Pit-bull attack kills baby girl staying with grandmother

A baby girl in a bouncy chair died Wednesday after one of her family’s three pit bulls attacked her.

The 8-month-old child was in the care of a grandmother during Wednesday’s attack outside the Miramar home in the 2400 block of Kingston Drive, police said.

“She was the best thing to ever happen to me,” Brenda Villasin told reporters about her daughter, Liana Valino. “She was my world.”

Villasin said before she goes to work, she drops off her daughter at the grandmother’s home. “Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks they are going to lose the person they love,” Villasin said, according to WPLG-Ch. 10.

The baby was bitten about 11:30 a.m. when “the child was in a bedroom and was in a bouncy chair,” Miramar Police Officer Yessenia Diaz said.

The male pit bull was 3 or 4 years old and was raised by the family since it was a puppy, Diaz said. Its sibling and mother, both pit bulls, also are kept by the family.

Early Wednesday afternoon, all three dogs were removed from the property. “I don’t know what the outcome will be of the dog [suspected in the attack],” Diaz said.

Jackie Knapp, of New Jersey, was visiting her sister, Ivelisse Machado, who lives down the street from where the baby was attacked.

Before the sisters knew the child died, they prayed together for a miracle, Knapp said.

“We went in and started praying, asking for this baby to survive,” she said.

Knapp’s voice broke as she spoke about the incident.

“The minute I heard the baby was attacked, I felt like I knew her,” Knapp said. “They’re never going to get through that. It’s a big loss.”

Machado said she walks her pugs around the neighborhood and hasn’t seen the pit bulls before, and has only heard them bark as she passed by.