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The man who tried to fight off two dogs as they mauled his partner to death on a Cocoa street in May has now been arrested himself, accused of letting three of that same couple’s dogs die inside a sweltering camper trailer.
Donnell Elliott Smith, 47, was arrested Sunday, June 15, by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office and charged with felony animal cruelty along with three related misdemeanor counts. He was booked into the Brevard County Jail at 2:28 p.m. and held on a $15,000 bond. An initial appearance was set for Monday, June 16.
Smith’s name is already woven into one of the most heartbreaking stories Brevard County has seen this year. He is the longtime partner of Jodi Cowan, the 50-year-old woman who was mauled to death on Blue Bonnet Drive on May 19 by two dogs that escaped a neighbor’s yard. Smith was the one who ran into the darkness with a knife, swinging at the animals with one hand while trying to stop his partner’s bleeding with the other. Cowan died at a trauma center about four hours later.
Her neighbor, 29-year-old Linda Cutler, was arrested May 27 on a manslaughter charge in connection with that attack. The two dogs involved, named Max and Mako, are set to be euthanized.
According to Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey, the new case began on June 11, when the agency received a crime line tip reporting a strong odor coming from a camper trailer at 6947 Blue Bonnet Drive, the residence Cowan shared with Smith.
Animal cruelty investigators responded and, from outside the property, could smell what appeared to be decomposition and see flies coming from the trailer. Ivey said investigators made contact with Smith and asked him to come over. Smith initially told them that one of his dogs had died and that he had buried it, and that this was the source of the smell.
That is not what happened, the sheriff said.
After deputies executed a search warrant and conducted a further interview, Ivey said a different account emerged. Investigators say Smith left three dogs inside the camper trailer with no food, no water, and no ventilation or air conditioning. All three dogs were found dead inside.
A crime scene team processed the trailer, and the remains of the three dogs were removed and sent for a necropsy to determine the cause of death.
Ivey said Smith told investigators he had been responsible for not only those three dogs but a fourth as well. Smith said he had placed a generator inside the trailer to try to keep air moving, but that he stopped going out to check on the animals. According to the sheriff, Smith said the last time he visited was around June 2 or June 3. He brought the dogs food that day, and they appeared fine in the morning. When he returned in the afternoon, he said, all three were dead.
The fourth dog, the one Ivey said Smith was also responsible for, has a particular significance in this story. It is the small dog that Jodi Cowan was clutching and trying to protect on the night she was attacked and killed. That dog survived the mauling, and it survived the conditions in the trailer. It is the one animal in this entire chain of tragedy still living.
Records from the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office show Smith faces four counts under case number 2026CF035014:
Animal Cruelty, torture or inflicting pain causing serious physical injury or death, a felony, with a $7,500 bond. Abandonment of an animal, a misdemeanor, with a $2,500 bond. Impounding or confining an animal without sufficient food and water, a misdemeanor, with a $2,500 bond. And keeping animals in an enclosure without sufficient exercise and change of air, a misdemeanor, with a $2,500 bond.
The four bonds total $15,000. Ivey said Judge Skinner issued the arrest warrant, and that additional charges are expected as the investigation continues, given that three animals died.
Speaking about the arrest, Ivey described a case that has grown only sadder with each turn. A woman lost her life. The two dogs responsible for her death must now be euthanized. And three more dogs have died, the sheriff said, because of a failure to provide the most basic care.
It is a difficult case for the public to absorb, in part because Smith was, until now, the figure of grief and courage at the center of it. He was the partner who fought. He was the voice on the news describing the woman he had loved for a quarter century being torn apart in front of him.
Now he sits in the Brevard County Jail, accused of failing the animals she left behind.
The Space Coast Rocket will continue to follow this case through Smith’s initial appearance and beyond.
