Dogs Seized During Investigation of Dulzura Death

The Sheriff’s Department will consider seeking criminal charges if a preliminary investigation indicates that Roy Johnson, 69, of Dulzura, was fatally mauled by roving dogs, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Johnson’s body was discovered in rural Dulzura about 9 a.m. Tuesday by an off-duty police officer who shot and killed one of two dogs that were “growling and baring their teeth” while circling Johnson’s body, sheriff’s spokesman John Tenwolde said.

It was uncertain who owned the dogs. However, deputies subsequently seized four other dogs found at the nearby house of Charles Duarte, who later surrendered two more dogs, Tenwolde said.

The Duarte family is “cooperating with investigators,” Tenwolde said.

The department will conduct a criminal investigation if it is determined that Johnson died as a result of an attack by dogs, Tenwolde said. “A lot of questions need to be asked before we can speculate about what the outcome is going to be.”

An autopsy was not yet completed Wednesday, but Johnson suffered “extensive injuries,” Tenwolde said. A neighbor who saw the body described it as “unbelievable. . . . He appeared to have been eaten alive. That’s the only way to describe it. He was eaten alive.”

Neighbors were left “numb” in the wake of the apparent attack, said Carol Lane, a Dulzura resident. She said roaming dogs had not been a problem.

Johnson was a “gentle man” who took care of pigs and horses at a ranch near where he was killed, said Charlotte Holcomb, 79, a longtime Dulzura resident.

The dog wounded by the police officer is being treated by the San Diego County Animal Control Department. The department has locked up the six dogs collected from the Duarte property.