Mother brutally beaten by son until dog intervenes

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A man faces charges after viciously attacking his own mother.

The woman says she may be in even worse shape if her pit bull hadn't intervened.

Connie Overstreet loves her dog Izzy like her own child -- in a way, at this point, even more.

She says, for more than a decade, drugs have stripped away her son Shannon's humanity.

"I tried everything to get him help," she said.

She'd already filed a domestic violence petition against him. He wasn't supposed to come near her, but she says on April 12, he violated that petition and then some.

She says he came into her house in the 1700 block of Madison Avenue, fuming for no apparent reason.

"I asked my son what was up," she said. "He started yelling and said 'How many times are you gonna ask that?' I said 'I didn't, this is the first.' Next thing I know, he's yelling at me, and I'm getting shoved."

Connie says her son began beating her and knocked her to the floor.

"There was blood coming out of my eye and my nose and my mouth," she said.

That's when Izzy got involved.

"I was hearing her 'leave her alone' bark,'" Connie said.

The pit bull got between the two long enough for Connie to get up and run next door to her sister's house.

"I think she was attacking him," she said, "but I couldn't see because of the blood."

"Her son just goes crazy, and if it hadn't been for that dog, she would've been dead," Connie's sister Wanda Staley said.

Without Izzy, Connie's afraid to think how much worse her son might have hurt her.

"If she wouldn't have come between us, I know I'd be dead," Connie said. "I can't explain how much I love her."

It breaks her heart to say at this point, she wouldn't mind if her son remained behind bars for a long time.

"It's hard because your kid is your kid and you love them too, but it gets so bad, sometimes you wonder about the thin line between love and hate," she said.

Her son was taken to Western Regional Jail on a $100,000 bond.

He's charged with felony malicious assault and violating a domestic violence petition.

Connie is due back in the surgeon's office Wednesday.