Oregon dog owner sentenced in mauling death of 6-year-old boy

A Portland woman whose Great Dane mastiffs killed a 6-year-old boy in her home in 2023 was handed the maximum sentence Friday of just over two years behind bars.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Celia Howes found Koko Miller, 57, guilty of criminally negligent homicide and first-degree criminal mistreatment in January for the Dec. 5, 2023 death of Loyalty Scott, a first-grader whom Miller babysat.

But Howes said even the maximum punishment wasn’t enough. “I’m frankly convinced that any sentence that I impose is just simply not going to succeed in teaching the lesson that needs to be taught here,” Howes said.

Miller had agreed to care for the Glenfair Elementary student before school because his grandmother worked in Newberg and left for work early in the morning.

The dogs, Carlos and Lola, had a history of fighting with each other and both had previously been aggressive to Loyalty, prosecutor Chuck Mickley said in court documents. Days before the 6-year-old’s death, Lola and Carlos had attacked each other. Miller had instructed Loyalty not to open doors in her house.

But Mickley said Miller has continued to deny accountability for her actions and blame Loyalty for his death. She called the judge a “malevolent swine” for her verdict.

The prosecutor played a recording of a phone call she made from jail the night before the sentencing. In it, Miller scoffed and cursed at the fact that she would be “handcuffed into court” like a “murderer or something.”

“You tell a kid not to open a door, he opens the door, he gets mauled to death,” Miller said on the call. “That’s my fault? No.”

Mickley added that Miller has continued to claim that “everybody else is lying,” to which Miller whispered, “you are.” She repeatedly interrupted the hearing with whispered interjections, amplified by court microphones.

“An amazing and precious child died because of defendant’s palpable, painfully obvious, and unconscionable criminal negligence,” Mickley wrote in court documents. “From her very first call after Loyalty was mauled to death, where she blamed him for opening the wrong door, until (this week), defendant has failed to demonstrate even a scintilla of responsibility for her negligence. Even worse, defendant vitriolically considers herself to be the victim.”

On the day of Loyalty’s death, Miller went into the garage to kennel Carlos, telling Loyalty to stay in the house.

But Loyalty opened the door, calling out to Miller, and Carlos attacked. Lola joined the attack while Miller struggled to pull the dogs off the boy. She grabbed a gun to shoot Carlos, but never got a clear shot, she told police. The attack lasted 20 minutes, Mickley said.

Miller’s tone changed when Loyalty’s grandmother addressed the court. Both women cried.

“I’m devastated, life will never be the same,” Rena Scott said through sobs. “Loyalty was beautiful, he was smart, he was fun. He loved his family so much and wanted nothing but to see everyone smile.”

Loyalty’s cousin, Justus Crabtree, said the child’s death had “left a wound” on her family that “cannot be put into words.”

“I’ve heard sounds I never thought were real, wailing you only hear in movies,” she said. “How do you move forward with life like that?”

Miller’s husband, William Hoover, told police the two dogs were “not used to children” and that Carlos may have thought the child was a “toy that runs.”

But Miller said she “would never have let anyone in the house if she thought that the dogs were aggressive,” and said that although she has “long-standing experience” as a dog trainer, she didn’t train Carlos and Lola because she “didn’t feel like” doing so.

Both dogs were later euthanized. Mickley said Miller claims the dogs were killed so that her defense couldn’t show that they were peaceful, and Miller nodded in response.

Miller’s Facebook messages showed she got the dogs from a breeder in Mississippi who uses gene editing to breed dogs for “personal protection,” Mickley said. After getting her first dog from the breeder, she complained that he “wasn’t trained to bite,” and got a second, more “protection worthy,” dog from him.

Lola had bitten Miller just weeks before the attack.

Although Multnomah County Animal Services told Miller and her husband days after Loyalty’s death that they were prohibited from owning or keeping any dogs, she acquired another before she was arraigned six months later.

Ryan Corbridge, Miller’s attorney, said Miller “did what she could to put herself between this animal and Loyalty.” Miller and Loyalty were “thick as thieves,” he said.

Miller began rocking back and forth crying as her attorney made his argument.

Speaking to the court, Miller said she “did not do what the court has said.”

“Believe me when I tell you I wish every day I could trade places with him,” she said. “That day haunts me and it will every day of my life…I wish I could have protected him better but I couldn’t, I just wasn’t strong enough.”

©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.