Woman sentenced in son's mauling death

FULTON, Mo. -- A Callaway County woman has been sentenced to a year in jail in the death of her 3-year-old son, who was mauled by the family's 93-pound Rottweiler.

Terri Swindler was sentenced Friday to one year in jail for endangering the welfare of her son, Wesley, and to 30 days for third-degree assault. The sentences will run concurrently.

Swindler pleaded guilty to the charges in June.

"It was probably my fault that my son died," Swindler told the court before she was sentenced, "and I know that if I could go back I would."

Wesley's lifeless body was found in the dog pen in his back yard March 27 after Swindler let him go outside by himself for 10 to 15 minutes as she talked on a cordless phone, she testified in Callaway County Circuit Court.

Swindler said the day Wesley died was not the first time she let out of the home by himself in the unincorporated town of Stephens.

The boy liked to climb on a trampoline in the unfenced yard, she said.

She and her father, Tom Burts of Mexico, Mo., testified that they never saw the 2-year-old Rottweiler act aggressively toward other people, including children. After the attack, the dog was destroyed.