“Willow,” a black and white pit bull combine liked by her house owners, didn’t appear destined to change into a key determine in a homicide investigation. However that is precisely what occurred. It was August 12, 2023, when the canine turned identified to authorities in New Haven, Indiana.
That morning, the police would hear about Willow and what a protecting watchdog she was. However they would not know her. And that is one of many many locations the place this story turns into fascinating, as correspondent Peter Van Sant studies in “A Demise within the Stairwell,” a brand new “48 Hours” now streaming on Paramount+.
Willow was owned by Kevin and Alison Davis, a married couple. Steve Krause, Alison Davis’ father, tells Van Sant how a lot Kevin and Alison liked one another, calling one another “child.” Alison Davis’ finest good friend, Kasey Klemm, says they had been a contented couple who danced collectively within the kitchen. Krause explains, “They didn’t have youngsters, so the canine was… like a baby” to them. Their good friend, Jason Younger, says that Willow was “an enormous barker and form of intimidating at first,” however that inside “two minutes the canine doesn’t care about you anymore.”
On the evening Kevin Davis suffered his accidents, he and Alison Davis had been collectively at a neighborhood tavern. Mates and tavern workers say it was a typical evening and so they appeared blissful once they returned dwelling round 1am. Alison Davis would later inform police that once they acquired dwelling, she and Kevin acquired into an argument, so she went to sleep on a sofa downstairs. Kevin Davis went to the upstairs bed room – the place Willow was additionally. Alison Davis says she was woken up by a loud noise. She says she discovered Kevin Davis unresponsive, face down, in a big pool of blood. Alison Davis would inform the 911 operator and first responders that Kevin Davis had fallen down the steps.
After emergency responders took Kevin Davis to the hospital, Det. James Krueger would query Alison Davis. She signed the paperwork, giving the police consent to enter and search the home. However Alison Davis warned the detective about Willow: “She’s a watchdog. I do not know if she would do something, and I do not need something to occur to her,” Alison Davis stated.
Krueger informed her he wouldn’t enter that room. He says that when he went upstairs, “I might hear the canine strolling round there… So I opened the door… I acquired the tooth and the growls and the whole lot. And there was no approach that canine was going to let me in that room.” Krueger appeared round the remainder of the home. He felt that “the whole lot checked out” and that Alison Davis’ story was true – this was a tragic and deadly fall.
Kevin Davis had extreme traumatic head accidents. He would not survive one other day. Household and buddies say Alison Davis was devastated by the lack of the husband she liked. However the police began to assume in a different way. 4 months later, Indiana authorities would cost Alison Davis with homicide. Detective Krueger concluded, “This can be a spouse who misplaced management and beat her husband to dying.” Authorities say she used an improvised weapon, equivalent to an train weight, maybe a baseball bat. However no weapon was discovered.
After 17 months in jail, Alison Davis — who had at all times maintained her innocence — can be tried for homicide. In simply six hours, the jury would attain its verdict. Alison Davis will not be responsible.
Krueger, who was promoted to police chief, believes the decision might need been completely different if he had walked into Willow’s room that August morning. “I feel that canine could have been deliberately put in that room to maintain me out,” Krueger informed Van Sant. Krueger provides, there might have been “the blunt drive object…in that room…one thing in that room that may have helped the case.”
After the trial, a juror informed Van Sant that the prosecution’s case “had a whole lot of holes.” And that there have been sturdy explanation why the jury voted to acquit Alison Davis. Nonetheless, Police Chief Krueger says he’ll at all times surprise if there might be a homicide weapon in Willow’s room.
“There isn’t any proof… It is unbelievable. How unfair,” says Krause. “That is strictly an accident.”
Alison Davis is free and now lives together with her mom and father. She’s making an attempt to get her life again collectively, with out Kevin, the person her father says at all times referred to as her “child.” And subsequent to her, as she at all times has been, is Willow.
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