It's not clear what brought Medessa Ragsdale to Houston's Northside neighborhood in the early hours of Dec. 21, but her 44-year life met a grisly end that morning.

Three terriers got loose from their nearby yard around 5:45 a.m. and attacked Ragsdale, leaving her dead in a ditch just off Arlington Street, officials said. Her body lay there for hours while investigators at the scene probed the attack.

“I don’t care who the person is, nobody deserves to not be able to walk the streets,” said Martha Trevino, Ragsdale’s aunt. “That’s just unheard of.”

Another woman, 49, was attacked by the same dogs in the same neighborhood that morning, though she survived, having arrived at an area hospital in stable condition, according to Houston police. She and her relatives could not be reached for comment.

Ragsdale struggled for years with substance abuse and recently shuttled in and out of correctional facilities. But those who knew her remember a caring woman with a “really good heart,” someone who’d care for a halfway house resident with health issues or do a new friend unsolicited favors. She had her “own drummer,” one friend said.

Ragsdale — blonde, blue-eyed, just 5 feet tall — had a 16-year-old daughter, who Trevino said has been in the care of her grandmother for some time. “And now she’s lost her mother,” Trevino said of the girl.

The investigation into the attack is still underway. The Harris County District Attorney’s office is assisting that inquiry, though no one has been charged to date.

Assistant Houston Police Chief Pete Lopez told news media at the scene on Dec. 21 that the dogs’ owner, one of two people to report the attacks, could face charges. He raised negligent manslaughter as a possible offense.

There are city ordinances that forbid owners from letting animals “run at large,” among other rules. A state law says someone can face felony charges if he or she “fails to secure the dog and the dog makes an unprovoked attack on another person.” A Lubbock man was indicted under that law in a similar case last year.

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Police initially said pit bulls were responsible for the Houston attack and the dogs were later identified as Staffordshire Terriers, according to Lara Cottingham, chief sustainability officer for the city’s Administration & Regulatory Affairs Department, which oversees animal control.

While the American Kennel Club says the two types of dogs are distinct, many consider the Staffordshire Terrier to fall under the umbrella term of “pit bulls.” The city doesn’t conduct genetic testing to determine the breed, identifying them instead by sight. It doesn’t usually use “pit bull” as a breed.

All three dogs were euthanized on the day of the attack. Though neighbors said the dogs were known to be dangerous, Cottingham said the city doesn’t have any record of behavioral complaints. The dogs weren’t licensed as required, she said.

Animal control did receive a complaint in 2017 that the home was housing too many dogs, Cottingham said. The department subsequently issued citations for three unlicensed pitbulls, which are no longer at the house and are not the dogs involved in the attack. Those dogs belonged to his son, the homeowner said at the time, according to Cottingham.

Ragsdale, whose body was identified by the Harris County Institute for Forensic Sciences, was the last of 48 people to be killed by a dog in the United States last year, according DogsBite.Org, a blog that tracks such killings.

Seven of those deaths occurred in Texas, the second-highest tally in the country after California, according to the blog’s count. That number includes Elaine Richman, also of Houston, who died last February as an apparent result of bites from her two Doberman Pinschers; along with Jimmy Grigg, of Santa Fe, Texas, who was attacked by dogs belonging to a family member.

‘Really good heart’

Ragsdale grew up in the small town of Clute, near Lake Jackson, according to Trevino. She also spent time up in Daingerfield, in northeast Texas, where her father’s family lived.

It’s been a couple years since Trevino last saw Ragsdale, but she described her niece as a bright person and a fiercely loyal family member who would go to bat for anyone she loved.

“She could have had any job she wanted because she was smart, she was extremely smart,” Trevino said. “She was outgoing, she had a temper, she would defend herself in a heartbeat.”

Ragsdale started to get in trouble in the later years of high school, Trevino said, and those troubles followed her for the rest of her life.

Her first run-in with police appeared to be in 1998, when she faced a disorderly conduct charge, according to Brazoria County court records. It was the first in a string of misdemeanor charges over the next few years there.

“She got messed up with some really bad people, and it went downhill from there,” Trevino said.

In 2005, she pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily injury, family violence, for an altercation with her cousin. She was given probation that was later revoked and ultimately spent 40 days in the county jail, according to court records.

That same year, she lost custody of her child.

“Medessa never gave up trying to come home,” said Trevino. “She was always trying.”

“Every time she would get out, she would say, ‘Well I’m dry now, I’m going to give it my best shot.’ Three, four months later, we’d be back at the jail.”

Last year, Ragsdale discussed those efforts in a post on Facebook.

“I'm definitely behind in life but I'm still not throwing in the towel … because I know that all the steps I've taken backwards or down the wrong road may not have been the direction God planned ... but ahead of time He knew I would take them and He has continued to work in me and on me.”

On HoustonChronicle.com: One woman killed, another injured in ‘vicious dog attack’

On one of her Facebook accounts, Ragsdale listed two “life events:” quitting “all mind altering substances” in 2011 and being baptized in 2012. St. John’s Downtown, a United Methodist Church, confirmed the baptism, but court records show she later returned to prison on drug charges.

Ragsdale continued to go in and out of prison in recent years, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. She was last released on probation in September 2017, after serving about 13 months of a 3-year sentence for a Morris County burglary.

But her generous spirit never flagged. Karen Quick, who met Ragsdale at a halfway house in 2018, remembers being devastated when she couldn’t get approval to leave the facility and visit with her son. Ragsdale left for a job interview, then went out of her way to track down Quick’s son and pick up the gifts he had bought his mom and the food that he had prepared for her. Quick remembers doing laundry when Ragsdale surprised her with the items later that day.

“I was so happy I cried,” Quick told the Chronicle. “My son was very impressed with her and liked her very much.”

Quick also recalled Ragsdale caring for her halfway house bunkmate, who had surgery while they were there.

“She was wonderful, she worked hard, she was honest,” Quick said. “She was just amazing. I loved her. “She was doing really good, and then she just kind of lost it a little bit.”

Her daughter was always on her mind, Quick said.

“I think everything she ever did to try to do better, to work so hard, she had her on mind,” Quick said.

When they parted ways a few months later, Quick said Ragsdale was trying to get back to Houston.

KPRC quoted an anonymous friend who said Ragsdale, on morning of the attack, was heading to someone’s house to retrieve a charging cell phone when the dogs attacked.

“She meant a lot to me,” said Quick. “There was nothing I could do, but I’m so sorry. I just can’t imagine the suffering she must have gone through.”

dylan.mcguinness@chron.com

This article has been updated to clarify the breed of dog.