Boy, 1, k!lled after babysitter's pit bulls used him for 'tug of war'

A one-year-old boy was m@uled to de@th by his babysitter's pit bulls, who used the toddler in a "tug of war" battle while a 13-year-old girl desperately tried to save him. 

Jiryiah Johnson was in the care of 36-year-old Heather Rodriguez at her home in Converse, Texas, before she left the baby alone with her teenage daughter. 

It's understood that Rodriguez had left to go to work and put her daughter in charge of the baby in her absence.  

Baby Jiryiah and the teenage girl were secured inside a bedroom with the doors shut, away from Rodriguez's three pit bulls, said Sheriff Javier Salazar of Bexar County Sheriff's Office in a news briefing.  

The door to the bedroom had previously been damaged by the dogs and was broken down again by the dogs before they began a gruesome attack on the baby.  

According to Salazar, the teen tried to keep control of the baby but described the fight for the child as a "tug of war" that lasted several minutes across different rooms in the home. 

She then locked herself and the baby into a bathroom, where the dogs forced their way in again, further attacking the baby as well as the 13-year-old.  

The girl then left the baby with the dogs in order to grab her phone and call for help, before taking the child into another room and barricading the door with her body.  

After the vicious attack, Johnson was hospitalized in critical condition with bite wounds to his face, head and neck.  

He suffered severe throat injuries and he was unable to breathe on his own before he tragically passed away on Monday night, October 7. 

Babysitter Rodriguez was arrested on a first-felony charge of injury to a child with serious bodily injury by omission and she may face further charges for the injuries to her daughter, police said.

Johnson's mother, Erika Castro, said she had not had time to process what had happened to her only child.  

She told Kens5: "I wish she'd had stayed like she said she would've, instead of going into work like she got called into work." 

She said she was primarily focused on her son's recovery before his passing. 

"I've been shaking, I've been having panic attacks...He's fighting. He's fighting, for sure," she said. 

Sheriff Salazar described the baby's condition as "heartbreaking" and said the teen was a "hero" for her efforts against the dogs, which he described as XL pits. 

He said that the baby had been left in Rodriguez's care in the home before and the parents knew that Rodriguez had dogs but didn't know they were problematic.  

"In a house full of vicious dogs, what did this lady, the suspect, think was going to happen," he added.  

Castro added: "I thank that girl because... she did her best."