“My husband is not to blame” | Wife of man accused of deadly West Side dog attack defends him

SAN ANTONIO — The wife of a man accused of fatally attacking his dogs last Friday defends her husband and says he is not responsible for what happened.

She also apologizes to the family of the deceased.

“From the bottom of our hearts we apologize… but my husband is not to blame,” said Abilene Moreno.

Abilene Moreno said her husband, Christian Moreno, 31, made sure that their dogs, who were Staffordshire terriers, didn’t run away from their property on Rue Desplat.

Now her husband is behind bars on felony charges after dogs killed 81-year-old Ramon Najera behind the fence of their home and injured three others.

On Sunday Moreno showed KENS 5 how her dogs King, Snow and Legend escaped from their yard. Moreno said the dogs pushed over the fence near where Najera got out of the car.

Moreno said that she and her husband were not at home at the time, but before leaving, the couple harnessed, tied and locked the dogs outside the gate.

“We were coming back and I saw dogs outside the gate, but they were covered in blood,” Moreno said.

When the couple returned home, the dogs were not on leashes. Rescuers told them that their dogs King and Snow attacked four people, killing one.

“It’s traumatic to see my dogs, which I’ve raised since they were puppies, do this to someone,” she said.

Her heart goes out to the victim’s wife, who was also badly bitten but survived. Moreno said dogs were never raised to be aggressive.

“We never hit them, we never neglected them, we never insulted them,” she said.

Moreno admitted that the dogs had a history of running away from the yard, and she mentioned that her husband is quick to patch up any holes the dogs dig. She also corroborated claims by the Animal Services that King and Snow were involved in two biting incidents in the area. King was involved in one case, and Snow was involved in both.

The most recent biting incident occurred last month and the ACS took the dogs into custody as part of the policy.

At this point, Moreno said that her husband did not want King or Snow to return. He was happy to keep Legend and a litter of puppies newly born to Snow. However, the couple’s children wanted the dogs home.

Before that could happen, Moreno said the ACS wanted to neuter the dogs and went ahead with the procedure. When the dogs returned home, Moreno said the dogs were fine, but later they showed more signs of aggression. She even asked ACS about the best practices for keeping dogs in the yard in harness and leash.

However, Moreno agreed with her husband to return the dogs to the ACS due to their behavior.

“I thought those dogs weren’t for us anymore,” Moreno said.

But before they could, a deadly attack occurred.

KENS 5 contacted ACS and they said the dog spaying had nothing to do with the biting incident. They said, “letting their [Morenos] stray pets have a lot to do with this biting incident.”

Moreno has now revealed that there are no pets in the family. They handed in Legend and the rest of the puppies late Friday night. Since her husband is in prison, Moreno is afraid to be in the neighborhood.

“Because people say certain things, threats from neighbors,” she said.

Moreno is focused on paying her husband’s bail to get him out of jail. Until then, he is expected to appear in court on March 28 for a preliminary hearing.

“We are sorry about everything that happened and we never wanted anyone to get hurt,” she said.