Griffin-Heady said that her half-brother loved her dogs. 'He laid in the bed with them, he played with them, he wanted one of their puppies,' she stated
Alexandria Griffin-Heady, 24, left her half-brother, Tyler Griffin-Huston, 9, alone inside her Yuba County trailer to go to work Sunday.
A few hours later she returned home from her security guard shift and found the boy had been viciously attacked by the dogs. She called 911 and he was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
The three dogs, a mother and two offspring that Griffin-Heady had raised since they were puppies, have been seized and placed in an animal shelter, the Sacramento Bee reported.
Authorities say at least two of the dogs had the boy's blood all over them, Fox 40 Sacramento reported. The dogs, who have no history with Animal Care Services, will likely be euthanized.
Her neighbors said that she had just recently moved into the small trailer in Linda from Florida to better her life and eventually get her little brother out of the foster system.
Since his mother died of a drug overdose in 2011, the little boy had bounced around different foster homes and was also homeless at some points in time, CBS Sacramento reported.
At the time of his death, he was visiting his sister who was recently approved for overnight weekend visits with him by Child Protective Services.
'The only wish for Christmas was that he wanted to have a mom and I so badly wanted to be that person for him,' Griffin-Heady told Fox 40 Sacramento.
'I failed him, whether it's my fault, my dog's fault, whoever's fault, I wanted to protect him and give him an amazing life.'
When asked if she felt her dogs were dangerous, she said that 'never a day their life' did she feel that way.
'He loved them, he laid in the bed with them, he played with them, he wanted one of their puppies.'
Undersheriff Jerry Read told CBS Sacramento that Griffin-Heady may face child endangerment charges.
'I don't know. This one seems to have affected me most,' he told the television station. 'The child being home alone and just had to have been terrified of what took place.'
Her lawyer, Roberto Marquez, told the Sacramento Bee that criminal charges would be 'inappropriate for what was essentially an unpredictable tragedy.'
He added that she had no idea that her dogs would pose a threat.
'If she had any hint at all that these dogs had any propensity for violence, she would never have left her brother with them,' he told the newspaper.
'She raised them and cannot fathom what could have happened that caused them to attack a little boy.'
'I don't even think it rises to the level of negligence. She had no knowledge that anything like this could occur.'
The boy's aunt, Laura Badeker, believed that Griffin-Heady's living circumstances and the dogs put the boy at risk.
Badeker said she told Child Protective Services that she felt her nephew was 'unsafe with his sister.'
'She was trying to rescue him from the system,' Badeker told the Sacramento Bee.
'But I told everyone on the team that was supposed to be protecting Tyler that Ali was not prepared to take care of him on any level.'
Child Protective Services also issued a statement about Griffin-Huston's tragic death.
'We are deeply saddened by the tragic death of this child. Sacramento County Child Protective Services was notified by Yuba County law enforcement yesterday, January 3. CPS is continuing to work with Yuba County law enforcement during this investigation,' it reads.
Badeker shared that his father is mentally disabled and was unable to care for him. He was the youngest of five siblings his mother left behind after her death, the Sacramento Bee reported.
His aunt feels that someone needs to be held accountable for his death.
'They were warned, over and over again,' she told the newspaper. 'Why didn't someone evaluate what was happening? Somebody needs to be held accountable for this.'
Before moving to California, Griffin-Heady was living in a motel room in Florida with her dogs, Badeker told the Sacramento Bee.
Her dogs, which she calls ' the wolf pack', are featured in several videos on YouTube that she recorded of her interactions with them.
"If she had any idea..." They are pitbulls, they aren't known as great pets for children, are they? People train them to be this way, so having no idea, is simply ignorance of the obvious.