13-Year-Old Navajo Nation Girl Mauled to Death by Pack of Dogs While on Walk, FBI Investigating

Photo: Facebook

Lyssa Rose Upshaw died in May while on a walk near her home in Fort Defiance, on the Navajo Nation. She was found curled up in a ball with her clothes in shreds and her legs “all chewed up,” her mother, Marissa Jones,told theNavajo Times.

While Lyssa’s death was ruled accidental, the investigation into her death remains open.

“The case is pretty far from being closed, far from being just put aside as an accident or a civil matter or anything like that,” Navajo Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Director Michael Henderson told the AP. “We’re still very aggressively pursuing to understand the case to the extent to where if there are any criminal elements attached to what happened.”

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up forPEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletterfor breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

According to the AP, tribal lawmakers have recently passed a resolution to establish criminal penalties for violent dog attacks. The U.S. Attorney’s Office of Arizona declined to comment to the AP on whether Lyssa’s case has been referred to federal prosecutors.

source: people.com