Elisa Pilarski, a 29-year-old young woman six months pregnant, was found dead on November 16 300 meters from her home, in the Retz forest in Saint-Pierre Aigle, in Aisne, where she was walking with her Curtis dog. According to the autopsy, his death was caused by " a hemorrhage following several bites " of one or more dogs, some of which are post-mortem .
" Curtis is the only witness to what happened, " says the two and a half year old canine master on BFMTV. While new elements tend to confirm the “biting dog” profile of Curtis, the victim's companion, Christophe Ellul, still accuses a pack of hunting dogs with hounds of being behind the death of his wife. Today, Curtis is in the sights of the investigators.
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Illegal import from the Netherlands
He is called Curtis, but his original name is "Dark Midnight", referring to the color of his coat inherited from his mother, "Black Bitch". It is in a breeding in the Netherlands, the "Hitam Kennel", an establishment belonging to Sharon de Wit, a Dutch breeder, that Christophe Ellul would have gotten two of his dogs: Curtis and Drago. In total, the couple have five, all attack dogs: Ice, a bitch that belonged to the young woman, and four others (Chivas, Lady, Drago and Curtis) who had been adopted by his companion.
First presented as an American Staffordshire, Christophe Ellul ensures that Curtis comes from a cross between a whippet greyhound and a Patterdale terrier, two breeds authorized in France. But according to the images published by TF1, it would actually be a Pitbull, a prohibited import breed. Drago and Curtis were therefore illegally taken to France, the dogs not meeting the standards of the World Canine Organization (FCI), and the canine implicated was not found in the official dog identification register. Right after the tragedy, Drago was repatriated to the Netherlands, to his original breeding. Curtis has been placed in "protective custody" status and has been impounded for 3 months in Beauvais.
Read also: Woman killed by dogs: the victim's companion wants to hire a lawyer for his animal
"Sports bite" competition
Three months before the tragedy, in August 2019, the two-and-a-half-year-old mastiff had left for Belgium to participate in special “American pit bull” competitions organized by the ADBA (American Dog Breeders Association), a Belgian association of Pitbull breeders, as evidenced by the images posted by Elisa Pilarski on her Facebook page. This sporting discipline includes jumping, obedience but also biting exercises - this final test consists of biting with head attack. A contest that Curtis won.
It is a "sport" very regulated in France: authorized for the German shepherds or the Pyrenees, this training is however prohibited for Pitbulls, like Curtis. Back in France, the animal would also have been trained in "face-to-face", reports Oise Hebdo : a practice close to combat, which consists in exciting dogs and then positioning them one against the other.
Read also: Woman killed in the Aisne: none of the hunting dogs involved, says the hunting company
Kitty for Curtis's lawyer
Since the death of Elisa Pilarski, Ellul would have collected more than 6000 euros with a Leetchi kitty, as well as 4000 euros thanks to the t-shirts sold in Belgium with the effigy of Elisa Pilarski and the levee that he organizes in Roissy , where he works as a tracking agent. The purpose of this sum of 10,000 euros would be to pay the dog's lawyer, Me Eric Alligné. The latter, according to our sources, would however not have access to the file.
In France, although lawyers specialize in animal law, they cannot be represented by a lawyer. Pets are never responsible before the law - it is automatically the owner of the animal who is responsible for his actions. If Christophe Ellul's dog is guilty, he risks up to three years in prison for manslaughter.
Read also: Aisne: which dogs killed Elisa in the Retz forest?