By TOM OPDYKE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/12/07
The backyard gate that was supposed to be locked was ajar, the garage's back door was open.
While mother Florence Pauley and her two other children slept, tiny Tiffany wandered out of the house early Thursday and into the damp morning.
Family photo
(ENLARGE)
Tiffany Pauley was found dead in her neighbor's yard in Carroll County.
BRANT SANDERLIN/Staff
(ENLARGE)
Robert Turner, shown with his mother, Patricia Cook, found Tiffany's body.
BRANT SANDERLIN/Staff
(ENLARGE)
Turner said authorities took the Rottweiler and the two other dogs chained in his yard, but he was allowed to keep two because they were in kennels.
Nobody knows what happened next, but authorities and family members think Tiffany walked about 200 yards up the street from her wood-framed ranch home and into an unfenced yard where at least five dogs were kept.
She walked to the back of the yard, past two other chained dogs to a Rottweiler on a 15-foot chain. Tiffany, 5, has a miniature French poodle of her own, and her family thinks she may have tried to pet the Rottweiler.
In the coming hours, no one reported hearing barking or a child's cry. Neighbors and police would comb the neighborhood looking for the girl with Down syndrome, but they didn't find her body until about 1 p.m. She was lying near the dog, under a tree.
A neighbor helping with the search had knocked on the door of Robert Turner, who owns the dogs, and explained they were looking for Tiffany and wanted to look in his back yard. As the searchers walked around the house, Turner stepped out onto his deck.
"When I got right there, I saw her laying over there. I ran to her. She was just laying there," said Turner, who owns the dogs.
Carroll County Sheriff's deputies said the girl appeared to have been mauled. An autopsy will be performed Friday.
Turner said authorities took the 10-year-old Rottweiler named Foxie and the two other dogs, a Labrador retriever/chow mix and a pit bull mix. He said he was allowed to keep two other dogs because they were in kennels.
Lt. Guy Pope said no decision has been made on charges. The three dogs are being kept at animal control shelter.
Turner said his dogs had never caused trouble before.
"My kids play with them dogs all the time and never get hurt," Turner said. He said his four children are ages 11, 7, 3 and 8 months old.
Turner's mother, Patricia Cook, said her son always kept the dogs chained and cared for them. "Nothing wrong happened here," Cook said.
Tiffany's grandmother, Annette Steere, said the family is trying to piece together what led to the tragedy. She said Tiffany had never wandered away before.
Tiffany had not developed verbal skills, Steere said, but "had a smile of grace."
Steere, of McDonough, said the little girl was missing when the family awakened that morning. Tiffany's brother, 7, and sister, 12, hadn't heard her leave.
The girl was reported missing at 11 a.m. from the family's home on Cypress Circle in a neighborhood off Newnan Road; a curling subdivision of clapboard houses behind a chemical plant.
"She woke up and just wandered out. Nobody knows what time or for how long," Steere said. She said the family usually keeps the back door closed and the fence gate locked.
Turner said he had moved to Cypress Circle home three months ago and did not know the girl or her family.
Next-door neighbor Andre Kotze said the dogs barked anytime he was out in his own yard and sometimes were a nuisance at night.
"If there was a squirrel walking in my yard, they'd be barking," Kotze said.
Just two doors down the street at the Pauley home, relatives stood guard at the door as the engines of media trucks rumbled outside.
"I guess this was an act of God," Steere said. "I can't say anything else. She was the sweetest, loving child."
Tiffany would've turned six next month.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/met...ge_tab_newstab
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Why do people keep dogs tied up!!!! I'm sick of it.
The only saving grace is that the Georgia Governor is himself a vet. So, I doubt there will be an outcry for BSL. This was so avoidable. She was 200 yards away from home!! And they could not find her for hours??? And why wasn't the house secure, anyone with kids knows they have to keep doors kid proof.