Local News in Brief : Wire Along Fence Electrocutes Boy, 2

A 2-year-old boy in the Antelope Valley community of Lake Los Angeles was electrocuted when he touched an electrical wire that a next-door neighbor had strung along a fence to keep his dogs from digging out of the yard, authorities said Tuesday.

The child, Andrew Verhoff, reportedly was playing in the back of his own home Monday morning with his 5-year-old brother, Patrick, when he apparently put his hand through the fence and touched the wire.

“Patrick ran into the house and called his mother,” a family friend said. “Andrew was lying there. His hand was burned where he had touched the wire. He was dead. . . . There was nothing anyone could do.”

Friends, who asked not to be identified, said Mike Verhoff, 30, and his wife, Lee Ann, 29, did not worry about the children playing in their yard because it had been enclosed with a chain-link fence.

They said the neighbor’s dogs are amiable but often try to dig their way out, so the neighbor installed the hot wire to discourage them.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Gil Leslie said the case will be presented to the district attorney’s office to determine whether any charges should be filed against the neighbor, who was not identified.