Prosecutors say Janna Campbell ignored repeated warnings about her dog’s violent history, and now she faces up to 15 years in prison for his death.
A Vermont woman has plead not guilty to voluntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment charges after her pit bull killed her 76-year-old father in March, an attack prosecutors say was made possible by her repeated failure to control a dog with a documented history of violence.
Janna Campbell, 43, entered her not guilty pleas Tuesday in Chittenden County Superior criminal court in Burlington. The manslaughter charge stems from the death of her father, Stephen Campbell, at a home they shared in Essex Town. She also pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor reckless endangerment charges related to two separate attacks by her 117-pound, 2-year-old pit bull named Jack in January.
Police were called to a reported animal attack on March 10 and found Stephen Campbell with severe injuries. He was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy found numerous bite marks and lacerations to his neck, face and both arms, along with a compound fracture of his right lower leg and a broken neck. The death was ruled accidental.
Vaccination records identify Jack as a large, unneutered male pit bull. The dog was euthanized after the attack.
Janna Campbell told officers that Jack had picked up one of her father’s shoes from the floor and that her father struck the dog with the other shoe. “Jack just lunged at him, and I tried, I tried so hard to stop Jack,” she said at the scene. “Jack was just, Jack was being very vicious, I can’t stick up for him. It wasn’t right.”
Campbell’s son told police that Stephen Campbell had dementia, and officers confirmed with his doctors that he had been diagnosed with major neurocognitive disorder.
The attack did not come without warning. Jack had injured two people in separate incidents in January, a person delivering Meals on Wheels and a home healthcare worker, both of whom needed stitches for dog bite wounds. Following those attacks, the Essex Town Selectboard held a “potentially vicious dog” hearing. While the board found the dog had been on its own property at the time of the attack, it ordered Campbell to confine Jack when nonresidents came to the home, post warning signage, enroll herself and the dog in training, and obtain a muzzle for the animal.
Essex Chief of Police Ron Hoague said at the time that officers had conducted regular follow-up with Campbell and believed she had complied with the selectboard’s orders. However, when announcing the charges, investigators said they had identified a pattern of violent behavior and determined Jack had attacked three other people on five separate occasions before the fatal incident.
Essex Police Cpl. Brett Williger wrote in a probable cause affidavit that Campbell’s conduct showed an “inability or unwillingness” to control the dog, adding that her “lack of preventive action was more than ordinary carelessness and rose to the level of criminal negligence due to her bias towards Jack or willful blindness towards the danger Jack posed.” Williger further alleged that Campbell had recklessly endangered Stephen Campbell as a vulnerable adult with dementia by allowing a dangerous dog to live with him.
Campbell told officers she became Jack’s sole owner after his previous owner, her boyfriend, went to jail.
Legal experts say the case raises difficult questions about how far criminal liability extends to pet owners. Robert Sand, a Vermont Law and Graduate School professor and former Windsor County state’s attorney, said he was unaware of any previous Vermont case in which a person had been charged with voluntary manslaughter following a fatal dog attack. He said the central question in any such case is what prior notice the owner had of the animal’s aggressive behavior, noting that once an owner is aware of a dog’s danger, “that changes the equation considerably.” Sand said gross negligence, meaning a substantial deviation from a reasonable standard of care, would be required to support a manslaughter charge.
If convicted on all three counts, Campbell faces up to 15 years in prison. She is due back in court in August and has been ordered not to own or care for any new animals in the interim.
