Photo: GoFundMe
On April 28, Michele Sheeks was walking along County Highway 11 in Red Bay, Alabama, when she was attacked, according to acivil complaintthat was filed in June.
“She was in pretty serious condition,” Franklin County Sheriff Shannon Olivertold AL.com at the time.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up forPEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletterfor breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.
That evening, deputies were called to the area for a suspicious vehicle, according to the sheriff’s office. As officials approached, the dogs attacked again. During the frenzy, some of the dogs were “euthanized immediately,” the sheriff’s office said.
When deputies began investigating the suspicious vehicle, they found Beard’s body, and the coroner pronounced her deceased.
Brandy Dowdy, 39, who allegedly owns the dogs, was arrested and charged with manslaughter in connection with Beard’s death, according to the sheriff’s office.
Criminal charges related to Sheeks' death have not been filed. However, according toNBC News, the Franklin County Assistant District Attorney’s Office said that it would be seeking a second manslaughter charge and upgraded counts of dangerous dog law against Dowdy.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Dowdy has obtained an attorney or entered a plea to the first charges.
Brandy Dowdy.Franklin County Sheriff’s Office
In Sheeks' civil lawsuit, she alleges Dowdy and the property’s owner Billy Joe Crumpton “knew or should have known of the dogs' dangerous propensities,” and “had the ability to restrain, confine, or take other reasonable actions with regard to the harboring of said dogs that would have prevented the subject attack.”
Wesley Sheeks is now planning his wife’s funeral after spending months at her hospital bedside in Jackson, Miss.
“Unfortunately, she never got the chance to leave that hospital,“he told News 19.
source: people.com
