text: A Southern California man has been charged with murder in the death of a 63-year-old woman who was mauled to death by a pack of pit bulls earlier this month. 
   
   Alex Donald Jackson, 29, was arrested Thursday morning and charged with one count of murder in the fatal mauling of 63-year-old Pamela Devitt, who was out for a jog in the Mojave desert on May 9 when she was attacked. Passing motorists witnessed the mauling and called 911. 
   
   "When the deputy showed up, Dewitt was still alive. Paramedics thought she would live," Lt. John Corina of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Division told ABCNews.com. But she died on the way to the hospital, Corina said. 
   
   An autopsy revealed that Devitt had died of blood loss attributed to sharp-force trauma. She sustained approximately 150 to 200 puncture wounds, Corina said. 
   
   When an officer arrived at the scene, one of the dogs was still mauling Devitt, according to Corina. The deputy approached, and the dog ran off but soon turned around and came at the officer. He fired a shot, and the dog ran off again, only to turn around a moment later and come at the officer a second time. The officer fired a second shot, and the dog again took off, Corina said. 
   
   Acting on information, sheriff' and animal-control officials obtained a warrant and searched Jackson's home, located about a block from the site of the attack. Eight dogs, six pit bulls and two mixed-breeds, were taken from the home. 
   
   Jackson will be arraigned Friday at Los Angeles Superior Court, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. He's being held on $1 million bail. 
   
   Deputy District Attorney Samantha MacDonald said that since January authorities had received at least three other reports of Jackson's pit bulls attacking people. 
   
   Corina said that the fence around the property was only 3- to 4-feet feet high, and the dogs could easily hop over it. He said that police found other people who had similar stories, and area residents told ABC's Los Angeles station KABC-TV they feared the dogs. 
   
   "It's really scary," Diane Huffman told KABC-TV. "I don't know what to think. I really think I'm going to be getting a gun to protect myself. 
   
   "They'd be walking past the house, and the dogs would attack them or their livestock, he said. "In one instance, they were attacking a guy on a horse. [Jackson} encouraged it. When he tried to stop the dogs, [Jackson] threw rocks at him, and said to leave his dogs alone." 
   
   Jackson, who allegedly ran a marijuana operation at his home, according to the Los Angeles County DA, was also charged with cultivating marijuana, possession of marijuana for sale, possession for sale of a controlled substance, and assault with a deadly weapon. 
   
   Corina said that the dogs, which appear to be of varying ages, were all fully grown. He said that they were currently with the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Control, and would likely be euthanized. ||||| Pamela Devitt was taking a morning walk through her neighborhood earlier this month when a pack of pit bulls mauled her. 
   
   The retired office manager suffered 150 to 200 puncture wounds in the fatal attack. When the first sheriff's deputy arrived on the scene in the Antelope Valley town of Littlerock, he saw Devitt on the ground with one of the dogs still mauling her. 
   
   On Thursday, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office charged the dogs' owner with murder. Prosecutors could not recall ever filing a similar murder case, but said the incident warranted such serious charges because the owner's dogs had attacked others before mauling Devitt. 
   
   DISCUSSION: Should dog owner face murder charge? 
   
   District attorney spokeswoman Jane Robison said authorities had received at least three reports of attacks by dogs belonging to Alex Donald Jackson, 29, since January. 
   
   "We believe there was evidence that he was aware the dogs were vicious and they have attacked before and he knew of the danger they posed," Robison said. 
   
   Jackson, who authorities say was growing marijuana in his home, was arrested Thursday and is being held on $1,050,000 bail. He is expected to be arraigned Friday. 
   
   Devitt, 63, died en route to a hospital, and the attack sparked outrage in the neighborhood and beyond. Sheriff's officials said detectives found Devitt's blood on the muzzle and coats of four of Jackson's eight dogs. 
   
   "There's no way I can get the brutality of this out of my head," Devitt's husband, Ben Devitt, told The Times. "The fact that there's animals out there roaming around with that kind of killer instinct, it's just kind of something I can't shake." 
   
   Animal control officials took custody of Jackson's dogs. 
   
   Murder cases involving dog attacks remain extremely rare, despite an increasing willingness by prosecutors throughout the country to file other types of charges, such as manslaughter and child endangerment, said Donald Cleary, a spokesman for the National Canine Research Council. The organization, which tracks dog attack cases, documented 34 dog-related fatalities last year. Six resulted in prosecutions; none involved murder charges. 
   
   Cleary said fatal dog attacks tend to occur in outlying locations much like Littlerock, a desert community of about 1,400 where chain-link fences surround scattered homes and signs caution trespassers and warn that dogs are present. 
   
   "It happens on the fringes of society — where people live to avoid others," he said. 
   
   Littlerock residents complained Thursday about stray dogs roaming the neighborhood. Kimberly Eslick, 29, said her cat was killed by a stray dog in the area. 
   
   "It doesn't surprise me at all," she said of Devitt's death, adding that she does not allow her kindergarten-age daughter out front alone anymore. 
   
   Another resident, Jane Hammer, 60, said she carries a pistol with a hot-pink handle whenever she leaves the house as protection against bands of wild dogs she has seen in the area. 
   
   The state's highest-profile dog-mauling murder case was tried in Los Angeles about a decade ago when a San Francisco judge moved a Bay Area case south in reaction to local outrage at the victim's death. In that case, a pair of Presa Canarios fatally mauled a woman in the hallway of her Pacific Heights apartment complex, leaving her with 77 bite marks. 
   
   A Los Angeles jury convicted the dog's owner, Marjorie Knoller, of second-degree murder and her husband of involuntary manslaughter. A judge reduced Knoller's conviction to involuntary manslaughter, but the jury's verdict was reinstated following an appeal. 
   
   To prove murder in a dog-mauling case, prosecutors must show that a dog owner knew the animal could endanger someone's life and acted in a way that showed a conscious disregard for that danger. The key is to show jurors that the animal's owner was previously warned that the animal was capable of killing, said Jim Hammer, who successfully prosecuted Knoller. 
   
   "What this case will turn on is the prior incidents," said Hammer, who is now in private practice and is not related to Jane Hammer. "These are preventable deaths. I applaud any prosecutor who pursues such a case."
target: – The owner of a pack of pit bulls that mauled a 63-year-old woman to death this month has been charged with murder, in a case that has rocked the town of Littlerock, California. Alex Jackson, 29, was yesterday charged in the death of Pamela Devitt, who died after suffering as many as 200 puncture wounds while walking near her home on the morning of May 9. Though the Los Angeles Times reports such a charge is extremely rare in connection with a dog attack, "we believe there was evidence that [Jackson] was aware the dogs were vicious and they have attacked before and he knew of the danger they posed," says a rep for the DA. Police found eight dogs in Jackson's home—six pit bulls and two mixed-breeds; four had Devitt's blood on them. "There's no way I can get the brutality of this out of my head," Devitt's husband tells the Times. Jackson faces an array of charges in addition to murder, including an assault charge tied to a separate dog-related incident: He's alleged to have on Jan. 13 heaved a rock at a rider whose horse was attacked by his dogs. One witness to that event tells ABC News that Jackson "encouraged" the dogs, saying that when the man on the horse "tried to stop the dogs, [Jackson] threw rocks at him, and said to leave his dogs alone." Jackson's bail is set at $1.05 million.