Clay County Reenacts Dog's Death

Diamond had escaped Brown's house September 10th, and was picked up in the afternoon by Animal Control after a few complaints of an "aggressive dog" were called into the Clay County Sheriff's Office.

In a recent Internal Investigation Report concerning the circumstances surround Diamond's death, Clay County's Director of Enforcement Services says a reenactment of Diamond's death was performed using a dog of similar size and weight.

Bill Bodenweber writes that the dog was put in the exact dog box Diamond was in for one hour.

The report written by Bodenweber says the Animal Control Officer loaded Diamond into the truck at 2:40 p.m.

The truck arrived at Animal Control at 3 p.m, and the officer "briefly attended a staff meeting" and after a "brief delay lasting no longer than approximately 10-15 minutes, the officer began offloading his truck."

It says that after preparing receiving pens and cages, the officer offloaded 4 dogs, one of which required quarantine, one adult female cat, and a number of kittens. All these animals were reported in generally good health.

Upon returning to the vehicle to offload Diamond, the final animal, the officer discovered she had died.

The report concludes the total elapsed time between capture and the discovery of death was "reasonably no longer than 1 hour and 20 minutes."

Brown filed a formal complaint with the Clay County Sheriff's Office, and that criminal investigation is ongoing.

In a statement to First Coast News, Bodenweber says the reenactment "was conducted to measure the outside temperature versus the temperature inside the animal containment boxes."

He goes on to say, "This simulation was conducted after a large Rottweiler was found dead in an Animal Control vehicle while seven other animals (including small kittens which are susceptible to dehydration in high temperatures) were in good condition when they were off loaded from the vehicle."

"This was a simulation of the temperature conditions under which the deceased Rottweiler was transported to Animal Control."

Temperatures were taken after thirty minutes and after one hour.

The temperature inside the cage started at 81.9 degrees and climbed to 86 degrees.

Bodenweber's statement says, "The dog used in the simulation was never in danger and was closely monitored in a controlled experiment with constant monitoring by animal care professionals."

The Necropsy report is inconclusive regarding a possible cause of Diamond's death, but does suggest the hypovolemic/distributive shock may have been related to heat stress.

The lab concluded it could be a result of Diamond roaming for several hours without water or shelter, or it could be because the day was humid and dogs with black fur like Diamond heat up more quickly that lighter-colored dogs, or because Diamond was nervous and had difficulty regulating body temperature.

The report states, "The cause of death of this dog could not be definitively diagnosed."