Closing arguments will take place Monday, April 20, in the trial of a man whose dogs mauled his 3-year-old daughter to death.
Warren Houston − who testified in in his own defense on April 17 − faces charges of involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide and child endangering.
Houston’s daughter, Kingsley Wright, was asleep in the living room of his Roselawn apartment when his two dogs, described as pit bull terriers, escaped from a cage and attacked her. It happened in the early morning hours of Dec. 27, 2024.
A few months before, according to testimony, Houston, 46, had learned that Kingsley was his daughter. She was staying at his home for the first time.
Neither Houston nor his girlfriend at the time heard Kingsley crying and screaming for approximately 20 minutes as she was mauled by the dogs. Houston said he and his girlfriend were asleep in a bedroom with the door closed. He described the walls of the apartment, one of four units in a building on Stillwell Avenue, as “extremely thick” and said the furnace was in a closet near the bedroom.
The mauling was captured on Houston’s home surveillance video.
Houston testified that the dogs had never escaped from the cage before, although he said one of the cage door’s two latches was “inoperable” and required force to close properly.
But the dogs, he testified, had never bitten anyone.
Houston had been caring for one of the dogs, named “Chevy,” for less than a year. He found it in a local park, where someone had left it, malnourished and injured. He said it likely was a “bait dog,” used to train other dogs for dog fights.
The nonjury trial began April 13 before Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Virginia Tallent. Closing arguments are set to begin around 1 p.m.
The Enquirer will update this report.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Closing arguments set in trial of Ohio man whose dogs killed daughter
Reporting by Kevin Grasha, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
