Couple convicted in pit bull attack that maimed San Antonio senior sentenced

Alphonso McCloud, left, and his wife, Stanyelle McCloud, accused of serious bodily injury after their pit bull Bully last year attacked Doris Mixon Smith and pulled off her arm just below the elbow and mangled her face, sit in the 187th state District Court, presided by Judge Joey Contreras in the Cadena-Reeves Justice Center, on Monday, Jan. 22, 2018. less Alphonso McCloud, left, and his wife, Stanyelle McCloud, accused of serious bodily injury after their pit bull Bully last year attacked Doris Mixon Smith and pulled off her arm just below the elbow and mangled ... more Photo: Bob Owen, Staff / San Antonio Express-News Photo: Bob Owen, Staff / San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 48 Caption Close Couple convicted in pit bull attack that maimed San Antonio senior sentenced 1 / 48 Back to Gallery

With two shouted orders to “look at me,” a woman maimed by her neighbors’ pit bull in a 2017 attack addressed the dog owners in court Monday to tell them how her life was forever changed after their pet ripped off her arm and part of her face.

“I’m missing an arm. God gave me two,” Doris Mixon Smith, 73, told Alphonso McCloud and his wife, Stanyelle Miles-McCloud, shortly after a jury sentenced them — handing four years in prison to him and 10 years probation to her.

The panel that morning had found the pair, both decorated Army veterans, guilty of a dangerous dog attack that caused serious bodily injury, a third-degree felony.

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The pit bull, Bully, got out of his yard and charged at Mixon Smith as she was gardening on March 6, 2017. She said the dog latched onto her arm and never let go until it was ripped off just under the elbow. The right side of her face was torn from the eyebrow to her chin.

The attack was captured on a doorbell video and could be heard in two chilling 911 calls played during the trial.

Mixon Smith, in her impact statement, at times showed anger to McCloud, 27, because she said he showed no remorse for what his dog did to her at her home in the 8900 block of Mansfield on the far West Side.

“As a Christian, I have to forgive you, but tell, me, how can I forget?” she said. “I can no longer tie shoes, fasten my earrings, or dress myself.”

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She added that now, she can’t do the things she loved the most: hold her little dog, Penny, whom she says runs from her now. Or mow her lawn.

McCloud’s attorney had asked him what the jury should know while they determined his sentence. McCloud spoke about his military service and volunteer work.

“I’m originally from Detroit, I am from the hood, I’ve been blown up for my country,” he said. “I am not a criminal. I don’t appreciate social media and the news, everyone making me seem like a bad guy.”

Before the jury began to hear closings arguments in the punishment phase of the trial, state District Judge Joey Contreras raised the McClouds’ bonds to $250,000 each because a District Attorney’s Office investigator that morning photographed two other pit bulls in the yard at their current residence, a violation of a court order.

In July, state District Judge Steven Hilbig, who previously presided over the case, had ordered the pair to remove all dogs from their home next door to Mixon Smith. Then, the couple moved. Contreras angrily admonished the couple, saying that just because they moved didn’t mean they could get more dogs.

“The arrogance of the defendants is mind-boggling,” Contreras said. “Today, they defended a breed that ripped a woman’s arm off in front of their son!”

Their son, who was 10, was shown crying and beating the dog as it attacked Mixon Smith, who later called him a hero for trying to defend her.

Citing testimony from the punishment phase, Contreras was incredulous that a property manager had evicted them from a prior address because they lied about having dogs. He ordered both defendants remanded into custody “as soon as this jury is done” and set a Feb. 7 pre-sentencing investigation for Miles-McCloud, 31.

“This isn't a referendum on community safety or her horrible injuries,” Alphonso McCloud's defense attorney, Kenneth Baker, told the jury in his closing argument before the verdict was reached.

He said prosecutors were trying play to jurors’ sympathy by showing pictures and video of the gruesome attack.

“We know there was serious bodily injury. Why did they spend so much time with pictures on video? …They lived there a year and Bully got out of the yard twice.”

Miles-McCloud's attorney, Edith Brown, repeated a response Alphonso McCloud made Friday when he testified, when asked how Bully was able to get out of the yard and attack his neighbor

“I don't know, and neither do you,” Brown told the jury.

Prosecutor Daryl Harris vehemently disagreed with Baker's argument that the case wasn't a referendum on community safety.

“It’s about the responsibility and obligation we have to each other,” he said.