He Saved a Neighbor From the Same Dogs Five Weeks Before They Killed His Partner. Now the Owner Faces Manslaughter.

At approximately 2 a.m. on May 19, 2026, Jodi Cowan, 50, stepped out of her home on Blue Bonnet Drive in Sharpes, Florida, to walk her small dog. Two dogs — a pit bull and a Catahoula leopard dog mix named Max and Mako — had climbed over a nearby fence and were loose in the neighborhood. According to court records and an eight-minute 911 call, they attacked Cowan, forced her to the ground, and dragged her across the street. She died at a Brevard County trauma center roughly four hours later.

Her partner of 30 years, Donnell Smith, heard her cries and ran out with a knife, calling 911 while trying to apply pressure to Cowan’s neck wounds. On the 911 recording, Cowan can be heard saying, “I’m dying. Can’t breathe.” Smith reported to the dispatcher that the dogs had “ripped out” her throat. The medical examiner documented the cause of death as multiple dog bites, including a severed carotid artery and jugular vein.

What the court records then revealed set this case apart: Smith had been here before — with these same two dogs. Five weeks earlier, he had helped pull them off a neighbor during an almost identical attack. The owner of Max and Mako, alleged to have known all of it, was charged with manslaughter eight days after Cowan’s death.

• May 19, 2026 — date of the fatal attack on Jodi Cowan, 50, on Blue Bonnet Drive in Sharpes, Brevard County, Florida · Source: Brevard County Sheriff's Office
• 11+ complaints — animal control and sheriff's office complaints involving Linda Cutler's dogs since September 2025 — loose animals, chasing people, killing a cat · Source: Fox News / court affidavit
• April 14, 2026 — date the same two dogs attacked neighbor John Argila, 35 days before Cowan's death — Argila was hospitalized for arm bites · Source: Fox News / court affidavit
• No bond — Linda Cutler, 29, held without bond in the Brevard County Jail since her arrest on May 27, 2026; arraignment set for June 23 · Source: WKMG / WFTV

Jodi Cowan had lived on Blue Bonnet Drive in Sharpes for about two weeks when she died there. A neighbor’s security camera captured the attack; Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Iveydescribed the footage as “extremely troubling and graphic,” showing the dogs forcing Cowan to the ground, attacking her, and dragging her across the street as she clutched her small dog to her chest.

Donnell Smith reached her while she was still alive. According to court records reviewed by Fox News, he wielded a knife trying to drive the dogs away, called 911, and attempted to stop the bleeding from Cowan’s neck with direct pressure. The 911 call lasted eight minutes; in the background, investigators noted the sound of dogs snarling and snapping. Cowan was transported to a trauma center and pronounced dead approximately four hours after the attack. The medical examiner determined she died from multiple dog bites, with a severed carotid artery and jugular vein as the fatal injuries.

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The detail buried in the court affidavit is the one that makes this case more than a tragedy. On April 14, 2026 — five weeks before Cowan’s death — Max and Mako attacked a neighbor named John Argila on the same stretch of road. Argila told investigators he had been walking and talking on the phone, pushing a bicycle with a flat tire, when he spotted the two dogs. He tried to use the bike as a barrier; they bit him on both arms anyway. A passing driver pulled up and yelled at him to get in, cutting off the attack. Argila was taken to a local emergency room for treatment.

Court records show that Donnell Smith — the same man who would later try to save Cowan’s life — helped pull the dogs off Argila during the April attack. After the incident, Smith told the dogs’ owner directly about what her animals had done. According to the affidavit, the owner acknowledged the dogs were “becoming more aggressive.” The April 14 bite on Argila was documented by Animal Services and triggered an emergency room visit. Thirty-five days later, the same dogs were loose again on the same street.

“A woman is dead, and two dogs are about to be euthanized because of your uselessness.”

Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey — addressing Linda Cutler at her arrest, May 27, 2026

Linda Cutler, 29, is the alleged owner of Max and Mako. She is charged with one count of manslaughter and is presumed innocent until convicted. Investigators arrested her on May 27, 2026 — eight days after Cowan’s death — at a Hilton hotel in Melbourne Beach, where she had checked in after the attack. When deputies arrived, she allegedly feigned a heart attack; she was transported to a hospital for evaluation per department policy, then booked into the Brevard County Jail. A judge revoked bond citing a prior arrest; she has remained held without bond since.

The affidavit details what investigators say Cutler knew. She told deputies that Max and Mako “routinely escaped” the yard, that one dog had bitten someone on a prior occasion, and that she had noticed both becoming “more aggressive” in recent months. The animal services complaint log stretched back to September 2025 — more than 11 complaints covering dogs running loose, chasing people, and killing a neighbor’s cat. Cutler had received at least two citations for animals at large, along with fines that were reportedly not paid. Per the complaint records, the parents of Max and Mako also had documented aggression histories: the mother had attacked Cutler herself, and the father had bitten someone, resulting in an Animal Services citation.

When investigators first interviewed Cutler after the attack, her reported first question was about retrieving her dogs. Her arraignment is scheduled for June 23, 2026.

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In the weeks after the attack, reporting from WLT Report and local news stations documented a complaint record that raises hard questions about the system built to catch exactly this kind of escalation. Neighbors had called the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office and animal services more than 14 times since October 2024 about the dogs at Cutler’s address. One person reported the dogs had killed their cat. Others reported the animals running loose, chasing pedestrians, and acting aggressively.

Sheriff Ivey was asked why the dogs were not seized before the fatal attack. He acknowledged that animal services officials had the authority, but said prior incidents did not meet the legal threshold for seizure at the time. The April 14 attack on Argila, however — which sent a man to the emergency room with bites to both arms — was documented and on record. The affidavit also describes a domestic incident at Cutler’s home in which Max had shown aggression toward her own boyfriend, and a prior incident in which the mother dog had attacked Cutler, with her boyfriend strangling that dog to death to stop the assault. None of those documented incidents triggered a dangerous-dog designation or seizure under Florida Statute § 767.11.

Florida’s dangerous-dog statute, § 767.11, classifies a dog as dangerous based on prior incidents: unprovoked aggression, bites that break skin, or killing another domestic animal while off the owner’s property. A classified dangerous dog that causes severe injury can expose its owner to a second-degree felony carrying up to 15 years in prison. But the classification requires a formal administrative process — and as this case illustrates, animals can accumulate a long complaint record, inflict a documented injury requiring emergency care, and still not receive the designation before another, fatal attack occurs.

The manslaughter charge against Cutler does not depend on a prior dangerous-dog designation. Prosecutors are pursuing it on the theory that Cutler had documented, specific knowledge that her dogs were dangerous — that they escaped routinely, that they had bitten someone who required hospital treatment, and that they were becoming more aggressive — and failed to prevent the death that followed. If convicted, she faces up to 15 years in Florida state prison. The case’s outcome will turn on what Florida law requires an owner to do once that knowledge exists.

In the months after the attack, Florida legislators introduced bills requiring owners of dogs that qualify as dangerous to register the animals, confine them securely, and carry at least $100,000 in liability insurance. The legislation, widely called the Pam Rock Act after a prior Florida victim, remains in the legislative process as of this publication date.

Jodi Cowan died on a dark neighborhood street two weeks after she moved in. Her partner of 30 years had already tried to stop these same animals from killing someone once. He spent eight minutes on a 911 call listening to her die. The man who pulled dogs off a neighbor in April could not pull them off his partner in May.

On June 11, 2026, a Brevard County deputy responding to a bad smell at the travel trailer where Cowan had lived found three dogs dead at the residence. A criminal investigation was opened into the cause of those deaths; results of a necropsy were pending as of this report. That investigation is separate from the manslaughter case against Cutler, whose arraignment is scheduled for June 23.

Donnell Smith told reporters that he was not vindictive toward Cutler. “I’ll have to think about that one,” he said. “I’m not vindictive towards her.” We will update this page as the manslaughter case proceeds through the Brevard County court system.

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