“Willow,” a black and white feminine pit bull combine liked by her house owners, did not appear destined to grow to be a key determine in a homicide investigation. However that is precisely what occurred. It was Aug. 12, 2023, when the canine turned identified to regulation enforcement in New Haven, Indiana.
That morning, police would hear about Willow, and the way she was a protecting guard canine. However they would not meet her. And that is certainly one of many locations the place this story will get fascinating as correspondent Peter Van Sant reviews in “A Demise within the Stairwell,” an all-new “48 Hours” now streaming on Paramount+.
Willow belonged to 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 “babe.” Alison Davis’ greatest pal, Kasey Klemm, says they have been a cheerful couple who danced collectively within the kitchen. Krause explains, “They’d no kids, so the canine was … like a toddler” to them. Their pal, Jason Younger, says that Willow was “a giant barker and type of intimidating at first,” however that in “two minutes the canine would not care about you anymore.”
The night time Kevin Davis sustained his accidents, he and Alison Davis had been out collectively at an area tavern. Associates and the tavern employees say it was a typical night time and that they appeared pleased after they headed dwelling round 1 a.m. Alison Davis would later inform police that after they did get dwelling, she and Kevin had an argument, so she went to sleep on a sofa downstairs. Kevin Davis headed to their upstairs bed room – the place Willow was too. Alison Davis says she was woke up by a loud noise. She says she discovered Kevin Davis unresponsive, face down, in a big pool of blood. Alison Davis would inform a 911 operator and first responders that Kevin Davis had fallen down the steps.
After emergency responders rushed Kevin Davis to the hospital, Det. James Krueger would query Alison Davis. She would signal paperwork, giving consent to police to enter and search the house. However Alison Davis warned the detective about Willow: “She’s a guard canine. I do not know if she’d do something, and I do not need something to occur to her,” mentioned Alison Davis.
Krueger advised her he would not go in that room. He says when he went upstairs, “I might hear the canine strolling round in there … So I cracked the door open … I received the tooth, and the growls and every thing. And there was no method that canine was letting me in that room.” Krueger appeared round the remainder of the home. He felt “every thing checked out” and that Alison Davis’ story was true — this was a tragic, deadly fall.
Kevin Davis had huge traumatic accidents to his head. He wouldn’t survive one other day. Household and mates say Alison Davis was devastated by the lack of the husband she liked. However police got here to assume otherwise. 4 months later, Indiana authorities would cost Alison Davis with homicide. Detective Krueger concluded, “This can be a spouse that misplaced it and beat her husband to loss of life.” Authorities say she used an improvised weapon, like an train weight, maybe a baseball bat. However no weapon was ever discovered.
After 17 months of incarceration, Alison Davis — who has all the time maintained her innocence — would go on trial for homicide. In simply six hours, the jury would come to its verdict. Alison Davis isn’t responsible.
Krueger, who had been promoted to chief of police, believes the decision may need been completely different if solely he had gotten into Willow’s room that August morning. “I feel that canine could have been deliberately put in that room to maintain me out,” Krueger tells Van Sant. Krueger provides, there might have been “the blunt pressure object … in that room … one thing in that room that will’ve helped with the case.”
After the trial, a juror advised Van Sant that the prosecution’s case “had a number of holes.” And that there have been sturdy the reason why the jury had voted to acquit Alison Davis. Nonetheless, Police Chief Krueger says he’ll all the time marvel if there might have been a homicide weapon in Willow’s room.
“There is not any proof … It is unbelievable. Such injustice,” says Krause. “That is simply strictly an accident.”
Alison Davis is free, now residing along with her mom and father. She’s attempting to place her life again collectively, with out Kevin, the person her dad says all the time referred to as her “babe.” And by her facet, as she all the time has been, is Willow.
