obviously shouldn't have left her son at home with them.

Also: the dogs were a male-female pair that were unneutered. The female may have been in heat. The boy's stepfather, who was apparently the dogs' "alpha," had been gone for several weeks. Recipe for disaster. I like pitbulls, but anyone who keeps an unneutered pair is either an idiot or a breeder.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. There was also strong suggestion that the son had a disability

that affected his behavior (his 'disobedience.')

I live in this area, there were many articles and interviews. Yes, the mother came off very badly. The father was living in Oregon, and the family was supposed to move there a few weeks after it happened according to the mother and that was one of the excuses she had for her poor judgment.

It is striking that they are pursuing her so vigorously. I suspect there's a lot about the situation that never made it into the media.

[idgiehkt]

7. I think it's a slam dunk for them.

She admitted to endangering her child. She said she locked him in the basement with a shovel against the door, to protect him from the dogs. Creepy, crazy b*tch. So that is an admission of guilt. I'd hate to be her defense attorney; they will probably say she was temporarily insane or something if what you are saying above is true.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

8. Exactly.

I love pitbulls. However, they are often dog aggressive, which can turn into people-aggressive if the person gets in the middle even with nice dogs. Any sort of intelligent owner would have crated the dogs up instead of locking her son in the basement. Especially in one dog is in heat. The mother is the one that should be winning a Darwin award.

[shanti]

11. the question I have is

WHY didn't she put the DOGS in the basement and leave the kid upstairs??? jeezus!

[schrodingers_cat]

5. Agreed.......

Briefly.....
She locked her son in the basement and left the two dogs in the main house. If I remember correctly, the male dog was unfixed, and the female in heat. The child worked his way out of the locked basement and into the main house.
If you have even a rudimentary dog sense, this flies in the face of every bit wisdom of pack heirarchy and proper training. If you have even a rudimentary sense of childrearing, you do not lock your child in the basement. And then she made some totally out of touch comment to the press, something about that it must have been the kid's time to meet god.
She gave me the willies.......the color of the sky on her planet was indeed truly different from mine.......

< please feel free to correct any innacuracy caused by lapse of time and my potentially fickle and fallible memory>

[Redstone]

9. No, I think you summed it up quite nicely. But no, she's NOT

crazy. Just terminally fucking stupid.

Crazy deserves hospitalization. That imbecilic woman deserves jail, and lots of it.

Redstone

[mother earth]

16. Some people should not be allowed to reproduce.

She wasn't fit to care for her son. Obviously doing her errands was more important, the dogs were more important & now she doesn't have to worry about her 12 year old son any more.