‘Vicious Killing’ Suspect Awaits Fate in Michigan Pound : Pampered Dog on Trial for His Life in Woman’s Death

By all accounts, he is the winningest, most prized sheepdog in all the land. Groomed at least four hours a day, pampered to loving excess by his doting owners, King Boots has led a glorious life, whether it be on the international show dog circuit, on the covers of dog enthusiast magazines or in the confines of the Charles and Kathryn Schwarb home.

But all the love and all the care cannot obscure the brutal questions being raised: Is King Boots a vicious killer? Did this 8 1/2-year-old, 100-pound purebred old English sheepdog maul and murder Gertrude Monroe, Kathryn Schwarb’s frail 87-year-old mother, by savagely biting her six to eight times around the neck and head, simply because she got in his way?

The city of Birmingham, the affluent Detroit suburb where the Schwarbs live, thinks he did. The city impounded King Boots and plans to destroy him.

But the Schwarbs contend King Boots is innocent and argue that Monroe died of a sudden, massive heart attack on Dec. 19 when she tried to get up from her chair. The Schwarbs say Boots only bit Monroe once on the neck because she fell on top of the dog while he was sleeping. They have filed suit to prevent the city from killing their loved one.

Birmingham’s attorney, Jon Kingsepp, charged that “this dog attacked this woman, and when the city finds a vicious dog, something has to be done. We have to protect society.”

But Richard Selik, an attorney hired by the Schwarbs, said: “The question is whether the dog was provoked. The evidence shows that this is not a vicious dog.”

The King Boots trial, scheduled to conclude today in Michigan District Judge Edward Sosnik’s court, makes a bizarre tale.

It has taken on all the trappings of a major murder trial, complete with heavy local television and newspaper coverage, a court packed with spectators and friends of the family, weeping witnesses and gory medical testimony from pathologists.

One doctor even pretended to be the dog in a courtroom reenactment of the incident. Unable to resist this moral drama, the Detroit News ran an editorial urging that King Boots be “dispatched to the great kennel in the sky.”

Kathryn Schwarb, whose husband owns a foundry, tearfully testified that she saw her mother fall and hit her head on a wall before falling on the sleeping dog, which then bit her once in self-defense. Dr. Henry A. Kallet, a pathologist hired by the Schwarbs, testified that the woman suffered a heart attack and fell and was bitten by Boots only after she was lying face down on the floor.

Ripped Open Artery

Even Kallet agrees, however, that the bite by Boots ripped open the vital carotid artery in Monroe’s neck, accounting for the blood on Boots’ mouth and around Monroe’s body found by paramedics called to the Schwarb home.

The city has relied on the testimony of Dr. William Brooks, Oakland County’s medical examiner, who concluded that Monroe died from being bitten at least six times around the head. He said he did not discover evidence of a heart attack or a stroke in an autopsy of Monroe.

Another physician, Dr. David Marcus, says he found eight separate bites on Monroe’s body when it was brought to his Royal Oak, Mich., hospital after the incident. He told the court that “the animal spent a significant amount of time on the back of the head and the neck” in mauling Monroe.

As evidence of King Boots’ previous behavior, the city called a former maid in the Schwarb home to the witness stand to testify that King Boots had bitten her on the head last August.

Kingsepp promises more evidence today to prove King Boots’ guilt.

The Schwarbs will also make one last stand today, when King Boots’ attorneys will call on “character” witnesses to testify about the dog’s gentle disposition. They say they may appeal the case to a higher court if Sosnik rules against the dog.

Meanwhile, King Boots, groomed each day when the Schwarbs come to visit, awaits his fate from his cage at Birmingham’s city pound.