Brevard County sheriff discusses deadly dog attack in Central Florida

Ajouté : 2026-05-28

[00:00:02]Hello everyone, I'm Sheriff Wayne Ivey and this evening I want to give our community an update on an arrest related to the untimely and tragic death of Jody Cowen.

[00:00:10]Now I'll start by saying that earlier today with the assistance of our partners at the Melbourne Police Department, Linda Cutler was taken into custody for one count of manslaughter.

[00:00:18]At the time of her arrest, Cutler was staying at the Hilton Hotel on the beach, which in my opinion is absolutely disgusting given that her inactions led to the horrific death of an innocent woman who was simply trying to walk her own dog in her neighborhood. As some of you may already be aware, this incident occurred during the early morning hours of May 19th when the victim was walking her dog in the neighborhood and was attacked by two dogs belonging to Cutler that had once again gotten out of their yard and were roaming the neighborhood.

[00:00:46]The dogs identified as Max and Mako climbed over the owner's fence and began to brutally attack and maul Cowen, forcing her to the ground, viciously attacking her and eventually dragging her across the ground for quite some distance.

[00:01:01]A home security camera captured a large part of the attack on video that I want to warn you is extremely troubling and graphic.

[00:01:11]As you can see in the video, Cowen attempted to protect her own dog while running from the animals in an effort to keep from being attacked but was eventually overwhelmed and pulled to the ground.

[00:01:21]As the attack continued, the victim's spouse heard her screaming for help from the yard and raced outside in an effort to stop the attack, which he was eventually able to do by swinging a knife at the dogs and trying to drive them away. Cowen was transported to a nearby trauma center due to the extent of her injuries and was subsequently pronounced dead by hospital staff approximately 4 hours after the attack initially occurred.

[00:01:44]As a result of the incident, agents with our homicide unit initiated a death investigation which ultimately revealed that Linda Cutler had specific and documented knowledge that her dogs repeatedly got out of her yard and additional knowledge that her dogs were attacking humans, and had actually bitten someone.

[00:02:02]The investigation further revealed that Cutler took minimal action to prevent the dogs from getting out of her yard, even after being cited by animal services previously for her dogs being at large, and being made aware that her dogs actually bit a neighbor who had to seek medical treatment. Now, before I go any further in providing details of the death investigation, I want to address some concerns that have been voiced by a few of our citizens as to why animal enforcement didn't do something to prevent this attack as neighbors had called numerous times regarding the dogs being out of the fence. While you might think that animal services has the authority to seize dogs that routinely escape from yards or that have even bitten someone, the unfortunate reality is that they don't. In fact, even if a dog has previously bitten someone and it's not a severe bite, the most action our animal enforcement officers are allowed by law to take is the issuance of a citation and a fine.

[00:02:54]If a second bite were to occur, the dog or dogs still can't be seized by animal enforcement officers as it is not the number of bites, but the severity of the bite that elevates the potential for the dog to be declared a dangerous dog and the owner go before a magistrate.

[00:03:09]However, please keep in mind that even with the severe bite that initiates an appearance, the dog owner still has the right to keep the dog or dogs by following the court's ruling that they must have effective fencing, muzzle the dog anytime someone is visiting the residence, signage on all egress points saying a dangerous dog resides there, and have a $100,000 insurance policy in the event the dog bites another person.

[00:03:33]In this specific case, it's important to note that while there were calls for service dating back as far as 2024 at Cutler's residence, those calls were not even involving the two dogs involved in this attack. Even with that, as a result of the calls concerning Cutler's animals, our animal enforcement officers did issue Cutler numerous citations for her dogs getting out, which is the full extent of what the law allows us to do for the reported violations.

[00:03:58]It's also important to note that during the early calls from 2024 through November of 2025, the calls at Cutler's residence were related to other dogs as the two dogs involved in this attack were puppies back then.

[00:04:11]Further, while there were calls for the dogs involved in this incident being at large, some of the callers stated at the time of their calls that the dogs were not aggressive and that they just keep getting out of the fence and need to be returned to their home. While there was an additional report where the dogs bit one of the neighbors, the victim in that incident did not cooperate with law enforcement after repeated calls to do so from our animal enforcement officers.

[00:04:34]Since the victim in that case refused to cooperate or even return our calls, the investigation could not be continued, which prohibited our animal enforcement officers from taking any further action.

[00:04:45]So, essentially, our animal enforcement officers and even our deputy sheriffs at times responded to the various complaints and enforced the violations to the extent we are allowed by law.

[00:04:55]Now, today, our agents, as part of the death investigation, have conducted numerous interviews and collected significant amounts of evidence in different mediums. As part of the investigation, agents took a sworn statement from Linda Cutler, during which she stated that she was aware that her dogs would routinely get out of the fence and have to be repeatedly returned to her yard. She further admitted that she knew that one of her dogs had bitten an individual and also that both dogs were becoming more and more aggressive, even towards her. She also stated that she had put up another fence, but knew that it had holes and spaces in it that the dogs could go back and forth through.

[00:05:32]Even worse, even knowing that the dogs had killed someone because of her failure to control them, she actually asked when she could get her dogs back.

[00:05:40]Now, imagine that, being so oblivious to reality that you totally glaze over the loss of someone's life and ask, "Can you get the dogs back?" that you didn't take care of in the first place.

[00:05:50]Well, as a result of our investigation, our agents met with our Brevard County State Attorney's Office and presented the case to them with the various items of evidence and statements for their review.

[00:05:59]As a result, our agents subsequently obtained an arrest warrant for manslaughter that was signed by the Honorable Judge Kurt Jacobus directing that Cutler be held on a no bond status.

[00:06:09]As stated previously, Cutler was picked up earlier today on the warrant by members of the Melbourne Police Department who'd responded to the Hilton on the Beach for a disturbance involving Cutler and others. Are you kidding me?

[00:06:21]Folks, an innocent woman is dead and two dogs are about to be euthanized because of this woman's inactions and failure to be a responsible pet owner and she and her little honey are hanging at the beach at a beautiful hotel.

[00:06:33]Because of her, a family is trying to deal with the aftermath of a horrific attack on their loved one and she's soaking up rays and living it up. Oh, and to make matters worse, when she was taken into custody, she feigned having a heart attack and had to be by policy transported to a nearby hospital for evaluation.

[00:06:51]At the hospital, I'm guessing they determined she didn't have a heart at all because they released her to our custody and as you can see, I personally met our team at the jail earlier and walked her sorry butt into the jail myself. Hope you enjoyed your time at the beach.

[00:07:05]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:07:05]>> Cuz you're not going to be going back.

[00:07:07]>> Okay.

[00:07:10]What is that What is the purpose of that?

[00:07:13]>> A woman's dead and two dogs are about to be euthanized because of your uselessness.

[00:07:18]So, have a nice visit. In closing, our thoughts and prayers are with Jodie's family and friends as they face this most difficult time.

[00:07:26]In addition, I want to commend our agents, deputies, animal cruelty investigators, and crime scene unit for their work on this very difficult case.

[00:07:35]Folks, working a case of this type is an extremely difficult task and I truly can't commend our team members enough on the job they do each and every day.