A pregnant Frenchwoman who died while walking in the woods during a deer hunt was killed by her partner's dog and not the hunting hounds, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Elisa Pilarski, 29, lost her life while out walking her partner's pitbull Curtis in Retz forest northeast of Paris in November 2019.

She was six months pregnant at the time. 

The mysterious circumstances of the case sparked huge interest in France and became a cause latched on to by pro- and anti-hunting advocates.

A post-mortem showed that Pilarski died of bleeding after several dog bites to the upper and lower limbs and the head.

Suspicion initially fell on the hunting hounds, but DNA tests and veterinary examinations showed the "sole involvement" of her partner's dog Curtis in the attack, Amiens prosecutor Eric Boussuge said.

Boussuge added that the dog had been imported into France illegally from the Netherlands and trained to attack using techniques banned in France.

A source close to the investigation, who asked not to be named, told AFP that the pitbull's DNA was found on Pilarski's dog bites and that her DNA was also found on his leash.

Just before the attack, Pilarski had phoned her partner, Christophe Ellul, to tell him that she had come across threatening dogs and had difficulty keeping Curtis on his leash.

Ellul arrived on the scene around 45 minutes later to find her body in a ravine, next to Curtis and a pack of hounds.

Her clothes had been ripped off.

Ellul blamed the hounds for her death, but two veterinary reports concluded that only the pitbull's jaw could have produced the marks on Pilarski's body.

After Pilarski's death, Curtis went on to bite a person at a dog pound.