He Returned From Jail to Find Wife's Mutilated Body

A man was released from jail Friday, only to find his wife had been killed the same day, likely by her own dogs, according to Ohio police. Dale Matthews says he called his son to pick him up from Warren County Jail, where he was held on a warrant for failure to appear for child support, after his wife failed to answer his calls. The pair then drove the 11 miles to her home in Waynesville, where they found 49-year-old Mary Matthews dead on the bathroom floor, according to a police report. Police responded to a call about a possible overdose but determined Matthews had likely been attacked by one or both of her Great Danes. Her body was "covered in puncture wounds and appeared to be missing a piece of flesh from her ankle," NBC News reports, adding walls of the home were coated in blood.

There was also a piece of flesh and a bloody baseball bat on a couch, close to which sat a pair of ripped and bloodied sweatpants, per the Cincinnati Enquirer. There was more blood on towels in the kitchen and on a glass door that led to a deck so covered in feces that the "actual deck could not be seen," per NBC. That was where police found the Great Danes, which were later euthanized, per WKRC. An investigator in the coroner's office tells the Enquirer that the dogs were "known to be aggressive" and had "bitten our victim in the past." As Dale Matthews said his wife usually consumed beer and prescription pills at the start of each day, authorities believe she failed to call for help after wrangling the animals and bled to death, perhaps unaware of the extent of her injuries. (More animal attack stories.)