A coyote that California wildlife officials believed they had euthanized after it bit a toddler and menaced residential pets in a trendy Los Angeles neighborhood was seen alive recently, neighborhood residents said.

Wiley, the name some Atwater Village residents gave to the coyote, had vexed the area with its increasingly aggressive and brazen behavior. The wild animal, which scampered through people’s backyards, was reportedly being fed by an unidentified man. Wiley’s presence drew local uproar after he bit a 16-month-old child.

The attack prompted California department of fish and wildlife officers to shoot Wiley in October, an intervention that appeared to cap the neighborhood saga.

That is until residents observed a limping Wiley back in Atwater Village in recent weeks.

When asked what went awry, the California department of fish and wildlife said in a statement provided to KTLA that officials shot Wiley on 16 October. The department’s officers could not locate the coyote’s body and concluded it had died.

The department returned to Atwater Village, where they shot Wiley for a second time, confirming on Tuesday that the coyote had been killed.

The twist in Wiley’s tale brought cold comfort to some residents, who feel that the coyote’s death could have been prevented.

“I don’t think he should have been euthanized because coyotes are predators, and they’re going to do what they’re going to do,” one neighbor, Ana Fishman, told KTLA. “And that’s not his fault. He should have been relocated. I think the fact that coyotes apparently, in the state of California, can’t be relocated is wrong.”