Updated at the bottom: The victim has been identified. A marijuana grow was found in the search for the dogs. First posted at 1:45 p.m.

A woman attacked by four pit bulls in the High Desert community of Littlerock died today, authorities said.

The L.A. County Department of Animal Care and Control said the woman died en route to a hospital after the mauling. She had been jogging …

… on Avenue S, between 110th Street East and 113th Street East when the four dogs went after her this morning, the department stated.


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Animal control officers were called to the scene at 9:30 a.m. and were working with sheriff's deputies to round up the canines, according to a statement from the Department of Animal Care and Control.

Homicide detectives from the L.A. County Sheriff's Department also started a death investigation in response to the fatal attack, officials at that department said this afternoon.

The woman's identity has not been released.

[Update at 9:09 p.m.]: Sheriffs officials tonight said one of the first-responding deputies shot at one of the fleeing dogs but that the canines at that point got away.

The deputies first on the scene, officials said, actually witnessed at least part of the attack.

Authorities later received a tip from Animal Care and Control that led them to a home in the 37,300 block of 115th Street in Littlerock, the sheriff's department says.

Armed with a search warrant, deputies found not only four pit bulls and two four mixed-breed dogs there but also a marijuana grow, according to a sheriff's statement. A 29-year-old at the house was arrested on suspicion of cultivating marijuana, cops said.

The jogger who died was 63.

[Update at 1:33 p.m.]: The woman was identified by sheriff's officials today as Pamela Marie Devitt.

Authorities said they're still trying to determine if the seized dogs were indeed involved in the attack.

[Added at 2:59 p.m.]: The sheriff's department today said the drug suspect is 29-year-old Alex Donald Jackson, who was being held in lieu of $20,000 bail.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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