Neighbor is charged in killing of pit bull

Sonja Robinson's pit bull collapsed at her feet, yelping in pain, she said yesterday. His fur was covered in blood and a deep gash sliced across his chest, she said. Horrified, she realized that the dog had been slashed with a knife.

The Fall River woman hugged the dying animal to her chest. ''My dog was stabbed! Who would do this?" she said yesterday.

The answer, according to police, is Robinson's neighbor, Mark Baran, 48, who was charged Thursday with animal cruelty.

Baran told police he had stabbed the pit bull because it frightened him. He had been looking for his cat, he said, when the dog ''sniped" at him. He said he went back into his house, took a butcher knife from the kitchen, and went back out and stabbed the dog.

''He's a pit bull; they scare me," Baran said yesterday. ''They scare everybody."

The encounter unfolded early Thursday morning, when Robinson got home about 2. She opened a sliding glass door to put a box on the patio, and her energetic 2-year-old pit bull, D-Bo, darted outside.

''I thought he'd come right back," Robinson, 30, said yesterday. ''I started calling him, and he didn't come. All of a sudden I heard him scream."

As Robinson ran to the dog on her lawn, Baran walked over from his apartment about 100 feet away and watched the dog die, Robinson said, speculating about what had caused his injuries.

''He kept saying, 'Oh, an animal could have done that,' " Robinson said.

The dog died in Robinson's arms as her husband was placing the call to police. ''I knew there wasn't anything I could do, but I wanted him not to hurt anymore," she said.

When police arrived in response to a call from Robinson's husband, Tomas, Baran told them he had heard an animal yelp and someone running, but had no idea what happened, according to Fall River police Lieutenant Jeffrey Cardoza. Minutes later, when police found a large amount of blood and a kitchen knife outside Baran's apartment, he again told police he wasn't involved.

Hours later, Cardoza said, Baran went to police with a new story. He had gone outside to check on a pair of stray kittens when the dog came up to him, Baran told police. He felt threatened and waved a baseball bat at the dog, he said, and D-Bo walked away.

But Baran said he still felt threatened, and when the dog returned a moment later, he went inside and got the knife and stabbed him, Cardoza said.

''He sniped at me," Baran told the Globe during a brief interview outside his apartment yesterday. ''You've got a split second to make a decision. It was self-defense." He had lied to Robinson and police, he said, out of confusion and fear.

''I didn't know what to do," he said. ''Of course, I'm sorry. I love animals. I wish the whole incident never happened."

Police are continuing to investigate, Cardoza said.

''This begs the question: If [Baran] was threatened by the dog and had gone inside and therefore escaped harm, then why did he go back outside, putting himself in harm's way again?" Cardoza said. ''Obviously, we're very concerned and disturbed and wondering why someone would do this."

The Robinsons, who moved to the Southwind Apartment complex from another Fall River apartment 10 days ago, had never met Baran before the incident.

They insisted that Baran had no reason to fear the dog, which they described as a happy, sweet animal who was afraid of bubble wrap and loved children. They showed a reporter a letter they had asked their veterinarian to write after the incident that said D-Bo ''was always good-natured and extremely happy."

''He has always been well-behaved and happy here," wrote Melissa Murphy of East Bay Animal Hospital in Fall River.

The couple said they have heard that some people are afraid of pit bulls, but said that D-Bo charmed everyone they met. They had raised the dog from birth; Sonja Robinson said she knew D-Bo's mother and had watched the birth of him and his siblings.

''I want him to go to jail," Tomas Robinson said of Baran. ''He really needs to sit there and think about what he did to our lives."