A Wyandotte County jury on Thursday failed to reach a verdict in the case of a man charged with involuntary manslaughter after a pit bull attack killed a woman.

Derick D. Lee, 33, of Kansas City, Kan., was accused of violating a city ordinance by keeping or harboring a dog that was banned.

The jury deliberated more than three hours before deciding it was deadlocked.

The pit bull attacked Jimmie Mae McConnell, 71, last July as she worked in her backyard in northeast Kansas City, Kan. An autopsy found that she died of a cardiac arrhythmia brought on by the attack.

Lee has said that he lived next door to McConnell and returned to the house to feed a dog that was kept there, but he has maintained that the dog was not his.

His attorney, Bill Dunn, argued that McConnell was in poor health and the effort of gardening with a tiller may have caused her death.