The three-week-old girl mauled to death by a pit bull on Thursday has been named as Tarilyn Luciana of Detroit. 

The tragedy happened when Tarilyn was staying at the home of a family friend in Detroit on Thursday, in the 7700 block of Stahelin Avenue.

Shortly before 6pm, the 24-year-old woman fed her and set her down on the floor, still strapped into her car seat, after which she briefly stepped away.

The mother arrived just moments later, only to discover the pit bull tearing at her daughter's face

This is not the first time that a family pet was responsible for the death of a child. Detroit Free Press reported that in 2007, three-month-old Kylie Cox, of Warren, Michigan, was killed by a Rottweiler when her mother set her down on the floor in a car seat and went to heat up her bottle. 

In April 2009, 11-month-old Leonard Lovejoy, of Eastpointe, was killed when the family’s pit bull attacked him in a bedroom. 

On September 24, 2012, the Daily Mail reported that a three-month-old baby boy was mauled to death by a pit bull while sleeping alone in the bedroom of his Texas home. 

According to a report of dog bites compiled by an editor of Animal People indicates 46 per cent of all fatal dog attacks reported to the media between 1982 and 2011 involved pit bulls or ‘close-pit’ mixes,