<\/p>\n
Doreen Broadbelt, who was killed in an apparent dog attack that occurred in the area of Northwest 14th Court and Northwest 196th Terrace, in Miami Gardens as she was walking to her job at Walmart, on Labor Day. Miami Gardens police still haven\u2019t identified which dog or dogs mauled her to death. <\/p>\n
Pedro Portal<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Doreen Broadbelt Family<\/p>\n
Five months after a Miami Gardens woman was mauled to death, her family is still waiting for police to tell them which dog or dogs attacked her.<\/p>\n
Police canvassed the neighborhood and swabbed several dogs<\/a> for DNA samples to investigate the death of Doreen Richards Broadbelt, a 71-year-old who was attacked the morning of Sept. 1 while she walked to her job at Walmart. But a Miami Gardens Police Department detective told her family earlier this month that none of those dogs\u2019 DNA matched the DNA found on Broadbelt\u2019s body, her daughter Shelley Ann Williams told the Miami Herald.<\/p>\n Police are considering swabbing more dogs for DNA testing, \u201cwith the hopes the owners will cooperate with law enforcement,\u201d said the Miami Gardens Police Department Public Information Officer Diana Delgado in an email. Police and Miami-Dade County Animal Services initially swabbed eight dogs.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re hearing that there\u2019s no lead. It\u2019s thrown me off significantly,\u201d said Oddale Wilkinson, 38, Broadbelt\u2019s son who lives in Jamaica. \u201cIt seems like something has gone wrong within the process, and I\u2019m not comfortable with it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Broadbelt, 71, was walking to work at the nearby Walmart Labor Day morning when she was mauled to death by one or several dogs, police said. Her body was found at the 1400 block of Northwest 196th Terrace in a field next to Norwood Elementary School, which was closed that day due to the holiday. The autopsy from the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner Department ruled her cause of death as \u201cdog mauling.\u201d<\/p>\n Broadbelt\u2019s death shocked the Miami Gardens neighborhood, where residents say unleashed, sometimes aggressive dogs roam the streets<\/a> in the late nights and early mornings.<\/p>\n If DNA evidence does not link a pet dog to the attack, that likely means no human can be held accountable. Family members told the Herald they wonder if the owners of the dogs responsible for the attack simply removed the dogs from the neighborhood before police had a chance to swab for DNA.<\/p>\n The family said they are also concerned that the dog or dogs that killed Broadbelt may still be out there, putting the community at risk.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can happen again,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI keep on saying it. This can happen to someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n The detective had also told Williams, 51, and her sister, 38-year-old Lateisha Wilkinson, both of whom live in Florida, that maybe coyotes were behind the attack, a theory the family was immediately doubtful of. But DNA testing confirmed that domesticated dogs did attack Broadbelt, Delgado said.<\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019re left in the dark\u2019<\/p>\n Sandra Richards-Hunwick, Broadbelt\u2019s sister, was disturbed to learn that there was no DNA match.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like they killed my sister again,\u201d Richards-Hunwick said.<\/p>\n Born in St. Catherine, Jamaica, Broadbelt is survived by her husband, four children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. She enjoyed the exercise of walking to work at Walmart, where she was a beloved employee and coworker for 13 years. Dozens of friends, family and coworkers gathered for a vigil at her home<\/a> to celebrate her life.<\/p>\n Her family said they deserve closure.<\/p>\n \u201cIt cannot bring her back, but at least we have an idea of what happened,\u201d said Bridgett Strachan, 52, Broadbelt\u2019s daughter who lives in Jamaica. \u201cBut we don\u2019t know anything. We\u2019re left in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n Miami Herald reporter Devoun Cetoute contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Doreen Broadbelt, who was killed in an apparent dog attack that occurred in the area of Northwest 14th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[37772,80911,123,80910,125,124,80913,80912],"class_list":["post-169884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-dna-testing","tag-doreen-broadbelt","tag-miami","tag-miami-gardens-dog-mauling","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-miami-dade-animal-services","tag-neighborhood-dogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Police released photos of dogs suspected in the fatal mauling of a Miami Gardens woman on Labor Day. DNA testing eliminated all the dogs tested from culpability. Miami Gardens Police Department <\/p>\n
Lateisha Wilkinson arranges a makeshift memorial for her mother, Doreen Richards Broadbelt, 71, who police said was walking to her job at Walmart when a dog attacked and fatally mauled her. Photo by Matias J. Ocner mocner@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n