‘I went redneck.’ Murder charge upheld for KY woman whose pit bull dog attacked man.
A woman charged with killing a man while her pit bull bit him told police she blacked out and didn’t remember the attack, a Kentucky State Police detective testified Wednesday.
Detective Ryan Loudermilk said Melissa Wolke told him she’d had earlier incidents of blacking out after drinking alcohol.
Loudermilk said police found a mostly-empty bottle of Jagermeister at Wolke’s house in Rockcastle County after the attack that killed her friend, Donald W. Abner, 55, of Richmond.
Wolke is charged with murder for allegedly killing Abner in the yard of her home.
A witness and police said they saw her sitting on Abner’s prone body and hitting him while her dog, Denali, bit Abner and tore out chunks of his hair.
“’Oh my gosh, I went redneck, didn’t I?’” Wolke said later at the jail during a police interview, Loudermilk said.
Preliminary autopsy results indicate Abner died as a result of asphyxiation. That could have happened as a result of Wolke being on top of him during the attack.
Wolke has pleaded not guilty.
District Judge Kathryn Slone ruled during the Wednesday hearing that there was probable cause to sustain the murder charge against Wolke. That means a grand jury will consider whether to indict her.
Slone left Wolke’s bond at $500,000.
The attack that resulted in the murder charge against Wolke happened sometime after 3 a.m. Jan. 10 at a singlewide mobile home where she lived, off U.S. 25 north of Mount Vernon.
A neighbor told police that when he went to ask somebody to turn down music coming from the trailer, he saw Wolke on top of a man on the ground, hitting him and encouraging the dog to attack him, according to a sworn statement by James Royal, a Kentucky State Police detective.
The witness said the man, later identified as Abner, was pleading “Help me, help me.”
The neighbor said he could tell Wolke was “really hurting” Abner, and saw the dog pulling out clumps of the man’s hair, according to Royal’s account.
The witness, who called 911, also heard Wolke telling the dog “good boy, good boy” while it was biting Abner, Royal said in the affidavit.
When police arrived, Wolke was on top of Abner, punching him in the face, and the dog was attacking him, according to court records.
Kirk Mays, a Rockcastle County sheriff’s deputy, said in a citation that he yelled at Wolke to get off the victim and to get control of the dog.
Instead, Mays said, she cursed at the police. An officer used a Taser on her.
An officer shot and killed the dog after it ran toward police in an aggressive manner, according to their account.
Abner was dead by the time police could reach him.
Police said Wolke smelled strongly of alcohol and was belligerent and aggressive.
She was bloody and her hands, in which she had a large clump of hair, were swollen. At the local hospital, Wolke told doctors she thought she had been in a fight.
Police found blood and hair and tissue at the site of the attack, Loudermilk testified Wednesday.
Loudermilk said he went to interview Wolke at the jail after she’d had time to sober up. Wolke told him she and Abner had been friends for 20 years, and seemed distraught.
Loudermilk said Wolke asked him, “‘Was Denali biting him while I was going redneck?’“
Wolke told him she had warned Abner that she’d had episodes of blacking out when drinking.
The witness who called 911 told police he had videotaped some of the attack on his phone. However, he deleted it before police could retrieve it, saying it made him sick to watch, Loudermilk said.
This story was originally published January 22, 2020 at 1:45 PM.
