The longtime owner of a large mixed-breed dog that police initially identified as a pit bull was mauled to death by her pet in her Washington, D.C., home on Sunday evening, PEOPLE confirms.
Officers responded about 6:30 p.m to a call from a home about an unconscious woman, according to a statement and incident report from D.C. police obtained by PEOPLE.
When authorities arrived at the scene, they found 55-year-old Angela Smith suffering from multiple trauma wounds to her body.
Fire department and EMS personnel treated her as they rushed her to MedStar Washington Hospital Center, the report states. She was pronounced dead at 7:11 p.m.
While an initial police statement described the dog as a pit bull, a police spokeswoman told PEOPLE she could not confirm the exact breed and referred those questions to D.C.’s Humane Rescue Alliance.
A spokesman with the rescue says the dog was a large mixed breed.
The animal was humanely euthanized, the spokesman says.
The dog “growled and snapped” when police tried to put him into a van, as seen in a video taken at the scene, local TV stations WRC and WJLA report.
Smith’s fatal mauling is a death investigation, police say. An autopsy will be performed to determine her cause of death.
The attack left her husband, Rob Frazier, shocked and distraught.
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Holding back tears, Frazier said he “left the house for 15 minutes,” station WUSA reports. When he returned home, “She was dead.”
Frazier adopted the dog, named Kaine, eight years ago from his nephew, he told WRC.
He and his wife had been together for 20 years and married for two, he told reporters.
Smith and Kaine got along well, Frazier said: “They was really buddies. What I’m thinking is, she might have taken some food, something like that, from him. And he’s really aggressive like that. Maybe, just maybe, I think he reacted that way.”
Neighbors were also surprised that the dog attacked Smith since he always seemed well-behaved when they saw her walking him, according to WRC.
“Nobody foresaw that,” neighbor Vincent Hawkins told the station. “Nobody. It’s just a heartbreaking thing.”