By Randy Ludlow
The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A high-profile killer will receive $7,500 in damages after a dog for which he was caring as part of a state prison adopt-a-dog program bit off part of his nose.
The settlement between Vincent Doan and the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction was approved yesterday in the Ohio Court of Claims.
Doan, 42, is serving a life sentence for the 1996 kidnapping and aggravated murder of his ex-girlfriend in Clinton County. The body of Carrie Culberson, 22, never has been found.
He filed a negligence lawsuit against prison officials after he was attacked by a dog at the Correctional Reception Center near Orient on April 18, 2013.
Doan claimed he suffered permanent disfigurement and nerve damage when he was mauled by the dog, losing part of his nose and receiving a hole in his cheek.
He claimed prison officials were aware the dog was vicious and were negligent in allowing inmates to care for the animal. Inmates are assigned to care for and train homeless dogs that then are made available for adoption by the public.
Prison officials, who admitted no wrongdoing in settling the lawsuit, said the dog attack was a result of Doan’s negligence and that he assumed the risk of injuries when he agreed to participate in the dog program.
Doan, who now is incarcerated in the Madison Correction Institution near London, claimed he did not provoke the dog and trigger the attack.
Court records do not identify the breed of dog that attacked the inmate or what became of the canine.
The disappearance of Culberson and Doan’s conviction became the stuff of true-crime TV shows.
Doan was convicted after prosecutors presented a case detailing his history of assaulting Culberson and alleged he killed her to prevent her from testifying about an assault charge she had filed against him. Doan denied the murder.
A jury awarded Culberson’s family $3.75 million in damages from the village of Blanchester in 2001 after finding police bungled the investigation of her disappearance and forfeited a chance to recover her body.
The village’s former police chief was faulted by the jury for deciding not to search a pond on property owned by Doan’s father after search dogs seemed to detect her scent.
The sheriff’s office drained the pond the next day, but nothing was found. The jury concluded it was likely that Culberson’s remains were removed from the pond after the police chief called off the search, but before the pond was drained.