Late on the afternoon of March 17, a letter carrier approached a house in the Ville neighborhood of north St. Louis. She was trying to deliver a medical package from the VA.

There was an unlocked chain link fence around the house. A mailbox was propped up against the fence. The package would not fit inside the mailbox. There was a “Beware of the Dog” sign on the fence. What to do?

This was not the carrier’s normal route, so she was not familiar with the dog — or even whether there was one. Sometimes people just put up a sign. So she whistled. She shook the gate. No response. If there was a dog, it was inside. She opened the gate and proceeded up the steps toward the porch.

Suddenly, from the side of the porch, a dog emerged. A large, “Hound of the Baskervilles” sort of dog. The carrier threw the package at it, and tripped and stumbled down the steps. She made it out through the fence and sprawled on the sidewalk. She reached up and closed the gate. The dog had not moved from the top of the stairs, but stared down at her with a look, she later said, that could be translated as, “You better not come back.”