NYP – The owner of three pit bulls that viciously mauled a South Carolina woman, leaving her without arms, once told police that “once a dog tastes blood, that’s it,” after some of them killed his chickens, according to testimony at a preliminary hearing in the case Thursday.

Abbeville County sheriff’s investigator Lt. Jeffrey Hines also revealed in the new testimony that dogs owned by Justin Minor, 36, had also attacked somebody else on Christmas Eve.

The deputy shared the details the same day he recounted in court the “gruesome” pit bull attack on Kyleen Waltman, 39, in front of Minor’s property northwest of Columbia last month, according to WYFF 4.

“She had bites from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, including her whole entire body,” Hines told the court. “It was one of the more gruesome animal attacks that I’ve ever seen in my career.”

Body footage showed Waltman being carried on a stretcher with “her whole tricep removed and nothing but the bone on her left arm,” Hines said, according to the outlet.

A farmer witnessed the tail end of the attack, and was almost attacked himself when he got off his tractor to help Waltman, Hines reportedly testified. The dogs finally dispersed when the Good Samaritan fired a gun to scare them, according to the investigator.

Hines reportedly testified that Minor’s property was unfenced and his many dogs roamed freely around the area. Animal control officers had previously seized 11 dogs from his land, the article said.

Hines also testified that Minor told cops he had wanted to euthanize his dogs after they killed his chickens, saying “‘once a dog tastes blood, that’s it,’” but his wife thought they could be trained, according to the local outlet.

The lieutenant added that a neighbor told investigators he was scared to go outside because Minor told him “‘those dogs will bite anyone.”‘

Local dispatchers also reported a prior attack on a person by Minor’s dogs on Christmas Eve, Hines reportedly testified.

“There’s been no connection made as far as whether these were the same dogs from the Christmas Eve incident,” defense attorney Charles Gross said, according to the article.

“While this is a tragic situation, it does not necessarily mean that it’s a criminal situation, and I would just ask everybody to remember the presumption of innocence,” Gross said.

The judge ruled that there was enough probable cause in the case to go to trial, the station reported.

Minor is charged with three counts of owning dangerous animals attacking a human, a rabies violation and allowing dangerous animals off his property unrestrained.